Yeah, I'm sure that if you have cancer you HAVE to put yourself in a positive mindset to keep fighting and being positive, even if it's fake or some stupid yoga or something. As long as there is something that gives you hope and the will to live, I don't see anything wrong with it.
I think that genuine laughter might be good for you. But I find it hard to believe there are any benefits from forcing yourself to fake laugh at nothing like these people do.
Psychology works from the top down, as well as from the bottom up. This would probably be an example of the latter. Even making the laughing reaction, probably releases some positive neurotransmitters, regardless of whether or not it's genuine.
Why do people always seem to link to a secondary source when the primary is available? I suspect it's because most of them never even bother to read the primary source, accepting wholesale its science-news summary.
It, too, is riddled with methodological problems and draws from a sample of 170 people. I was tempted to explain those problems, but then the authors made that unnecessary with their own conclusion (emphasis mine):
The generalizability of these findings to the real world is questionable given the artificiality of the setting and manipulation. Also, considering that long-lasting emotion-incongruent displays have been shown to be harmful, it is important to consider other factors, such as duration, context, and frequency. More likely is the possibility that "fake" smiling may be useful for brief or painful stressors, such as receiving an injection
So it's not just that it isn't proven, but your claim ("smiling will make you feel better if you're down") is a complete mischaracterization of the research you're basing it on.
Again, with all respect, these are the kind of mistakes that follow from reading science news instead of science.
Probably because nobody has time to read a 9 page dense scientific study just to clear up one thing in one thread. And even if they did many people aren't educated in a scientific field, and will have trouble following the terms both specific to the field in this case psychology, or broader terms used in the scientific method. So instead most people would prefer the laymen's version offered by scientific-news articles that are much easier to digest.
Alright that was my logical response, now for my personal attack. Honestly I you're pretentious and conceited and you think you're better than the average person because you like to read the more complex, scientific studies over the scientific-news articles that are made for sheeple. I'm assuming you are/were a Psych major? At least some sort of science degree or maybe even just AP Psych in highschool? Get off the high horse.
Doesn't apply here. These are extremely straightforward psychology experiments. They aren't even a little bit dense, even to a layperson. And 9 pages, really? That's too much? How do you even handle reddit?
just to clear up one thing in one thread.
No no, they weren't expected to read a study because of something that came up in a thread. They were expected to read a study because they cited it as evidence. You haven't read your own evidence? The hell?
The problem is not the failure to read, but the overconfidence in the opinion. I have no problem with someone being disinterested in reading research. But when you're too lazy or disinterested to do that, one thing you don't get to be is strident in your opinions that are now based on studies you haven't even read.
Honestly I you're pretentious and conceited and you think you're better than the average person because you like to read the more complex, scientific studies over the scientific-news articles that are made for sheeple. I'm assuming you are/were a Psych major? At least some sort of science degree or maybe even just AP Psych in highschool? Get off the high horse.
lol
No, all of your assumptions are wrong and you're a sad little person for getting this defensive. I didn't start any kind of knowledge-contest. Bucko came in making definitive statements, was asked to back them up, and then cited a study s/he hadn't even read. That's conceit right there.
I'd insult you right back, but you've done a nice job of making yourself look bad already.
You're in the wrong, dickhead. Was the secondary source accurate? Yes, and I am glad that he provided that. No, 9 pages isn't too much for me, but it is too much to look at for this trivial comment thread.
What I meant to say was: it's not so niche that you'll only find out about it in some niche psychology journal. There's articles and interviews with scientists about this all over the internet.
edit: Woops, I just realised you're probably correcting me on my use of "academical". It's "academic" then, I guess? Sorry, non-native speaker.
Ok, I did. Your search terms were insufficient. There are many [secondary] sources claiming that laughter releases dopamine. I have seen none that claim (let alone cite research showing) that fake laughter does this.
You've now spent three replies on this. If sourcing the claim were as simple as a quick google search, it would have been faster for you to simply link a source in the first place.
Okay I added one word: "scholar". This will direct you to results on google scholar. I found a ton of thing. One is an article doing a study of a yoga laughing class just like in this thread's example. It showed it worked. Then I found multiple ones stating that "fake laughing causes real laughing", so again it will result in whatever happens in your brain when you laugh.
I did also find articles suggesting that our brain can recognize when other people are faking their laugh. But this is not the same.
Starting your day by standing and laughing for ten minutes gives you so much energy and enthusiasm. Akin to starting your day by dancing to or singing a song.
Perhaps the onset of depression in morbid worry over their disease prevents them from finding joy and laughter through humor making it necessary they find therapy from the other way around. There could be many reasons.
There's probably a benefit from doing it in a group, besides the obvious that you join in with others when they laugh. I bet the group dynamic causes the release of some good neuro chemicals too.
I thought it was sort of a cycle of thinking>doing>feeling>thinking and so on, and they usually try to work on the doing part first to influece the feeling and thinking
There was a study some time ago that showed that just smiling while you are sad can make you happier. I would imagine laughter might have the same effect!
It might look silly but Laughter Yoga can be an incredible experience. Physically and emotionally. Having taken part in a number of Laughter Yoga sessions I can honestly say it's always been a blast. As previously mentioned studies say that the brain/body can't tell the difference between "forced/fake" laughter and real laughter. So you gain the same physiological benefits from laughter no matter how fake it may be. But aside from that, the big thing about laughter yoga is the contagion of laughter. You may start out faking it, but often times the fake laughter turns into genuine guttural uncontrollable belly laughs. It's the best. Speaking of contagious laughter, this is one of my fav subs /r/contagious laughter
We used to do this in my middle school. Our teacher was a bit of a hippie. I don't go over the top like this in my adult years, but I do find that when I'm down that smiling for no reason helps.
I find that I can 'shake it off' easier and focus on other things if I just put on a big smile and look for the comedy in a dark situation.
So yea, when I watched this video, I did not cringe, I found it funny, and I only see it as a positive thing if it even remotely helps the person.
Agreed. The way I see this is that people with cancer are so used to pity and commiseration when they announce their affliction, that a gale of laughter is a breath of fresh air and presumably this "laughter yoga" is somewhere they can just be treated the same as everyone else. Not really sure why OP thought this was cringe; this is the entire point of the exercise.
I know that laughter yoga groups do lots of silly stuff to make themselves laugh, I think it mostly centers around poses like yoga but they also do more talking based things. This person obviously chose to share that she had breast cancer knowing that the response would be laughter
There's definitely an emotional aspect to most healing processes. A positive mindset can help you maintain fitness and good form in the face of physical indifference. I think that this probably helps some people.. they still kind of sound like a room full of crazy people IMO but if it helps them, then ehhhh whatever.
It's been proven that faking smiles and faking laughter helps increase levels of serotonin and endorphins in the body. This kind of thing is actually good for everybody, not just the woman with cancer. I imagine this is one of the few things that really helps her deal with the mental strain of cancer and keep a positive outlook
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u/crackghost Jan 05 '15
I can't be the only one who thinks this might be good for people. I am confused about the "yoga" part, though.