5 Ways to Add More Laughter to Your Life

“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.” –Charles Dickens

When was the last time you really, properly laughed? The kind of laughter that takes over your body, makes it hard to breathe, or has you wiping tears from your eyes? Maybe it was something you watched on television, like a recent episode of the show "Taskmaster" where comedian Reece Shearsmith had to clamber up and down rows of seats in a football stand in an attempt to complete a seemingly impossible game of life-size snakes and ladders. Or perhaps listening to Philomena Cunk baffle academics with her unique take on science and art. I defy anyone to watch those without at least one belly laugh emerging. For some folk, laughter comes most easily when we’re around friends, sharing jokes and finding the humour in the events happening in our lives—as Ikea would say, "the wonderful everyday."

In childhood, we naturally laugh, play, and find joy in what we do, but as adults, it’s often a little harder. Somewhere between managing responsibilities, working to pay the bills, and navigating the constant challenges of the world, it can be easy for laughter to quietly slip down the list of priorities, especially when seriousness is so often perceived as being aligned with maturity.

But when it comes to laughter, it’s important that it's more than just an afterthought. When challenges and hard times rear their head, as they are bound to do for all of us at some point, laughter can be a genuine lifeline. It helps us cope with pain and gives perspective at times when life can feel a bit overwhelming. Dunbar et al. (2021) examined the effect of laughter on our connections with others and found that laughing with the people around us increases our social bonds with them, making us feel closer and more connected. This aligns with Provine and Fischer’s (1989) finding that people are up to 30 times more likely to laugh in the presence of other people than when on their own.

From a psychological perspective, laughter is one of the most immediate and effective ways to release tension. When we laugh, our body is flooded with endorphins and dopamine, which help to lift our mood and manage stress. Our muscles unclench, our breathing deepens, and our nervous system stands down from being in alert mode. Chan (2024) made the distinction between humour itself (the cognitive and affective elements that actually make us feel amused) and our individual sense of humour, which is the personality trait that enables us to produce or appreciate humour to varying degrees. Our own personal sense of humour dictates how much pleasure we get out of the experience of laughter. That’s why finding those with a shared sense of humour to you, who find similar things funny and enjoy finding humour in the world to the same degree that you do, can be a genuine blessing.

If you can’t remember the last time you really laughed, that’s OK. The ability isn’t gone; it’s just lying dormant, and like a muscle, it can be exercised and strengthened. Here are five ways to intentionally add more laughter to your life:

1. Actively seek out humour. Decide to watch a comedy special, listen to a funny podcast, or spend time with people who make you laugh easily and whose sense of humour aligns with yours. If you’re not sure what you find funny, take the time to explore a range of situations and notice what tickles you and what you want to engage with more. Remember, too, that laughter is a social phenomenon. Being around others makes us laugh more, so think about going to a live comedy show or arranging a night out with friends to chat and laugh.
2. Find laughter in the everyday. You don’t need to constantly seek big laughs everywhere you go. Adding more humour into your life often means finding the fun and laughter in the small absurdities of our day-to-day activities. Like breaking the zipper on your sleeping bag while inside it and having to call for help to release you from your polyester prison, or chasing your tiny dog round the garden to retrieve the work lanyard that they’ve just run off with. Life is full of reasons to laugh; we just need to make the effort to notice them and then actively decide to respond with fun and good humour.
3. Don’t feel self-conscious about being silly or playful. As adults, we can build up walls and feel that we need to be serious all the time, which is simply not the case. Of course, there are some obvious caveats to this (you don’t want to be cracking jokes while in an important work meeting or while doing jury service for example!), but many situations offer an opportunity to inject some fun or humour into them, so be willing to look for these when the opportunity arises.
4. Laugh with others. As Dunbar et al. (2021) found, laughing with others builds our social bonds and makes us feel more connected to them. Of course, this assumes that we are laughing with the people around us, rather than laughing at them. To achieve the benefits Dunbar et al. described, we should focus on finding mutual humour with those around us, where everyone can enjoy the joke. The goal is mutual amusement rather than superiority or making someone else the butt of the joke.
5. Laughter can still be found in dark times. You don’t have to wait for life to be perfect to seek out laughter. It can sit alongside troubling times and act as a protective buffer as we navigate the challenges in front of us. In many cases, shared humour and laughter can be a positive and helpful way to help deal with times when life feels challenging or overwhelming. In this situation, the laughter isn’t about taking away the hard thing; it’s about finding a way to make it bearable and to find light and fun even in the darkest of times.