Published on
Updated
Reading 2 min.
in collaboration with
Amélie Boukhobza (Clinical psychologist)
What makes you laugh and what type of entertainer you are can say more than you think about your mental health, an Italian study reveals.
Tell me how you laugh, I’ll tell you how you feel. This is the answer provided by an Italian study published recently in the journal Europe’s Journal of Psychology which took as its subject the type of humor and what it means. And therefore the link between humor and mental health.
Sarcasm and depression are linked
The researchers thus recruited 686 Italian participants aged 20 to 76 years old. Their type of humor was assessed via the Comic Style Markers (CSM), a questionnaire of 48 statements. Based on this skimming, eight styles of humor were distinguished:
- Fun, characterized by lightness;
- Benevolent humor, which consists of gently making fun of the oddities of life;
- Nonsense, based on absurdity and illogic;
- The witticism, marked by intelligence;
- Irony ;
- The satire ;
- Sarcasm ;
- Cynicism.
At the same time, participants responded to the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21) questionnaire established to measure their levels of depression, anxiety and stress. With what correlations? According to their observations:
- Kind humor serves as a protective factor for depression, anxiety and stress;
- Irony demonstrates a positive association with anxiety and stress;
- The mind appears to be a protective factor linked to anxiety;
- Sarcasm was positively related to depression.
Other studies should make it possible to study this link between humor and mental health in depth.
Laughter serves as a facade in everyday life
So there wouldn’t just be happy laughter. A reality deciphered by our psychologist Amélie Boukhobza.
“As weird as it may seem, humor is not just for laughing! It can also serve as an effective coping mechanism, allowing some people to cope with stressful, distressing or just difficult life situations, which we see in this study.
We therefore hear laughter of unease, anti-stress laughter, laughter to take up a place or give ourselves a certain consistency (the clown), mocking laughter, bursts of laughter whose multiple health benefits we no longer count! Not to mention that from one culture to another, laughter is not the same either.
“This shows that the relationship between humor and mental health is not unique, but can be multiple, both beneficial and complex. On the one hand, a well-developed sense of humor is often associated with better mental health, a positive and resilient attitude and therefore increased general well-being. But the use of humor can sometimes mask deeper psychological problems, such as depression, stress or anxiety, where the laughter serves as a facade for inner suffering.”
Laughter can also treat stress
At the same time, laughter remains the perfect stress reliever, which hides, but which also heals.
“Good for morale, the heart and the arteries, antidepressant but also stimulating immune defenses. Laughter has both preventive and therapeutic effects” completes our expert.
Thus, laughter, through the contraction it generates in jerky breathing, generates both muscular relaxation and the production of neurotransmitters in the brain, which leads to
- An increase in serotonin which acts on mood;
- More acetylcholine which improves memory;
- An increase in dopamine which gives more momentum;
- And above all a release of endorphins, natural morphines which act against pain.
“Laughter is a vital reflex and a resistance mechanism of the body. By laughing, we do ourselves good at the same time as we act as a barrier to the hostility of the world… So let’s find reasons to laugh more!”