10 Health Benefits of Memes: How Laughter Can Improve Your Life

You may be wondering what memes have to do with your health in the world. Memes are a form of entertainment that is enjoyed by people all over the world. But did you know that they can also improve your life? Memes are a great way to make you laugh, and laughter has many health benefits. In this blog post, we will discuss 10 of the health benefits of memes. You will be surprised at how good they are for you!

1. Aids in the treatment of mental illnesses

Memes have been shown to help people with depression, bipolar disorder, and other related afflictions. This is because memes force us to take a step back from our thoughts and social engagements to view them on an entirely different plane. Because memes are often nonsense or based on observational humor, they make us think about things differently. Many meme communities' preferred types of content are satirical or self-deprecating, which can also be therapeutic for those with depression or low self-esteem. This allows them to observe their own posts with a bit more distance while getting in some laughs simultaneously.

2. Reduces anxiety

Studies suggest that finding humor in one's life can significantly reduce stress and anxiety. This is more easily done when we're not the ones responsible for providing said humor, especially in a work environment where we're often under pressure to appear professional and serious at all times. When we recognize something absurd or ridiculous and pass it along to others instead of bottling it up inside of ourselves, we can make people laugh while assuaging some of our own anxieties at the same time.

3. Increases mental acuity

Memes often take advantage of people's abilities to make connections between seemingly disconnected ideas, such as puns and double meanings (e.g., "Haters gonna hate" combined with an image of Taylor Swift; "This dress looks great on me…it would be even better on the floor" combined with an image of a dress). Because they are so absurd, memes challenge our brains to look for new solutions to old problems. Our brains are forced to work harder than usual as it tries to figure out how two or more concepts can be combined into something humorous or ironic. Sherry Turkle, professor at MIT, says that people often become stumped by these types of ambiguities because their brains have not yet evolved past rudimentary neural networks that cannot yet solve complex tasks without much effort.

4. Increases dopamine levels

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter responsible for feelings of pleasure and happiness. It can easily be activated through social media use, which is why many people feel the urge to check Facebook every five minutes (or why they become distraught when their internet connection goes down). However, the dopamine released by seeing our posts or content goes "viral" can be counteracted by the negative emotions that come with envy and FOMO.

5. Improves memory

Memes can act as triggers for memories of things we saw in our pasts. According to some studies, this is because many sensory memories are stored in different brain parts, unlike facts or information that are more readily accessible. This means that it takes extra effort on our part to recall where and when we first encountered a given meme. While this may result in us having to spend unnecessary time remembering how long ago we first saw an obscure image macro, it also means that we naturally recall our pasts more vividly.

6. Increases social skills

Social media is all about sharing and communicating with others, which results in us becoming better at it. For example, when we upload a photo on Instagram for the explicit purpose of sharing it with people online (rather than keeping it private or using it as wallpaper), we become accustomed to thinking of angles and lighting that wouldn't occur to us if we were taking pictures for some other reason (i.e., if we weren't concerned with how many likes or comments said the picture would get). Another way memes help increase our social skills is by strengthening our desire to be entertained and liked by others through mechanisms such as the bandwagon effect, conformity, and prestige-enforcing behaviors.

7. Increases perspective-taking and empathy

Memes can result in a more empathetic outlook than we would otherwise have if we didn't spend so much time online. This is because sharing memes allows us to read other people's stories and jokes, which gives us a better understanding of their experiences and opinions. By "becoming" the person or group of people that produced such memes, we increase our knowledge about how they feel and what they think on specific topics—and this new perspective may just change the way we look at things as well.

8. Relieves boredom

People often resort to browsing the web when they're bored out of their minds for lack of anything else to do. While scrolling through Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media site will probably end up making things worse; memes sometimes act as welcome distractions. That is because they often comment on events (e.g., polar vortex ) that are important to us but don't demand much focus or attention. Hence, we can easily waste time scrolling through memes while still remaining somewhat productive.

9. Increases creativity

While memes may seem like a waste of time to some, others argue that they are actually more beneficial than harmful. For instance, people who make these humorous pieces by recycling stock photos and phrases end up learning a great deal about what works and doesn't work when it comes to coming up with jokes or stories for an audience that is already familiar with the concept being conveyed. They also improve their communication skills in general by making memes that other people will find amusing. This increases creativity among meme creators because it forces them to think outside the box whenever they encounter a problem, such as inserting comic sans into a comic strip without completely ruining its aesthetics.

10. Boosts mood

Memes help us feel better by making us laugh or smile. They especially make good pick-me-ups when we're feeling down about something since humor is one of the best remedies for stress reduction. It also helps to know that laughter reduces cortisol levels, a hormone associated with stress. Nevertheless, you should still avoid being around memes all day because they may lead to addiction.