Humor and the Brain

Humor is a whole brain experience. It offers refreshment to both students’ and teachers’ mentally stressed minds and bodies.

The “real” Dr. Patch Adams tells us, “We have to get people laughing because:

• It provides balance in people’s lives
• It helps people cope better
• It helps them stay well

Laughter is powerful!”

Pam VanKampen of Northern Area Agency on Aging presented “Keep Laughing” at a recent workshop for the UW-Eau Claire. Her description of neuroscience on humor bears repeating.

Cartoons, jokes and funny stories work more of your brain than simply reading.

Humor can tune our minds, help us learn, and keep us mentally loose, limber and creative.

“Each humor event you experience makes you grow a little bit…the brain has expanded and taken on new connections.” William Fry, M.D.

Humor is a “work out for the brain” every time you hear a joke:

• The language center on the left side of your brain makes sense of the words.
• The message then crosses to the right side of the brain where the right frontal cortex delves into regions including those that store emotions and social memories.
• It then shuffles the information until it clicks and you get the joke.
• Next, a structure deep in the brain pumps out dopamine, a “reward system chemical” that makes you feel good.
• A primitive region near the base of your skull makes you laugh.

“Humor is something that causes a tickling of the brain. Laughter is invented to scratch it!” Hugh Foot

Special thanks, Pam, for your permission to share this with our blog readers! 

Sandi

© Sandra Sunquist Stanton MS, NCC, LPC, Connections of the Heart LLC

For additional articles and information, visit www.ourbrainbuddies.com or send an email sandi@ourbrainbuddies.com