Shit ! Turns Out, You Can Die of Laughter 🤣 —Here’s What You Need to Know

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Apr 18, 2025 10:19 AM

LAUGHING is something you do with virtually no thought. Your friend tells a funny joke? You chuckle and don’t think twice about it. And there’s a reason for the adage “laughter is the best medicine”—research shows it has plenty of benefits, like boosting your overall mood and reducing depression, anxiety, and stress.

But sometimes, laughing can be dangerous. While it’s highly unlikely, laughing too hard could lead to negative effects in your body—including death. Laughing itself can’t kill you, yet a health condition triggered by laughter might. According to experts, medical events like fainting, cardiac arrest, asthma attacks, and seizures can all indeed occur—and have potentially serious consequences. If you’re concerned, speak with your doctor for a personalized assessment.

Chances are, your natural reaction to watching your favorite comedian isn’t fatal. But here are a few unusual instances when a fit of the giggles can result in death.

1. Fainting

While it’s rare, one of the most common medical events induced by laughter is syncope—AKA fainting, according to Megan Y. Kamath, M.D., assistant clinical professor of medicine at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine.

“This is thought to be related to the movement of the chest cavity that laughing really hard can cause, affecting the vagus nerve—which is the nerve that helps coordinate the heart brain connection,” Dr. Kamath says

In other words, your brain sends signals to your heart and vasculature to slow down and dilate your blood vessels, resulting in a slower-than-normal heart rate, low blood pressure, and ultimately passing out, explains Eric D. Braunstein, M.D., a staff physician at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s Smidt Heart Institute.

“Really, really rarely, you might see a person who experiences this from laughing. Every time they’ll laugh, they’ll get this syncope event,” Dr. Braunstein says. “Those are typically not dangerous. They tend to be self-limited, so you’ll pass out, but then wake up 10, 20, or 30 seconds later. You might feel a little groggy, but then you go back to normal.”

In order to have a chance of dying from laughter-induced fainting, a second thing has to happen, Dr. Braunstein explains—you pass out, fall, and crack your head open, for instance. Rest assured this is rare, and “it would be really horrible luck for that to happen,” he says.

2. Asthma Attack

“Significant movement of the chest cavity with laughter can also trigger breathing difficulty, leading to an asthma attack,” Dr. Kamath says. This type of respiratory distress can result in not enough oxygen getting to your airways, which could potentially be deadly if it goes on for a prolonged amount of time.

3. Sudden Cardiac Arrest

“Laughter causing a surge in adrenaline has been thought to be a primary driving factor of rare sudden cardiac arrest events following uncontrolled laughter,” Dr. Kamath says.

In fact, a 2012 case report in the Annals of Internal Medicine details an instance where a woman with an uncommon form of ventricular tachycardia (fast heart rhythm that begins in your heart ventricles) and long QT syndrome (a heart rhythm disorder that causes a fast, chaotic heartbeat) collapsed and died after an intense bout of laughter after taking an antipsychotic medication called Ziprasidone.

Additionally, if you have Angelman syndrome (a genetic condition that causes developmental disabilities and nerve-related issues), laughing can cause asystolic arrest, where your heart stops beating entirely, according to a 2013 research article in the BMJ.

4. Gelastic Seizure

Gelastic seizures are associated with unprovoked, uncontrollable laughter, per the 2013 BMJ research article. These types of seizures begin in the hypothalamus, an area at the base of the brain, according to the Epilepsy Foundation, and are sometimes caused by non-cancerous brain tumors on the hypothalamus, per Cedars-Sinai. However, in the rare instance the tumor is cancerous, it could result in death.



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