HERE’S WHY YOU NEED HUMOR TO HAVE A HEALTHY BRAIN

When’s the last time you didn’t just type, LOL but actually…laughed out loud? Science suggests our brains are hard-wired to seek out humor—in fact, laughter is such a primal instinct that babies typically laugh before they speak. (Just one of the intriguing laughter facts worth reading up on.)

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The Professor of Puns

Who better to teach about the brainy science of humor (or the funny science of brains) than a neuroscientist who moonlights as a stand-up comedian? By day, Ori Amir, PhD, is a mild-mannered college professor in southern California. By night, for years he performed on YouTube and in clubs around Los Angeles.

Amir is one of the leading researchers who has studied the way the brain creates and understands humor. Unless you happen to be a neuroscientist who moonlights as a stand-up, that specialty might seem trivial compared with other fields of cognition. But the question of why we find certain things funny has fascinated philosophers for centuries.

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Understanding how the brain works

Using scanning technologies, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Amir and his fellow researchers can see how the brain works when it is processing information: Which parts do what and what are the benefits of exercising different areas? It turns out that joking—long dismissed by some as a frivolous diversion from the serious business of reality—may make us smarter and healthier. There is even some evidence that a sense of humor helps the human species survive.

To understand why humor is a kind of superfood for the brain, it helps to know what our brains crave in the first place. The brain is like a muscle, and it needs exercise. What gives the brain a workout? Information.

When researchers asked people to look at a series of pictures while their brains were being scanned in an fMRI machine, it was the more complex images—a work of art, a sprawling vista, a group of animals—that tickled the neurons in their heads most.

It’s the activation of those neurons—nerve cells, which, among other things, send and receive sensory information—that “lights up” the fMRI scans in bright, almost psychedelic colors. In fact, there is an almost druglike effect taking place. Research has demonstrated that the brain is filled with opioid receptors. When the right kind of molecule bumps into a receptor—perhaps one of the body’s naturally occurring opioids, such as an endorphin, or a synthetic drug designed to look like one, such as heroin or morphine—it can kick off a cascade of brain activity that bathes the neurons in feel-good neurotransmitters and other chemicals. In essence, learning and problem-solving create a high.

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Humor feeds the brain

Amir and his mentor, the late University of Southern California professor of neuroscience and psychology Irving Biederman, suspected that humor might feed the brain in much the same way that complex information does. People who study humor generally agree that most jokes are built around an incongruity—an inappropriate, absurd, surprising, or unusual combination of two fundamentally different ideas or elements. When we first see or hear this mash-up, we’re confused. That’s the setup. The punch line is the resolution of that confusion.

So in that sense, appreciating humor is not unlike solving a puzzle, and it yields a similar kind of satisfaction. Instead of an Aha! moment, you get a Haha! moment. In fact, Biederman and Amir theorized that because humor requires the brain to process lots of distinct types of information funny revelations would activate different and more disparate parts of the brain than unfunny ones. This would excite the neurons even more, which would lead to the release of more neurotransmitters and activation of the reward centers of the brain.

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Studying humor and the brain

To test their hypothesis, Amir and Biederman recruited 15 students to view 200 simple line drawings during an fMRI scan. Each drawing came with two captions: an “obvious” description and an “interpretive” one.

Some of the interpretive captions were designed to be funny. On a drawing of two horizontal ovals wedged inside a vertical one, the obvious caption read “two smaller horizontal ellipses in a larger vertical ellipse.” The interpretive/funny description: “Close-up of a pig looking at book titles in a library.” For another drawing, “a plethora of dots surrounded concentrically around a single dot” could be just that, or it could be “germs avoiding a friend who caught antibiotics.” The subjects were asked to rate each caption as “not funny,” “a little funny,” or “funny.”

As expected, the interpretive captions lit up more areas of the brain than their obvious counterparts—in line with the cognitive theory that insight in and of itself is pleasurable. But the scans revealed that humorous insights activated the most regions of all. The funnier the subjects rated a caption, the more neurons were fired.

It is this extra burst of brain activation at the moment we “get” a joke that transforms “aha” into “haha,” Amir and Biederman concluded. What’s more, the opioid receptors they were studying are located in the higher-level processing areas of the temporal lobes, a patch of neural real estate running from roughly behind the ears up to the eyes, where we store the memories and associations we use to make sense of the world. They also have connections to neurons in the basal ganglia, the reward center of the brain.

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“We had come to think of these perceptual systems as relatively mundane structures meant simply to passively get us information,” Biederman reflected. “But it turns out that getting new information is actually pleasurable.”

