A Laugh, A Chuckle, and A Giggle or Two

When I was fifteen, I visited Cambodia for a school immersion. The teachers on the trip had gone to bed and all of us snuck downstairs to one of the girl’s rooms. Similar to a scene of any sleepover, there were lots of lollies, paired with rambunctious personalities sharing scary stories and gossiping about crushes back home. Of course, then there were the hushes when we thought we heard one of the teachers stir, certain they were coming to spoil our fun. They didn’t though. One girl told a very long, fictitious story about a man whose dream it was to own the perfect blue fridge. The plane he was travelling on had unrelenting turbulence so a flight attendant suggested they throw out some luggage that was weighing them down. The man sacrificed his blue fridge (sourced in Italy) and his dream died there and then. 

That’s the short version. 

Now, I was quite a confident fifteen-year-old. I was aware of my capabilities and considered myself to be intelligent. I was a straight A student in school (except for Maths—it both bored me and confused me in equal parts). So I piped up.

 ‘That’s ridiculous they could never throw a fridge overboard,’ I said. 

Another girl chimed in. ‘Well, obviously not but it’s just made up.’

‘Yeah but even so, they would never have luggage on that plane,’ I said. 

‘What do you mean?’ a different girl said. 

‘Because luggage is on the luggage plane, not the passenger plane,’ I said, rolling my eyes because DUH, how did they not know that?

The room went silent, the rascals simmered, there wasn’t a crinkle of a lolly packet. Evie, one of my closest friends, just looked at me and shook her head.

‘Hold on,’ I said, the pieces of the puzzle coming together in front of my eyes like a prehistoric bad edit of a chess scene in The Queen’s Gambit. ‘Are they not a thing?’

Everyone started laughing and our attempts to keep our voices down failed entirely. I did try to explain my reasoning, posing questions like: why does luggage get lost then? When I arrived home from Cambodia, I told Mum and Dad, and my siblings too. More laughter was had. When I would make an intellectual comment in family debates in the coming years, one of them would say, ‘yeah but you thought luggage planes existed’, negating any leg I was standing on. And then once more, we’d laugh. Dad told everyone (who didn’t already know) six years later on my 21st birthday. 

But seriously, how do they lose luggage from the back of the plane to the terminal? It seems they’d have a reasonable excuse if the luggage plane was delayed or landed in the wrong location. Just saying.

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

According to studies on laughter by psychologists, neurologists, and philosophers, one reason we laugh is when we’re exposed to someone breaching a social norm, and that breach is determined to be non-threatening. Luckily (and unfortunately for me), the luggage-plane incident is a prime example. I breached a social norm (knowledge of planes) and no one was harmed in doing so. And thus, a humorous situation was born! 

I laugh a lot. Most of the time, my laugh can be heard as loud, harsh jolts. Sporadic and persistent. When I find something utterly hilarious, my addling jolts take a different shape: mouth open, ribcage expanded, and absolutely no noise. My face reddens and tears form. In public places, those around me often fear that I’ll pass out or die of asphyxiation. Eventually though, I find my breath, noise comes out, and everyone around me laughs too. Generally, I laugh the most when I see someone else laughing very hard. It’s infectious for me, like when I see someone yawn. 

I wanted to know what made other people laugh. Did they find others laughing funny too? Or did other things do the trick? So, I asked strangers. 

A woman in her late fifties said,‘I laugh when I’m walking and I see someone acknowledge a dog instead of the dog’s owner.’ 
A woman in her early twenties said,‘I laugh at kids when they are running too fast and their legs can’t take them fast enough. They’re like tiny drunk people.’

A young man said,‘I laugh with my friends about bee’s butts.’

All of these statements appear to be arbitrary. The ubiquitous nature of laughter can make us ask why does laughter matter? What’s the point? What am I gaining by laughing other than just to get in a recommended daily ab workout? 

The scientists and all those hard-working-people discovered that laughing stimulates our organs like our heart and lungs, because we’re boosting our intake of oxygen-rich air. It soothes tension and relieves pain. Laughter improves the human immune system as it can release neuropeptides that help fight illness. While all clichés are irritating, I give ‘laughter is the best medicine’ leeway simply because there is so much truth to it. 

So whether one’s humour is observational, dark, physical, or self-deprecating, while the jokes may be arbitrary, the benefits are certainly not. It is important to note something that is ‘humorous’ doesn’t always make one laugh. And something that makes us laugh isn’t always ‘funny’, or rather it shouldn’t be. 

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Scientists from the Mayo Clinic to researchers at the Scientific American debate why we laugh and the core of it. Will we ever really know its entirety? I’m not a scientist, but I’m an elite laugher. And I, like many scientists, recognise that laughter relies on connection. Connection to something and connection to another. This thing that all humans feel in their belly, in their throat, their mouth, and their lungs, has the power to change the course of our day. That is something truly special. 

A man in his thirties said, ‘Things that make me laugh today, won’t make me laugh tomorrow. It’s all in how it’s delivered. Something delivered by my sister will be ten times funnier than from a stranger.’

Every year, the first Sunday of May, is World Laughter Day. Laughter is our vehicle to connect with others and if the last year indicates anything, it’s that the world is unpredictable and chaotic. 

So go on, have a giggle today.

WORDS: CONSTANCE ALLAN
PHOTOGRAPHY: JESSICA WILSON,TOA HEFTIBA, TIM MOSSHOLDER