Laughter and The Body

Written by Suhartini Pekapari

A Soldier’s Lie

Once a soldier his commanding officer for a day’s leave to attend his sister’s wedding. The officer asked him to wait outside the door for a few minutes while he considered the request. The officer then called the soldier back in and said, “You are a liar. I’ve just phoned your sister and she told me she’s already married.” “Well, sir, you’re an even bigger liar,” the soldier replied, “because I don’t even have a sister.”

It is an anecdote that I took from Student’s Handout: Speaking 3 compiled by Santri E. P. Djahimo (2011). What do you think? It is funny, isn’t it? This is just one of many anecdotes that I have read, and most of them make me laugh. I feel relief after reading it. What causes it? It is laughter. There are still many advantages or positive aspects of laughter. Beside the positive aspects, does laughter have negative aspects? Is it true that laughter can cause death?

Laughter is the men activity when they are happy or when they hear / read funny things. According to the psychological study of laughter named gelotology, laughter is the result of coordination between various face muscles, and it has been proved that laughter can reduce stress, increase body’s immunity system, reduce hypertension, increase good cholesterol up to 26%, and reduce the pain of chronic illness sufferers.

Beside these positive aspects, the same research shows that laughter has some negative aspects too. Excessive laughter can cause unpleasant laughter and fits of laughter. Unpleasant laughter is a situation where patients of a specific illness will laugh of happiness but the report that they feel unpleasant when doing it. Usually, it occurs in people who have a neurological condition; including patients with pseudo bulbar palsy, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s disease. Fits of laughter is a situation where one cannot control his laughter and then it leads to the unconsciousness of the one who laughs.

Laughter can cause death too. According to the research of pathophysiologists, death may result from uncontrollable laughter. There are some deaths that are caused by laughter. First, in 1410, King Martin of Aragon died because of a combination between indigestion and uncontrollable laughter. Second, in 1556, Pietro Aretino died of suffocation from laughing too much. Third, on 24 March 1975, Alex Mitchel, a 50-year-old bricklayer from King’s Lynn, England, died laughing while watching a television program. After 25 minutes of continuous laughter, he finally died from heart failure. The last, in 1989, Ole Bentzen, a Danish audiologist, died laughing while watching a television program too. His heart was beaten between 250 and 500 beats per minute before he died.

From the facts above, we can conclude that laughter has some negative aspects and one of them is it can cause death. Laughter can be good to our health or not, according to how we do it. If we do it normally, we will find that it brings health to our body; but if we laugh too much and uncontrollable, it may end with our death.