From there, the researchers took their analysis one step further. In a follow-up study, Amir recruited people to compose captions for a series of cartoons while he scanned their brains. When they came up with a joke, the same regions of the brain that light up when people appreciate humor were activated. And, as in the first study, the funnier the jokes (as rated by independent observers), the more neurons fired in the jokers’ brains.

But the firing of the brain cells occurred on a different timeline, enhancing the process and making it all the more powerful. When we “get” a joke, the neurons are activated in a quick burst. When we construct a joke, activity in the same brain regions increases slowly as we rack our brains for dissimilar elements that we can link. If appreciating humor is good exercise for our brains, then writing a joke is exercise after a caffeinated energy drink.

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Humor eases stress

Humor helps our cognition in less obvious ways, too. Laughter is a natural stress-reliever, and our brains work better when they aren’t slowed down by a fog of worry. In 2014, researchers in California demonstrated that elderly subjects who watched a funny video experienced significant improvements in their ability to learn and retain new information, possibly because the feelings of mirth reduced levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that has been shown to hinder recall.

A good joke can function as a release valve for the whole body. “Humor can help reframe stressors, challenges, or difficulties that seem insurmountable to a person,” says Tom Ford, PhD, a social psychologist at Western Carolina University and a co-author of The Psychology of Humor. “If one is able to make light of a stressor or challenge, then it doesn’t seem so big," Dr. Ford says. "It seems more manageable.”

For instance, in a 2010 study published in the Journal of Aging Research, researchers in Hong Kong demonstrated that when nursing home patients with chronic pain enjoyed jokes, funny books and videos, and goofy singing and dancing on a weekly basis, their perception of pain and loneliness decreased significantly. They also felt happier and more satisfied with life.

Other research, such as one 2009 study, demonstrated that laughter can be associated with increased blood flow, improved immune response, lower blood sugar levels, and better sleep. If this is even a little true, seeking out more reasons to giggle might be completely worth it.

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Humor improves your memory

Humor doesn’t just strengthen the connections in the temporal lobes, it also has a powerful effect on the memory centers of the brain. In 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers asked participants to read various political and news stories—some with a humorous twist, others written in a serious tone. The results, published in Journal of Communication, demonstrated that the content that made people laugh had a much higher chance of being remembered and shared.

This interesting quirk may have broader applications in how we communicate with each other about difficult topics like news and politics. The researchers found that humor also increased brain response in regions associated with understanding other people’s mental states—which could mean that using humor would make it easier to consider other people’s viewpoints and feelings during high-stakes discussion.

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Humor makes you more attractive

But there might be an even stronger reason that a sense of humor is hardwired into the human genome. Not only does humor make us smarter and healthier, but it may also make us more attractive to the opposite sex.

“There’s a gigantic study,” Dr. Biederman noted, “that’s been done in 38 cultures. It turns out that in every culture, both males and females desire their potential mates to be bright. But we don’t have our IQs tattooed on our forehead. How do we know that someone’s intelligent?” Dr. Biederman suggested that in Western cultures, intelligence is often indicated by an individual's sense of humor.

Because creating and appreciating jokes require us to make connections between many discrete pieces of information, having a sense of humor demonstrates that we possess a wide breadth of knowledge and that we know how to think about it in novel and innovative ways. Take what Amir and Biederman said was their favorite cartoon, for example: A mouse is standing outside his house, having just pulled a gun on a cat, who is depicted with one paw raised in mock submission. “Six rounds. Nine lives. You do the math,” the cat says.

In order to appreciate this joke, you need to know that mice are usually the victims of cats, many revolvers have six bullets, and cats are said to have nine lives because of their ability to always land on their feet. You also need to be able to subtract six from nine to understand that the cat has the upper hand (or paw, as the case may be) in this scene after all.

A 2011 University of New Mexico study of 400 college students found that those who scored highest on intelligence tests also scored high on humor ability—and, that they reported having more sex. This confirmed a wide body of literature that suggests that “humor is not just a reliable intelligence indicator ... but may be one of the most important traits for seeking human mates.” Being funny is not only a powerful sign of smarts; it also makes potential mates connect and feel good. And by ensuring that only the cleverest, fittest, and most creative people procreate, it helps safeguard the survival of the human race.

Humor is the best connector

“Humor has several unique powers,” says Amir. “It forces people to consider different perspectives. It brings people together; if they are laughing together at something, they must agree with each other on some level. It reduces the pain associated with life’s difficulties. It exercises your brain. And it makes you happy.”

If a healthy sense of humor can make you smarter, less stressed, sexier, and happier, then one thing is clear: Finding time in your day for a good joke or two is no laughing matter. Here’s why you should keep a laughter journal.

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Additional writing and reporting by Charlotte Hilton Andersen.

The post Here’s Why You Need Humor to Have a Healthy Brain appeared first on The Healthy.

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