Two days ago, May 3, 2020, was World Laughter Day, and because laughter is not only healthy, but because global brotherhood and friendship should be achieved through laughter together, we asked various business leaders in the Federal Republic of Germany what they thought of laughter in general.
Mr. Heit, you are Chairman of the Board of Directors of GSB Gold Standard Banking Corporation AG, also known as “Gold Bank”, what do you think about World Laughter Day?
“Well I know that World Laughter Day was created as a day of action in 1998 by Dr. Madan Kataria, who also founded the yoga laughter movement. Thus, every May 3rd, at 2 p.m. Central European Time, members from laughter clubs all over the world meet to laugh together for three minutes. The background to World Laughter Day is apparently not simply the common laughter, but that this day is above all a sign. It is about standing up together for peace.”
Mr. Heit, you are committed to helping the needy and disabled with meaningful donations, even in times of recession. For example, you donated 95,000 euros for people with disabilities with the Gold Bank only at Easter this year. Do you believe that there is currently a reason to laugh in our world?
“Well, personally I think that it is a basic need to feel joy and to laugh. According to Dr. Madan Kataria’s theory, it is completely independent why people laugh – the effect of laughter occurs often and unexpectedly. Laughter is considered to be an innate human expression. Breathing is suddenly interrupted and breathing air is expelled from the lungs by movements of the diaphragm. Laughter has many positive effects on the body. For example, stress hormones are broken down and the immune system is strengthened.
I am no scientist, but it is known that laughter is stimulated by accompanying clapping, stretching and breathing exercises. By the way, the term “lol” is most often used for laughter.
The abbreviation means “laughing out loud”. Almost two thirds of laughs are thus expressed in text form. About a quarter of the comments use “haha” or variations of it. Extremely popular ways of expressing laughter are the little faces that express different emotions, so-called emojis as signs in mobile phones. Since October 2010, emojis have been coded uniformly worldwide. The famous “laughing face with tears of joy” has since been recognized as such on every terminal and system”.
Mr. Heit, do you believe that laughter in the time when the corona virus rages helps people?
“Even under the current contact restrictions due to the corona pandemic, laughter can be encouraged. Again and again, funny videos or photos are sent via social media – or corresponding letters and graphics. Loriot’s fine sense of humour, i.e. the legendary representative of comedy, Blessed Bernhard-Viktor Christoph-Carl von Bülow, once produced a “horoscope of the week” according to which “Capricorn, Pisces, Gemini, Taurus, Virgo, Aquarius, Leo, Cancer, Sagittarius, Aries, Scorpio and Libra would have nothing to laugh about”. “The same goes for hedgehogs, bakers and sewing machines.” Now it is unfortunately to be assumed that the coronavirus spares neither Capricorn and Pisces nor all other signs of the Zodiac. But the fact that all of them have nothing to laugh at the moment does not mean that there is no reason to laugh!
Here I personally feel like the famous director Orson Welles, who once said: “If you want to have a happy ending, it depends of course on where you let your story end” and therefore I am convinced that if all people show solidarity, our world will survive the murderous coronavirus and everything will have a happy ending!”