03/30/2024
🤔 Did you Know??🤔
Laughter’s ability to diffuse stress is just one of many reasons why it’s a critical part of a child’s development. Having a sense of humour plays an important role in developing self-esteem, learning to problem solve, and honing social skills.
Helping your child develop a good sense of humour is also one of the many responsibilities of parenthood that can lead them down the right path in life.
Learn how you can help foster humour and laughter in your child so they can reap the many laughter therapy benefits at every stage in life.
❤️HUMOUR AND SELF-ESTEEM
Having a sense of humour helps kids develop self-esteem, problem-solving skills, and social skills. Since humour is a desirable personality trait, people with a good sense of humour tend to form friendships easily, which helps them feel better about themselves and boosts their self-esteem.
❤️Kids can also learn the healing power of laughter at an early age. When they try to make sad friends and loved ones laugh to cheer them up, they are also displaying the essential social skills of empathy and sympathy.
❤️Furthermore, humour helps people cope with stressful experiences in life and can help kids develop resilience, protecting them from mental health conditions like anxiety and depression. Kids who can laugh at their mistakes are also more likely to accept that no one’s perfect and keep trying.
❤️BENEFITS OF PLAY AND HUMOUR
Activities that make you and your kids laugh are not only fun, but they also benefit everyone in so many ways.
❤️PHYSIOLOGICAL BENEFITS
Laughter is incredibly beneficial to our physical health. When we laugh, our brain activates its ventromedial prefrontal cortex. And as a result, we get to enjoy these health benefits of laughter:
❤️Reduced stress, anxiety, and depression
❤️Improved sleep
❤️Prevent heart disease
❤️Released endorphins—also known as the feel-good hormones
❤️Reduced stress hormones
❤️Lowered blood pressure and blood sugar levels
❤️Improved circulation
❤️Increased oxygen intake
❤️Re-energized body
❤️Relaxed muscles
❤️Massaged abdominal organs and improved functioning
❤️Improved digestion
❤️Strengthened immune system
❤️Increased tolerance to pain
❤️Increased smiling—which also triggers a part of our brain that boosts our moods
❤️DEVELOPMENTAL BENEFITS
Humour and laughter help to diffuse stress, making it a critical part of child development. Laughter and humour also build resilience, so children are better able to adapt to adversity, stress, trauma, tragedy, and threats.
Another benefit is that humour helps kids develop creativity because it teaches them to look at things from an unusual perspective other than the most obvious.
❤️A well-developed sense of humour also helps kids:
❤️ Understand unconventional ideas and ways of thinking
❤️Think outside of the box
❤️Enjoy the playful parts of life
❤️Become happier and more optimistic
❤️Not take themselves too seriously
❤️Be more spontaneous.
❤️SOCIETAL BENEFITS
❤️Smiling, laughing, and having a good sense of humour helps us improve the way we perceive the world around us. Laughter is a good distraction from negative emotions such as guilt, stress, and anger.
❤️And since a well-developed sense of humour helps kids see things from a different perspective, it also helps kids develop empathy—the ability to see things from another person’s perspective—and also to become better problem-solvers.
❤️Laughter also boosts the moods of everyone around you. Since laughter is often contagious, when we hear others laughing, we tend to start laughing too. And then everyone involved gets to reap the benefits of laughter.
❤️Humour and laughter make life more bearable in stressful situations, and also make life happier overall.
