When was the last time you howled with laughter?
Delight is no joke.
I’m not talking about a polite chuckle or a derisive smirk. I’m not even talking about an appreciative giggle. I’m talking about one of those guffaws that rings through the rafters with wild abandon. The belly-clutching howl that feels like a real gut workout.
This morning, I was rolling around on the bed, gasping for breath from laughing so hard. My husband, Dan, was describing his evening walk around the neighborhood. He had been carrying a flashlight in the darkening night, and, like a moth to (unintentional) flame, the beam of light drew in a young boy riding his tricycle down the street, chubby legs pumping hard to catch up to an oblivious Dan.
The boy shouted, “Hey, mister! What are you doing? I saw your flashlight and had to come see it for myself!”
Half concerned with where the boy’s parents were, and half worried that he would seem like a creep, Dan backed away and asked nervously, “Um, where’s your house? Isn’t it kind of late?”
The boy pointed to a house a few doors down from where they stood, where the father was working in his garage. “Over there. My friend Mickey lives across the street! And Sadie lives on the corner there, you know, in that blue house? Sadie and I aren’t friends. But where do you live? There? Over there? Oh, that’s not far. Can I see your house, mister?”
Dan tried to catch the dad’s eye (unsuccessfully) and to kindly but firmly disengage. “No, sorry. Why don’t you ride on home?”
Undeterred, the little boy kept riding his trike with the gusto of Lance Armstrong competing in the Tour de France. He tailed my (now speed-walking) husband with the energy that only a kid awake past his bedtime can, chattering the whole time as if they were old friends. Totally oblivious to boundaries, as most kids are. It was a moment from A Man Called Ove.
Dan (who is very good at impersonations) described this whole interaction using a tiny-kid voice, complete with that adorable lisp, conflating r’s with w’s. For my part, I could not get over the image of my grown husband, panicked and trying to run from a small kid on a trike who just had so many things to say and could not take a hint. I laughed so hard that tears were starting to fill my eyes.
Joy versus Humor
… You had to be there?
That’s how it feels to describe most of our moments of side-splitting laughter. There’s some kind of alchemy of timing, expression, and vibe that turns an ordinary moment into something mirth-inducing. You can’t really describe why a moment was so funny. It just was. I had a friend who could crack me up just by looking at me—it was as if we could read the thoughts flying across the other person’s mind, thoughts that definitely should not be uttered aloud in polite company. When our partners asked what the joke was, we shrugged, unable to explain. Hilarity can be inexplicable.
The inimitable joy of laughing until you cry is one that I truly will never get enough of, because, for the most part, it’s an act that happens with another person. It’s communal. Sharing a laugh is one of the most intimate things we can do, and it’s surprisingly rare in adult life.
This made me think: When was the last time I really belly-laughed, in a way that was silly, loud, and free? Aside from neighborhood kids on trikes, it’s been a long time.
Part of the explanation for my mirthless state is that I’m a freelancer who’s no longer privy to oddball workplace incidents, a specific category of hijink that never fails to make me laugh. I’m also conducting many of my friendships over text, rather than in person. Texts can make me smile, but I can count on one hand how many times they made me laugh. When I type LOL, I’m definitely not LOLing. I’m twisting the side of my mouth into a lazy-man semblance of a smile.
But mostly, the cause of my laugh-less state is that the world is just kinda heavy right now. Sometimes laughter can feel like exercise, in that it requires work. It takes effort to pull our minds from the doom, and into a space that’s a little more lighthearted; less protective, and more vulnerable. Joy is one thing. It isn’t necessarily easy to come by for everyone, especially those in deep struggle, but joy is somewhat more accessible. Hilarity is quite another gift.
Am I the only one suffering from a lack of laughter? When was the last time you guffawed over something?
The Humor Cliff
That old adage about laughter being the best medicine is no joke. There are documented health benefits to laughter, such as a reduction of stress, promotion of endorphins, and renewal of social connection. Articles sometimes encourage silly dance parties or improv comedy classes—the latter being an activity more likely to induce abject fear than LOLs in me.
But the thing I love about the kind of howling-in-your-seat laughter I’m talking about is that element of surprise. While I can get behind the practice of actively searching for joy in our daily lives, part of what makes a good laugh session so satisfying is its unplanned nature. It just … happens to you. For me, the best kinds of laughs are summoned by twin elves, Goofiness and Delight, sneaking up on you at the moment when you least expect them.
In pop psychology, there’s a term called “the humor cliff,” otherwise known as the point in our lives where our sense of humor begins to decline. We laugh and smile less. We tell fewer jokes. The truly abysmal part of this? That cliff is identified as the ripe old age of 23 by a 2013 Gallup study. This is, by no coincidence, the age that many of us exit school and join the workforce, a category not widely known for its alignment with fun. We exchange our love of levity for more serious concerns, like paying our rent, dating safely, or trying to meet basic nutritional standards on entry-level wages. And along the way, we lose our knack for finding and creating humor in ordinary situations.
Laughter as Resilience
I used to be a pretty giggly human being. I was the person who passed funny comics in class and willingly made a fool of myself for a laugh. If there was a ridiculous game of Celebrity going on, I’d be the first to jump into the fray. My favorite nights were the ones spent at home with friends, pouring glasses of wine and telling stories about our most embarrassing moments. Once, laughing just came easy for me. Vulnerability came easier for me then, too.
But now that laughter feels rarer and less accessible, I find that the thing I miss the most is the perspective I get after a good peal of merriment. Even if every single thing has gone wrong in my day, the fact that I am still able to see some humor in it lets me shift my thinking. Sometimes it’s an infinitesimal shift that forces me to close down my computer and stop myself from sending an email I’ll regret. Laughter will allow me some much-needed psychic distance between strong emotions like anger or anxiety. Other times, laughing will pull me out of a myopic mindset and allow me to discover a surprising solution I might have missed. Humor gives me a reminder that the world might not be quite as bleak as I think it is.
In a 2020 New York Times article, cardiologist Dr. Michael Miller of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore prescribed: “one good belly laugh a day.” The article goes on to clarify, “It’s not just going ‘ha, ha,’ but a ‘deep physiological laugh that elicits tears of joys and relaxation.’” So, given that we know most of us need more laughter in our lives, can we just … make ourselves laugh more? Not exactly. But we can exercise the muscle in small ways, and hope for the best.
Maybe we start with an indulgent smile next time we see a perfect animal meme. Perhaps we sub a morning news watch with a comedy special. Call up a friend for a chat, rather than defaulting to text, where real hilarity is more difficult to sustain. I think the laughter can come if we can make ourselves willing vessels for it.
Things Making Me Laugh Lately:
Derry Girls on Netflix: This is an audacious and offbeat look at a group of teens living in Northern Ireland in the 1990s, recommended by my friend Lizzie. They’re only 20-something minutes long, so they feel like exactly the right amount of time.
Hasan Minhaj’s The King’s Jester comedy special on Netflix: With his usual energetic stage presence, Minhaj does an incredible job mixing laugh-out-loud commentary with some serious content about being a father who often finds himself a public target.
Crisp lasagne: This is an oldie, but never fails to make me chuckle.
Bouncing sheep butts: from wonderful Zoë Jameson
This video of a woman unwrapping a luxe gift from her spouse
What’s giving you a giggle these days?
Loved the kings jester and derry girls is such a joy!