You’ve heard it before: laughter is the best medicine. But it’s not just some cute saying your grandma embroidered on a pillow. It’s real. Mood-lifting, stress-busting, nervous-system-resetting medicine. No prescription required. No sketchy side effects. Just breath-stealing, tear-streaming, pants-peeing joy that somehow makes life feel lighter again.
You’ve probably heard all the benefits of laughter by now. It relaxes the body, lowers stress hormones, boosts immunity, is a mini cardio session, boosts brain power, strengthens social bonds, it can stimulate the heart, lungs, and muscles, increase endorphins, improve blood flow, help regulate the stress response, and even help with pain relief. Great. Wonderful. Love that for us. But honestly? I think the biggest benefit of laughter is how it makes you feel.
For a few seconds, or maybe even a few minutes if it’s a really good laugh, you stop overthinking. You stop worrying. You stop monitoring yourself. You stop rehearsing problems, managing your image, doom-scrolling, productivity spiraling, and carrying the emotional weight of adulthood like it’s your full-time career. Your brain gets a hit of dopamine, your mood shifts, and for a moment, you are not trying to fix, manage, improve, or control anything. You just laugh, and I think a lot of us desperately need more of that.
Somewhere along the way, many of us became painfully serious, guarded, efficient, and responsible. We stopped playing. We stopped being ridiculous. We stopped putting ourselves in situations where we might laugh so hard we snort in public or accidentally pull a muscle trying not to. We became polished little productivity machines with tight shoulders, elevated cortisol, and calendars that look like a cry for help. Very impressive. Very exhausting.
The older I get, the more I realize laughter is not just entertainment. It is release. It is connection. It is presence. It is one of the few things that can pull you completely out of your spiraling thoughts and back into your body in seconds. My body loves that, and I have a feeling I am not the only one walking around needing a little less tension and a lot more ridiculous joy.
Last week I was outside doing yard work and came across the most stubborn weed in existence. This thing was apparently fighting for its bloodline. I crouched down over it, gripped it with both hands, and put every bit of my body weight into pulling it out of the ground. When it finally gave way, I flew backward across the yard several feet and landed directly on my butt. Hard.
I immediately looked around to see if any neighbors had witnessed the situation because apparently even at my age, public embarrassment remains a concern. Thankfully nobody saw me. At least I don’t think they did. And then I started laughing. Not polite little “that’s funny” laughter. Full belly laughter. The kind where you can barely breathe and your body completely gives in to it. I was lying alone on my back in the yard, weed in hand, with dirt on my clothes and a bruise forming on my backside, laughing like a complete idiot. And honestly? It felt fantastic.
Years ago, I had another moment like that while snowshoeing with a friend. I tripped over my own feet and face-planted directly into the snow. I was cold, embarrassed, and trying to recover whatever dignity remained when my friend, without saying a word, threw himself face-first into the snow right next to me. Not one word was exchanged. We completely lost it, lying there in the snow, laughing and crying like children who had escaped adulthood for five glorious minutes.
That’s the thing about laughter. It instantly tears down walls. It softens people. It connects us faster than almost anything else. You can have an awkward moment, a clumsy moment, or a flat-out embarrassing moment, and laughter can turn it into something shared instead of something shameful. It does not erase the bruise, the snow in your eyelashes, or the fact that you just lost a fight with a weed, but it changes the feeling of the moment entirely.
Sometimes laughter shows up in the strangest places. Last week I visited a camel farm expecting a cool experience, which it absolutely was. What I did not expect was comedy. I do not know if all camels love hair, but Mr. Pickles sure did. And the better it smells, the more interested in it he becomes.
Now, Mr. Pickles has a particularly theatrical personality. First he rested his massive chin directly on top of my head. Then he knocked my hat off and buried his nose into my hair like he had been searching for that exact shampoo scent his entire life. And I do not mean a quick whiff. I mean this camel practically folded me into the earth trying to inhale my scalp.
He nudged me right down onto my knees while enthusiastically investigating my hair, tossing it around as he moved his head back and forth, and I started laughing so hard I was crying. Not performative laughing. Not social laughing. Real, uninhibited laughter. The kind that completely takes over your body and leaves you with no choice but to surrender. It was ridiculous and beautiful and weirdly healing all at once, even with an audience of other visitors and camels.
That is what I think many of us are missing. Not more information, not more optimization, and not another expert telling us how to become perfect humans through the perfect food plan and a jog. We need more everyday, unexpected moments that make us feel alive. We need more moments where we lose composure, stop managing ourselves, and laugh so hard we forget to monitor how we look.
Because something happens to the nervous system in those moments. The body unclenches. The mind quiets down. Your breath changes. Your face softens. Your shoulders drop. Dopamine rises. Your mood shifts for the better. You stop rehearsing problems and start experiencing life again, which may be one of the most underrated wellness practices of all.
Laughter also brings us back into connection. That might happen at a comedy show, when a whole room full of strangers starts laughing together and suddenly everyone feels a little less separate. There is something magical about being surrounded by people you do not know, all laughing your ass off at the same time.
For a few minutes, nobody is trying to look impressive. Nobody is proving anything. Everyone is just caught in the same wave of ridiculous human joy.
While often overlooked, laughter belongs in the wellness conversation too. We talk a lot about food, movement, sleep, hydration, meditation, fasting, detox, strength, and discipline, and all of those things have a place. But laughter belongs there too. Connection belongs there. Play belongs there. Feeling like a kid again belongs there, especially when so many adults are walking around emotionally armored and physically tense.
And if we cannot laugh at ourselves once in a while, I think we are taking ourselves too seriously and missing one of the best things about life on this planet. Not everything has to be dignified. Not every moment has to be managed. Sometimes the best thing you can do for your body, your mood, and your spirit is let yourself be ridiculous enough to laugh until you forget why you were trying so hard to look composed in the first place.
When I wrote The Awakened Body, one of the biggest lessons I learned was that healing is not only found in discipline, leafy greens, the treadmill, sleep, hydration, meditation, or all the other wellness practices we tend to take more seriously because they look responsible on paper. Sometimes healing also sounds like uncontrollable laughter in the middle of a snowbank, lying alone in your yard laughing after getting taken out by a weed, or crying while a camel named Mr. Pickles tries to inhale your head.
The body does not only crave nourishment. It craves joy too. It also needs laughter. It needs breath, release, connection, play, presence, and the kind of laughter that reminds you there is still a human being under all the pressure, routines, responsibilities, grief, schedules, overthinking, and endless self-improvement projects.
And honestly, I think we would all feel a little better if we stopped taking ourselves so seriously once in a while.