Can You Laugh to Death?

straight laughter — not the strained , polite variant you find in function , or the monotone guffawing you hear on comedy podcasts , but actual , nonvoluntary , gasping laugh — is an escape from death , or at least the apprehensiveness of it : you’re able to think about death while laughing hysterically , can even , if you ’re a sociopath , watch someone break while laugh hysterically , but it ’s safe to say that , in that moment , your own decease will not seem so fearful . And so of course the question is : can the turn of laughing itself kill you , specifically with an aneurism or a heart attempt ? For this week’sGiz Asks , we reached out to a number of doctors to find out out .

Jorge Antonio Gutierrez

Assistant Professor , Cardiology , Duke University School of Medicine

Overall , the answer is no . express joy can increase your intrathoracic pressure , and if you have an aortic aneurysm , that pressure can be convey into your vascular system , and it would rupture . But in that pillow slip , you just happened to laugh : the laughing did n’t get you . Somebody can have a heart attack while they ’re laughing , but they were sound to have a marrow attack no matter what .

But there are association . A recent paper in the Journal of Epidemiology at how often 17,000 people laughed , and it showed that mass who laughed less were more probable to snuff it , and the risk of cardiovascular events was high in those who laughed less .

Illustration: Benjamin Currie (Gizmodo)

Other than that I know of one case and one shell only in the aesculapian literature in which somebody died laughing . It is cardiovascular in nature . A 50 year old woman was on medication for schizophrenia , and sometimes these medications can lead to an irregular heart - beat . She was tell she needed to stop the medicine for this understanding , because she was at risk for cardiac expiry . But she did n’t take the advice . Later , she was at home , and someone made a joke . She laughed for two or three minutes and then return out and died . The laughter triggered an cardiac arrhythmia : she really died laughing .

Dana Abendschein

Associate Professor of Medicine , Cell Biology and Physiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis

If the laughing rush persistent laryngospasm [ i.e. , the sudden prehend up of the vocal chord , which can stymie the flow of air into the lung ] , it is imaginable that the heart could be deprive of oxygen , resulting in a lethal cardiac arrhythmia ( i.e. , ventricular fibrillation , like what occur when masses have ‘ sudden decease ’ during a heart attack ) . So unless someone started CPR in good order away and shocked the affection with a defibrillator , the person could ‘ conk from laughing . ’

Another possibility along the same lines of laryngospasm would be if the somebody was laughing while use up and aspirate food for thought into the trachea lug the airway . Someone doing the Heimlich Maneuver could possibly relieve the obstructer , otherwise the result would be the same as above , because the heart would be deprived of atomic number 8 and either stop stick or develop fibrillation .

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

Ronald L. Dalman

Professor , Surgery , Stanford University

Not in all likelihood , especially if you are otherwise healthy . sure individuals with inherited defect in collagen yield or cross - linking , such as type IV Ehlers Danlos or Marfan Syndromes , could potentially develop an aneurism if their line of descent pressure level were to rise significantly while straining or holding their breath . This scenario could lift during “ hard laughing . ” I had a patient with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome develop life threatening interior bleeding from a ruptured artery while in a dentist ’s office , maybe due to gagging or coughing during a dental procedure .

That say : could you laugh so heavily that you “ rupture ” an exist aneurysm ?

William Duplessie

Yes , possibly . Especially if you have a large abdominal or thoracic aortic aneurysm , visceral artery aneurism , or intracranial aneurism . Hard laughing may increase blood pressure , which could precipitate rupture in an existing aneurism if it was far enough advanced . Rupture of previously symptomless intracranial cerebral aneurysms — this occur most tragically in young , otherwise sound women . No one have a go at it on the dot what precipitate snap in an existing aneurysm — it is a combining of increasing weakness in the arterial / aortic wall , combine with luminal pressure and hemodynamic forces inside the touched section of arterial blood vessel . A patient of mine once rupture his abdominal aortic aneurism watching Monday Night Football with friends at home , so : possible .

Could you express joy so severely you “ analyze ” you aorta ? Again yes , potential , especially if you have inveterate high line pressure or transmissible sensitivity for thoracic aortal aneurism or dissections ( TAAD ) . Dissections are knifelike aortic emergencies where blood gets in - between the layers of the aorta , causing the aortic wall to separate and tear along its length , create two or more lumen for blood line flow where only one existed before . The terms “ dissection ” and “ aneurysm ” are frequently confused — dissections can subvert the aorta , predisposing to previous aneurism formation . Aneurysms falling out but very rarely cause dissections . John Ritter died of complications of an aortic dissection . George C. Scott and Albert Einstein die of ruptured aortic aneurism . Dissection is common in Asia ( China / Japan ) due to autochthonous high descent pressure . Dissections can have lethal event without cause break if the dissection obstruct blood period to the brain or other decisive organs , but dissection can cause acuate break of a break aorta as well , even in the absence of an aneurysm .

Both ruptured aneurysm and acute dissection are extremely painful and frequently deadly . In that sense , neither are “ laughing matters . ”

Starship Test 9