Social Engineering Blogs

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Why Laughter is Good for the Soul and Your Health

A recent review published last year in the journal Plos One found that spontaneous laughter leads to health benefits.

The article combined the results from eight separate studies to answer the question: Does spontaneous laughter reduce cortisol levels?

What is Cortisol?

Cortisol is an essential hormone that affects almost every organ and tissue in your body.

It’s produced by the adrenal glans and plays many important roles, including: maintaining blood pressure, supporting immune function, boosting metabolism, and helping you stay awake.

When you are under stress, your body produces more cortisol; therefore, it is a good measure of stress levels. Too much cortisol can lead to weight gain, digestive problems, muscle weakness, depression, and anxiety.

Universal Laughter and Deception

Laughter as Medicine

Since the 1970s, medical experts have learned that laughter can boost pain tolerance and improve overall well-being.

This recent meta-analysis identified eight studies in which participants were encouraged to laugh by watching a funny video, working with a laughter therapist, or participating in a self-administered laughter program.

Some of the studies measured participants’ cortisol levels before and after a laughter session and others included control groups, which measured cortisol levels of participants without laughter.

Combining the data, researchers found that cortisol levels fell by 31.9% for people who participated in laughter interventions — and even a single laughter session led to a 36.7% reduction in cortisol. It didn’t matter how long participants laughed; any laughter led to reductions in cortisol.

Their analysis concluded that “spontaneous laughter is associated with greater reduction in cortisol levels as compared with usual activities, suggesting laughter as a potential adjunctive medical therapy to improve well-being.”

Other Health Benefits of Laughter

universal laughter and deceptionThis recent review builds on previous research that has found that laughter can improve your overall health, well-being, and life satisfaction.

Here are few studies and benefits of laughter:

  • A 2018 review found that laughter and humor interventions appear to enhance well-being in older adults.
  • Laughter is also found to improve mental health and bolster personal development.
  • Evidence suggests that laughter helps improve cardiovascular health.
  • Laughter can decrease pain perception. One study found that laughter therapy reduced pain scores of people living with terminal cancer by nearly half.

The take-home message: Laughter is good medicine, and there is data to prove it. So do your best to find opportunities to laugh and giggle as often as possible.

The post Why Laughter is Good for the Soul and Your Health first appeared on Humintell | Master the Art of Reading Body Language.

A Pocketbook Guide to the Basics of Emotion

We’re excited to announce the launch of The Humintell Emotion Primer – a pocketbook guide to the basics of emotion.

It’s a little book that we put together that summarizes and describes some of the major points about emotions, especially about the basic emotions that we talk about in our work and that we’ve studied and written about for decades.

This Emotion Primer starts with a little introduction and it has 7 sections– each dealing with an important aspect about what makes emotion special.

1. The first section defines an emotion from our perspective. This is so important because in our experience, most debates and arguments about emotion occur because of differences in people‘s definitions of emotion and we think it’s always important to let people know what our definition of emotion is.

2. The second section describes the various types of emotions that exist and focuses on basic emotions. Research over the past half century plus has shown that basic emotions have features that other emotions don’t have. Now, humans have a lot of different emotions and some people have suggested that we don’t believe that other emotions are emotions. Of course we do! It’s just that basic emotions are a special class or category of emotion.

3. The third section talks about those features of basic emotions that distinguish them from other types of emotion. Remember, these features have been demonstrated in decades of research.

4. The fourth section talks about the differences between emotions and feelings. This is important because many people confuse them and use those terms interchangeably in our everyday lives.

5. The fifth section is on our affective world and distinguishes emotions from other phenomena that are emotional, like moods, personalities, and psychopathologies. This is also important because many of us don’t distinguish between emotion and other affective phenomena.

6. The sixth section lists the elicitors and functions of each of the seven basic emotions. This section is really important to understand the differences among them and to gain an appreciation of why emotions were important in the history of humans and in our every day lives today.

7. The seventh section has examples of each of the seven universal facial expressions along with a summary listing of the points that are mentioned in the other sections.

8. At the end, there’s a QR code that you can also scan and that leads you to a place on our website where we have all kinds of additional readings, blogs, and videos about emotions that we’ve done in the past. This section should round out this program well with additional insights and examples.

If you put it all together, there’s a lot of information about emotions that start with this little primer and then point us in different directions.

In the end, this primer is not a novel or a long and boring scientific treatise, but it does have very quick descriptions of the most important aspects of emotions.

This is exactly the same kind of information that anyone who wants to improve their knowledge and understanding of emotion should access.

We really hope you enjoy it. Get a Humintell Emotion Primer for yourself!

The post A Pocketbook Guide to the Basics of Emotion first appeared on Humintell | Master the Art of Reading Body Language.

The Link Between Children’s Bedtime and Emotion Regulation

A resent study from Pennsylvania State University suggests that a consistent bedtime for children leads to better emotion regulation while under stress or working with others.

Children Sleep Study

Researchers analyzed sleep and behavior data of 143 six-year-olds, mothers of whom were trained about responsive parenting in the first 2.5 years following birth.

The children wore sleep-monitoring devices on their wrists for a week. The devices kept track of when the children went to sleep, the quality of their sleep, and how long they slept.

The behaviors and emotions of the children were then tested in person in a clinic where they participated in various tasks that were intended to evoke frustration.

One task involved each child selecting a toy that they wanted to play with from a large selection. The chosen toy was placed in a clear box and locked.  The child was then given a set of keys, none of which unlocked the box.

The team then observed the child for self-regulated behavior, including self-talk and trying each key, and a lack of self-regulation — which included throwing the keys without trying them all.

After four minutes, the children were handed the correct key to the box and allowed to play with the toy.

Another task involved in the study was collaborative, which tested the children for their ability to cooperate.

Sleep and Emotion Regulation

The results showed that the more a child’s bedtime changed each night, the worse they regulated their behavior and emotions.

Findings from the study suggest that the regularity of the children’s sleep schedules—whether they went to sleep and woke up at approximately the same time each day over the course of a week—exhibited a greater influence over their emotional control and behavior than the duration or quality of sleep.

Children with more consistent, regular sleep schedules showed greater control over their emotions and behaviors.

This research sheds light on the nuanced nature of developmental sleep research, especially regarding the relationship between consistent sleep and emotional regulation.

Though duration of sleep is important, regular and consistent sleeping and waking times may be more instrumental in supporting children’s emotional control.

Bedtime Routines

Research has also shown that regular bedtime routines are vital to getting adequate sleep, yet only about 65% of families in the US report engaging in a routine 5 or more times a week.

Certain activities might help children with sleep. These include:

  • Providing a healthy snack
  • Hygiene (bathing or brushing teeth)
  • Reading
  • Singing
  • Physical contact (massage or cuddling)

Studies also show kids who don’t get enough sleep may be more likely to develop high blood pressure, obesity, even depression.

Finally, think again before you reach for that smartphone or tablet to soothe your child before bedtime- research has also shown that doing so may also affect a child’s emotion regulation ability.

References

Dadzie, A., Master, L., Hohman, E. E., Acton, E. H., Tauriello, S., Paul, I. M., … & Buxton, O. M. (2022). Associations Between Sleep Health and Child Behavior at Age 6 Years in the INSIGHT Study. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 10-1097.

The post The Link Between Children’s Bedtime and Emotion Regulation first appeared on Humintell | Master the Art of Reading Body Language.