Laughter Toxicity

I love to laugh; it is better than chocolate in my opinion. In college, I wrote a research paper on laughter and discovered that laughter has been proven to actually work like a medicine.  At the time I wrote my paper, there were laughter clubs in India.  They got together in the park, much like exercise groups would, and they laughed.  They tried to tell jokes in the beginning, but they ran out and discovered that you can make yourself laugh and it works just as well.  I am currently in the process of updating my research, and I see that there is now laughter yoga. The goal of http://www.laughteryoga.org is to bring "good health, joy, and WORLD PEACE through laughter".  Laughter knows no language barriers. 

The last three years have been stressful years, and I started this year with the goal of laughing more. I tried to incorporate things in my life that would make me laugh because I know that laughter releases the bad stress from your body. It just seems like life continued to distract me from laughing. Apparently the average four year old laughs about 300 times a day and the average 40 year old laughs only four according to Psychology Today. These statistics differ depending on what authority you are reading, but they all agree that children laugh vastly more than adults. I do believe I am above average in the laughing department, but I do allow the stress of my life to dictate how much I laugh. 

This past week I went to church camp. When you go to church camp, you always expect to get spiritually pumped up, and I did. I didn't expect to develop "laughter toxicity!" I was sitting around talking with some friends and one of my friends was telling the story of how a poor little girl was stuck in the bathroom stall with no TP. She kept hollering and begging for some TP and nobody would pay attention. I had walked in about this time and finally my friend was handing her a roll of TP over the stall and I noticed it was the wet roll. The thought then went through my mind "Oh no, that is the wet roll.  Why did I not throw that away? I have picked it up and put it back down about ten times. Did I think it was gonna dry out?" Then the little girl cries out plaintively "This TP is wet!"  For some reason this story struck me as hilarious. I was trying to tell my side of the story and I got so tickled that I laughed harder than I have laughed in ages. I lost my breath, I cried, and just could not stop. Everyone was amazed. They hadn't seen me laugh like that and teasingly wondered if I was drunk.  I did eat a Rainbow Pop right before, and it may have gotten blamed for it. In fact, the Rainbow Pop sales shot up after that. It felt so good to laugh, and I still felt the effects of it the next day. I am actively trying to make myself laugh, even if there is nothing funny. Who says you need funny stuff to make you laugh. Just smile and fake a good belly laugh, and you will probably start laughing for real.  I promise you, that if you ever laugh so hard you cry, you will feel better than drunk and the hangover will be glorious. 

Here's the link to my research paper on Laughter
Laughter: Is it Healthy?
http://home.hiwaay.net/~garson/laughter.htm