You don’t need to pick fleas off your partner, fluff their fur, hold hands or hug to boost your own pain threshold, with a hit of opioids.
Social contacts are of prime importance to humans. The size of human social networks significantly exceeds the network that can be maintained by social grooming or touching in other primates.
“You don’t need to believe me, read this”:
Positron emission tomography (PET) was used “to show that endogenous opioid release following social laughter may provide a neurochemical mechanism supporting long-term relationships in humans.”
Participants were scanned twice; following 30-minute social laughter session, and after spending 30 minutes alone in the testing room (baseline). Endogenous opioid release was stronger following laughter versus baseline scan. Opioid receptor density in the frontal cortex predicted social laughter rates.
Modulation of the opioidergic activity by social laughter may be an important neurochemical mechanism reinforcing and maintaining social bonds between humans.
B”orrrrrrrrring. Researchers need to get a sense of humor.”
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/early/2017/05/23/JNEUROSCI.0688-16.2017
This is so true and following your revelation about opioids I will not try and control
my laughter. 😊 .
Miriam
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Mirium,
good plan-keep on laughing.
Peggy
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I learned something. I now know that cats, dogs, and mice can laugh (ha, ha!). I’ll have to watch my two more closely. To think I could have missed seeing that!!
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Joyce,
Now you made me laugh.
Peggy
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Making the old adage even more relevant: laughter is the best medicine.
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Shari,
And the most fun medicine.
Peggy
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Does an internet lol count?
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Alien,
I would count any and all laughter.
Peggy
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