Laughter. It's negative affects.

Laughter.
Many people don't consider this; Laughter can be both positive and negative. Many children have a distorted view of laughter and it's affects on them or do they?

"Laughter can either block healing or be healing" (Cousins)


Laughter can be negative in the following ways:
-Derisive laughter, mean and attacking
-Cruel teasing, to belittle using power and control
-Laughter used in Abuse giving reverse message, something is good though it feels bad
-Laughing at rather than with; Sarcasm and Ridicule
-Laughing to avoid; pain, denial, discount

The question that's needs to be asked...
-Will the other person find it funny?
-Does the other person laugh joyfully?
-Is it done to make you look more powerful?
-Is what you are doing abusive to another?
-Are you laughing at someone or with someone?

"A gallows smile -unconscious smile at our own pain" (Berne E.)
So by discounting the smile at pain becomes self destructive. It means that what really happens is being diverted.  An unconscious physical sign that you are internally hurting.

Harmless teasing (banter) between two people or more with a pre existing connection is very different from the cruel teasing between two people without a pre existing connection which is full of damage to the core self.

Sarcasm is used often in our society, the person who gets the sarcasm will discount the external impact: they toughen up a child. That's the thought but does it? Putting down others for power of themselves and themselves discounting what is really going on for them -loss of power.

HAPPINESS is one of a humans 4 emotions.
Positive events either in thoughts, in memories, in anticipation of success.
Reaction calmness and satisfaction.

We need to teach children (and adults) Laughter can be positive.
-Joyous laughter at a joke that disparages no one
-Laughing in an empathic way builds esteem and offers connection.
-Laughing with, alongside and together.

Giving the message 'I like you' 'I want to laugh with you' 'I want to make positive connections' 'I care about you' 'I want you to feel good about yourself' therefore promoting good emotional health and well being.

Children are said to laugh a great deal more than adults: an average baby laughing 300-400 times a day compared to an average adult laughing only 15-20 times a day!

Where laughter comes from?
Neurophysiology indicates that laughter is linked with the activation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, that produces endorphins. Scientists have shown that parts of the limbic system are involved in laughter. This system is involved in emotions and helps us with functions necessary for humans' survival. The structures in the limbic system that are involved in laughter: the hippocampus and the amygdala.

(1984) Journal of the American Medical Association states
"Although there is no known 'laugh center' in the brain, its neural mechanism is inconclusive and of much speculation. It is evident that its expression depends on neural paths arising in close association with the telencephalic and diencephalic centers concerned with respiration. (Wilson) It was considered the mechanism to be in the region of the mesial thalamus, hypothalamus, and subthalamus. Kelly et al postulated that the tegmentum near the periaqueductal grey contains the integrating mechanism for emotional expression. Thus, supranuclear pathways, including those from the limbic system that Papez hypothesised to mediate emotional expressions such as laughter, probably come into synaptic relation in the reticular core of the brain stem. So while purely emotional responses such as laughter are mediated by subcortical structures, especially the hypothalamus, and are stereotyped, the cerebral cortex can modulate or suppress them."

Laughter has proven beneficial effects on various other aspects of biochemistry. It has been shown to lead to reductions in stress hormones such as cortisol and epinephrine. When laughing the brain also releases endorphins that can relieve some physical pain.


Reference:

Clarke J. (1989) Growing up.

"Why Laughter May Be the Best Pain Killer". Scientific American. Retrieved 11 October 2011.

Cousins, Norman, The Healing Heart : Antidotes to Panic and Helplessness, New York : Norton, 1983. ISBN 0-393-01816-4.

Cousins, Norman, Anatomy of an illness as perceived by the patient : reflections on healing and regeneration, introd. by René Dubos, New York : Norton, 1979. ISBN 0-393-01252-2.

Panksepp, J., Burgdorf, J.,"Laughing" rats and the evolutionary antecedents of human joy? Physiology & Behavior (2003) 79:533-547. psych.umn.edu