Laughing and crying are healthy

Laughing and crying are basic forms of expression. They are clear signals from our body – and help us to express our feelings. Both can serve as a release, with laughing or crying often relieving tension and leaving us feeling calmer afterwards. They also impact the body:laughing and crying influence neurotransmitters such as endorphins, which boost our well-being.How we deal with these sensations varies greatly.Our experiences, our attitude and the situation shape whether we show our feelings or repress them.Nevertheless, it is important to teach children that they are allowed to show these emotions: emotions must be felt before you can react to them and self-regulate.

When’s the last time you laughed until you cried? Expressed joy over a small thing in life? And when did you last sob your heart out? Emotions such as joy, sorrow, surprise and anxiety are part of our lives. Pleasant sensations don’t just give us satisfaction or happiness – they are essential to our health, creativity and social bonds. So, there are benefits to letting yourself laugh or cry if you feel like 

Children laugh about 400 times a day. Life becomes more serious in adulthood, when people only laugh up to 20 times a day. This is unfortunate, because laughing offers significant benefits. Laughing stimulates the circulation and boosts your immune system. Laughing is freeing, relaxing, and reduces stress, anger and anxiety. 

Laughing helps reduce stress

Laughing helps to combat stress. When we laugh, the body releases endorphins, known colloquially as “happiness hormones”. At the same time, laughter lowers cortisol levels. Cortisol is a hormone that the body produces in greater quantities in stressful situations. If cortisol is not broken down, this has a negative impact on our health.

In other words, you can minimise stress by laughing, because endorphins have a positive impact on mood and lowered cortisol levels can have a calming effect. If you laugh often during stressful times, you will notice fewer symptoms of stress.  

Laughter for a stronger immune system

Laughing strengthens the immune system. If you laugh a lot, the amount of certain immune substances increases. These include, for example, natural killer cells that recognise and destroy cells that have been modified or infected by pathogens. Your levels of Immunoglobulin A – a class of antibodies that protect against pathogens – also increase. The positive effects of laughter on the immune system therefore primarily affect your immune defences.

Laughter to combat heart problems

Additionally, laughter can improve heart health. While you laugh heartily, air enters your lungs, meaning that your red blood cells receive more oxygen and your arteries dilate. This, in turn, lowers your blood pressure – with beneficial effects for the cardiovascular system, since high blood pressure is one of the main risk factors for cardiovascular diseases.

Laughing to alleviate pain

The positive effects of laughter are also linked to the endorphins released in the process. These reduce feelings of pain by attaching to the opioid receptors in the brain, where they interfere with the transmission of pain. Even if they do not work like traditional painkillers, they can make pain more bearable. For example, if you have severe back pain, you may be able to cope better with it if you laugh. This effect lasts for 20 to 30 minutes. 

Laughter as social glue

Laughing has many advantages when it comes to interacting with other people. For example:

• It eliminates potential conflicts because it is associated with friendliness.
• When you laugh with other people, you feel connected to each other.
• Laughter builds trust, even amongst strangers.
• An embarrassed laugh helps us to deal with unsettling situations. These are often stressful, and laughter acts as a regulating, stress-reducing mechanism. 
• Laughing eases a tense atmosphere.

This shows how laughter strengthens social bonds. And these social interactions are in turn good for our mental health. By the way – when people are with others, they laugh 30 times more often than usual. 

Crying is good for you, as it causes your body to release several hormones, including endorphins – just like when you laugh.

Crying to reduce stress

On a physical level, tears can help reduce stress. This is due in particular to certain hormones that the body releases when we cry: this leads to endorphins being triggered through tears, along with other effects. Endorphins have a positive effect on our mood. However, the body only releases endorphins for a short period of time. If you cry for an extended duration, this does not lead to a prolonged release of endorphins, but rather leaves you feeling sad for longer. Oxytocin regulates emotional well-being and prolactin also has a calming effect. 

Emotional relief through crying?

Despite the hormonal effects, there is no guarantee that emotional tensions can always be reduced by crying. This depends on why you were crying. If you are overwhelmed or lonely, for example, crying can intensify negative feelings for a short amount of time. If, on the other hand, you are crying because of something you have seen in the media, this reduces negative emotions for a brief period. These effects usually last for a few hours to a day. The effect of crying is not always the same – it depends on the situation and the person. Your own feelings also play a role: people who openly reach out to others and receive comfort often feel better after crying. However, those suffering from depression usually experience little or no relief afterwards.

Crying as pain relief

Crying can relieve pain. When we cry, the body releases endorphins, which act like a natural painkiller and change how we perceive pain.However, the effect only lasts for a short period of time. In a similar way as with stress reduction, the body does not produce endorphins long-term, which is why the effect wears off quickly even after a prolonged period of crying.

Crying as a social signal

When you cry, you send a signal to those around you:

• Tears show others your emotional state.
• Visible tears trigger other people’s willingness to help.
• Crying strengthens the feeling of connection, especially to the people close to you.

How strong this signal is, however, depends on the relationship. Studies show that, day-to-day, people primarily help those close to them who are crying. They are less likely to help strangers. Crying therefore creates closeness, but is particularly effective where a relationship already exists. Like laughter, crying is an interpersonal signal that shows that you are a person experiencing an emotion.

There are situations in which people laugh and cry at the same time. This happens, for example, when someone is very happy, excited, relieved or is reunited with a loved one. Some people react like this in the event of a shock, too. In these moments, their feelings are particularly strong, meaning that another emotion can resonate and provide balance. People who react in this way often calm down more quickly.

Laughing or crying can also appear as a symptom of an illness: 

• People with affective instability experience rapidly changing emotional states that they are unable to influence themselves. They alternate between excessive laughter and intense periods of crying. Sufferers notice the mood swings, but do not find them pathological or embarrassing. This occurs, for example, in personality disorders, premenstrual syndrome and in postpartum depression.
• In the case of affective incontinence or pseudobulbar affect disorder (PBA), those affected cannot control how they express their feelings. They respond to small triggers with strong emotions: sentimental reminders lead them to sob profusely, while little jokes lead to excessive and uncontrolled laughter. Affective incontinence sometimes occurs in the case of dementia or after a stroke.
• In an acute stress reaction, which is colloquially referred to as a nervous breakdown, sufferers oscillate between various feelings. They laugh and cry, are anxious or aggressive. These kinds of reactions can occur due to stressful life events, such as the sudden loss of a loved one.  

There can be other reasons why people cry without an obvious cause. These include hormonal changes, menopause, stress or mental illness such as depression. 

If you often find yourself switching between intense periods of laughter and crying, or if you have frequent emotional outbursts, it’s best to talk to a doctor about this. The same applies if you cannot cry or laugh. 

Consciously allow yourself to laugh and cry while being mindful. Regularly ask yourself how you are doing. If necessary, talk to a good friend about your well-being: don’t hide how you feel. Take some time in the evening to think about three things that made you laugh that day. You can also try yoga and meditation. This will help you to reconnect with your inner self and learn how to laugh and cry in a conscious way.