How do you make a cat go woof?
Pour petrol on it and light it.
So laughter is a big part of my life.
I mean, I love a good knee slapper, a good belly cruncher,
hey, even when a little bit of pee comes out sometimes you can't really blame anyone.
Two monkeys in a bar.
one says to the other, "hoo hoo hoo ha ha ha"
the other says, "well, put the cold tap on then."
So what I want to know is, is laughter the ideal drug?
During these strange times, I mean, we all need a good laugh
to keep our mood up and to keep us positive.
So wouldn't it be brilliant if we can actually bottle
the effects that laughter gives us?
Well, funnily enough, there's some research actually that's investigating whether or not we
can have laughter in pill form and it actually comes from a pretty weird source.
You're hearing a squeaking through the ultrasound detector.
One morning I woke up and said, what if that is laughter?
And I said, well, then you should be able to tickle animals.
And we tickled the first rat and they chirped like crazy,
and the second rat, as a matter of fact, every rat except some really neurotic ones.
So it might seem like these rats, are actually crying for help, but in actual reality,
these rats are having the time of their lives.
They are following my hand because
it's a hand that has brought them great joy.
I love rats.
They are such fun animals, so smart and so emotional.
Panksepp believed that rats have similar emotions to humans.
I am trying to understand the animal mind as a way to illuminate the human mind.
Animals have been bred for high laughter are resistant to depression.
That means they have chemistries that protect them against the vicissitudes of life.
Animals that have been bred for low laughter are susceptible to depression.
He used the rats laughter to identify the area of the brain involved in happiness.
Scientists in Chicago used this to find a happiness
neurotransmitter GLX-13 and then made this into a drug to stimulate that.
A drug company then bought this for five hundred and sixty million dollars.
Surprising as it is, five hundred sixty million dollars is not bad for buying
the rights to the most powerful item on the horizon.
So honestly, when I first saw this study, I was thinking, yeah, laughter pill
but to be honest, this study actually got to the final stage of
medical trials and that in itself is a massive, massive achievement
so maybe there's something in it.
Maybe the doors are open now to actually find out, can laughter be used as a chemical pill?
So we all know the incredibly good vibes that laughter brings,
so why does it actually feel so good?
When you laugh, you release these chemicals called endorphins and
this is like a bit of a natural high
they're actually like natural pain relievers, so actually vision this,
normally you're in pain
you take a pill to get rid of it right?
but imagine you're actually creating these chemicals within yourself
just by laughing.
What we're doing here is we are looking to see whether pain threshold increases after you've laughed.
Now!
When you do the wall sit test the first time, you're really going to be feeling it.
I remember doing this test when I was playing rugby back at school and it was not fun.
You're really feeling the pain in your upper thighs.
So the idea is when you have a good laugh, you release these endorphins.
And so you're supposed to do the test again,
but this time it actually increases your pain threshold and you won't feel as much pain,
so you can actually last longer.
I mean, well, that's the theory anyway.
Yes, you'd normally expect something between, on average about five seconds
and anything up to twenty seconds increase in time.
That's pretty much what we have here.
So there you go, guys
laughter actually produces these painkilling chemicals called endorphins
and these give you an elation, a high, almost like when you bench your one rep max,
or when you've eaten a food you liked or when you're chilling with somebody you really enjoy.
These natural painkilling endorphins are kind of like opiate drugs, which, as you
may know, is like morphine or diamorphine, which take away pain and
give some people a little bit of a loopy high feeling
except with this, it's naturally produced in your body from laughter
and you don't get any of the side effects you would with those drugs that we prescribe you.
So we know that laughter has a big impact for us mentally and physically.
But what does it do for us socially?
Well, this is something that the scientists at the University of North Carolina
have actually put to the test.
I was really interested in laughter because it seems like the kind of
behaviour that happens really frequently and is so relevant to the way that
people think about their best relationships.
And yet there was very little research on it.
They asked couples to have a chat together and they took a detailed look
into how and when they laughed.
For this first interaction
we're interested in hearing about the first time you met.
What was the first thing you said to me?
I'm going to marry you one day and you said no.
So everyone can think of a time when they laughed with somebody, but we can
also think of a time when we laughed at something, but the person next to us did not laugh.
You were expecting me to be boring?
Yeah, you're a librarian.
You read my emails!
Yeah, but, yeah, I mean but it was still a librarian (laughs).
They then measured the amount the couples laughed at exactly the same time and
they found out it was actually surprisingly powerful.
So what we found was that moments of shared laughter actually are predictive
of greater closeness and feeling more supported by one's partner.
So those couples who laughed more tended to report more support and also generally
feeling closer to their partner.
Just know that if you tell your partner a joke that you think is funny and you get crickets...
chances are, guys, it's not going to go very far.
During the pandemic we've realised just how important social interactions are for our mental health.
And now we realise just how important laughter is for our social interactions.
So laughter goes way beyond us just having a physical release,
laughter is actually very important for our mental health,
for our social interactions and for our mood.
So remember, when you can actually get out there and mingle with your friends again
you need to go out there and remind yourself just how important laughter is.
Hey, and that's the doctor's orders.