If an adult laughs on average 20 times a day, the pleasure mechanism is not the only one at work when the zygomatics are activated.

In his column on Europe 1, Tuesday afternoon, Doctor Jimmy Mohamed explains that laughter can release eminently positive hormones for health.

These are almost "miraculous" powers that do a lot of good: laughter has a truly positive effect on our health and more particularly on our brain.

Because beyond the pleasure of a sustained smile, a few bursts of laughter or a good giggle, the therapeutic virtues of this mechanism that humans share with certain animals are now well known.

In his column for the program

Sans Rendez-vous

, Tuesday afternoon, the doctor Jimmy Mohamed attempted to describe them at the microphone of Europe 1.

"Laughter is perhaps the best natural stress reliever. It will allow us to release hormones, namely endorphins, which will have an anxiolytic and antidepressant action. It also activates the reward circuit, with dopamine. .

>> Find all of Sans rendez-vous in replay and podcast here

We also know that laughter is communicative.

Often, in the series, we put in laughter, because it is contagious.

In addition to that, laughter can relieve pain.

We know this with the clowns in hospitals, who come to soothe the ailments of children when they are hospitalized.

Impact on Alzheimer's disease

There are even studies that show that laughter has an almost therapeutic benefit for patients with dementia or Alzheimer's disease.

The neuropsychiatrist Sylvie Chokron, with her book

A day in Anna's brain

, explained that laughter helped to alleviate the suffering of these patients.

We know, for example, that in the brain, when there is a funny story, you will trigger a part that will be responsible for the pleasure.

There is therefore a strong link between pleasure and laughter. "

Why don't we laugh when we tickle ourselves

Everyone has already experienced it: trying to reproduce tickling on oneself and note, with a little disappointment, the total absence of laughter.

How to explain it?

"You have in your brain a part called the cerebellum, which will predict the movement of your fingers", details Jimmy Mohamed.

"It will cause a signal to block the area of ​​the brain that perceives this stimulation. The pleasure of tickling is therefore based on surprise. Except that when you tickle yourself alone, the surprise is wasted."