Why Do You Have To Laugh At Yourself More Often?

. . . Did you know that the average child laughs 300 to 500 times a day? But what about adults, or you? According to psychologists, adults laugh more during the weekend when they are away from stress and daily problems. Because the research says, an adult laughs only 15 times a day. What Happens […]

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Did you know that the average child laughs 300 to 500 times a day? But what about adults, or you?
According to psychologists, adults laugh more during the weekend when they are away from stress and daily problems.
Because the research says, an adult laughs only 15 times a day.

What Happens When You Life At Yourself?
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In the unprecedented study referenced above, Ursula Beermann of the University of California, Berkeley, and Willibald Ruch of the University of Zurich studied 70 psychology students to measure their tendency to laugh at themselves or not. The findings of this study lend further evidence to the fact that having the ability to laugh at oneself can create the foundation for a good sense of humor, optimistic, energetic personality, and even better overall health.

The volunteers in the study had to rate their ability to see the humor in the problems they faced in daily life. The researchers also asked one or two friends to rate each person on the same characteristic. While the students filled our the questionnaires, a camera mounted on the wall secretly took photos of each participant’s face. The researchers then distorted the pictures using Mac PhotoBooth software, in order to make them look like the faces you’d see in a funhouse mirror.

Why Laughing At Yourself Is Healthy For You?

This is where the experiment really gets good: the volunteers then had to rate the images of people they didn’t know. Their own pictures were part of the sequence, as well. The participants were videotaped as they looked at their own images, in order to see whether they laughed at themselves. Afterwards, researchers analyzed the data using a highly rated system of emotional expression, in order to gauge the authenticity of the volunteer’s expressions.

The results came in with 80% of the participants genuinely laughing or smiling at themselves when they saw their picture. Also, the volunteers who claimed to have the ability to laugh at themselves – and whose friends vouched for this statement – laughed and smiled more frequently and intensely than the others.

Additionally, people’s perspective about how easily they could laugh at themselves didn’t quite match up with their friends’ ratings, which implies that people overestimate their tendency to laugh at themselves, or that they would like people to think they laugh at themselves easily.

Whenever you get angry or sad, don’t forget this quote:

“Don’t take life too seriously; no one makes it out alive anyway.” – Van Wilder

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