Ritual, connection and healing: laughter is a tool for 2023

“Behold, then, appearing out of nowhere, a strange figure appears with a silver wig, a fabric wrapped around her hips like a miniskirt, a sinuous walk with her knees tightly glued together, half snake and half woman. approaches and stands in line between the women. Their dancing is also subtle, with a slight exaggeration, in imitation of what the women do, but with a playful and sly tone. The women all try to keep up the chant, but it is noticeable that they are dying of laughter, as well as the men and all the rest of the tribe who watch the ritual.”

The words express the charm of the clown Ricardo Puccetti, a researcher at Lume Teatro, when he watched a hotxuá perform during the recording of the documentary that portrays this figure in the daily life of the Krahô people, in Tocantins.

In the Krahô people and in communities originating in North America, there is still the sacred clown, responsible for causing laughter in everyday life, which disappeared in other communities over time.

Puccetti reports that comic manifestations emerged with the human being and were part of rituals. Only later were they delimited to some spaces. “Japanese theater, Indian theater, Greek theater emerge. The performing arts are no longer something everyday to become specific moments, in spectacles in which one performs and the others watch.”

If in the arts the movement was from the broad to the restricted space, in science the path was the opposite. Only in the last few centuries have laughter and smiling aroused greater interest among researchers.

It was in the 19th century, for example, that the French physician Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne discovered, based on experiments with shocks to the muscles of the face, that a true smile is symmetrical and is not limited to the mouth.

“The movement, when authentic, is combined with the contraction of the musculature around the eyes (orbicularis oculi muscle), which also raises the cheekbones and wrinkles the skin at the corners of the eyes”, writes psychiatrist Daniel Martins de Barros , collaborating professor at the Faculty of Medicine of USP, in the book “Laughing is Necessary”.

The work, says the author, is a way of highlighting the power of laughter and giving us tools to get back on our feet, rebuild relationships and recover our positive emotions after the pandemic.

“When we laugh, we signal that everything is fine, we send a message of tranquility even in a bad situation. Finding positive aspects even in adverse situations is very important to move forward, and laughter is a way to stimulate this”, he says.

An example of this, mentions Barros, is the tumble. The fall generates moments of tension, but if the person gets up and smiles, it calms the others down. It may not be the best scenario – she may have broken her skin, ripped her clothes – but the smile signals that everything will be fine.

how to laugh

To laugh during the day you need a good night’s rest. “We are in a society that is not very sleep-friendly. Due to the amount of activities, people are cutting back on their hours of rest, but that comes at a price”, recalls physician Gustavo Moreira, a researcher at the Sleep Institute.

He explains that sleep impacts cardiac and respiratory functions, metabolism and intellectual activity, including concentration and performance. When we sleep badly, brain functions are altered and, in addition to drowsiness during the day, we can have mood problems. In these situations, small annoyances take on big proportions and a towel out of place, for example, can be enough to start a fight. “Sleeping well is essential to stay in a good mood”, says Moreira.

Generally, an adult needs between six and ten hours of sleep, with around 70% of people needing between seven and nine hours. Waking up feeling rested, without a headache or body pain, and remaining alert during the day are indications that sleep is adequate, even if mood varies throughout the day according to the type of profile.

Morning people, says Moreira, start to get sleepy and in a bad mood when it gets dark, while for afternoon people the first hours of the morning are more difficult and it is at the end of the day that they are in a better mood.

The second step to laughing is to observe the other. “The great power of laughter, of humor, comes from its ability to connect us and we realize this because we are looking at each other, paying attention”, highlights Barros. “Laughter is much easier, more intense and more effective when it is shared, when we laugh together and the laughter reverberates in the group.”

If someone is being excluded, feeling bad, it’s a sign that the mood has been negative or aggressive – and that changes over time. What was funny in the past can now be considered an offense, as society changes.

There is, however, the timeless humor. “History changes, customs change, what is acceptable or not. But the great ones go beyond that. Chaplin, for example, works on the relationship of power. O Gordo e O Magro work with failure, with mistakes, with our inability to control life, something very human”, analyzes Puccetti.

For him, clowning is a trade, an art and, above all, a territory. It is a place where the world is experienced from a different perspective. There is the principle of reinventing things, seeing from other angles, relating to objects and spaces in a different way, which rescues the strength of playing that we lose as we grow up.

The clown then recalls an experience in the psychiatric ward of a hospital. He arrived at the place and began to interact with the space, the chair and the suitcase he had taken. Gradually, a patient approached and began to speak.

“He talked non-stop and we formed a pair. When it was over, a psychiatrist came to talk to me. He asked what I had done because that patient had been there for some time and didn’t say anything. That’s not me. That’s the strength of this joke , of this game where you don’t police yourself and simply exist. That’s what I see in terms of healing in clowning work. You get to touch this universality of the human and then it’s healing. There’s no way it can’t be healing and necessary in some way.”