psychology life facts.

Laughter.

1) A small dose of humor can increase immunological functioning.

2) Although we can force smiles and trick our brains into thinking we are happy, we cannot actually force laughter. You can emit something that sounds a lot like laughter, but you are not tricking your brain whatsoever (and you’re probably not tricking those around you either!)

3) Believe it or not, there really is a science to laughing. In fact, the science of laughing and it’s effects on the body is referred to as Gelotology.

4) Familiarity is a key part of humor and laughter, and research shows people find jokes told by famous comedians to be funnier than the same joke told by someone they’re not familiar with.

5) Frequent and whole-hearted laughter actually helps your body to fight off harmful diseases. By altering the levels of cortisol in your body, laughing lowers our levels of stress and fights off things that might be harmful to us.

6) Humans are not the only beings that laugh. Although less obvious to detect, many animals also experience something similar to laughter. Start watching out for your furry friends – turns out, they might actually be laughing at you after all.

7) Humans can detect smiles from more than 300 feet away, which developed out of a need to be able to distinguish friend from foe.

8) In a review of more than 3,700 newspaper personal ads, Dr. Provine revealed that women were 62 percent more likely to mention laughter, including seeking a mate with a sense of humor, while men were more likely to offer humor in their ads.

9) In studies that looked at laughter in adults versus children, it was found that kids tend to laugh about three times more than adults. Think like a kid and learn to enjoy yourself a little!

10) Just as children laugh more than adults, surveys have shown that women tend to laugh slightly more than their male counterparts. Maybe women are really the ones with the senses of humor!

11) Laughing can create an instant bond between individuals. When you laugh as a group or with someone else, we feel a natural connection to those people and it can alleviate some of the social stress that being around new people might create.

12) Laughing for 15 minutes burns up to 40 calories. So what are you waiting for? Start laughing :)

13) Laughing is a pretty good workout! When you laugh, you are strengthening muscles in your face, stomach, and diaphragm. It’s no substitute for the gym, but a bit of laughter does do the body good!

14) Laughing is beneficial for your short-term memory and stress levels.

15) Laughter Enhances Immunity, Improves Sleep, and More happiness.

16) Laughter during negotiations increases the likelihood of small concessions.

17) Laughter really is contagious. Ever wonder why television shows often play a “laugh track” after a funny moment? Even when we do not see where the source of the laughter is, simply hearing laughter can be contagious.

18) Not a coffee drinker? That’s okay! Laughing shortly after you wake up can have similar effects to drinking a cup of coffee. Next time you laugh right after getting up, notice how refreshing it feels.

19) Piggy-backing on doing your body good, for every fifteen minutes of solid full-body laughing you do, you can burn up to 40 calories! Dieting? Get to laughing!

20) Research by Dr. Provine found that women laugh 126 percent more than men in cross-gender conversations, with men preferring to be the one prompting the laughter.

21) Research shows that couples who use laughter and smile when discussing a touchy subject feel better in the immediacy and report higher levels of satisfaction in their relationship. They also tend to stay together longer.

22) Smiling is a form of exercise!It takes 26 muscles to smile – so work out your face!

23) Smiling makes you look prettier. Studies have proven that 70% of people find smiling faces to be better-looking than faces with makeup. So keep Smilling always:)

24) Some studies have reported that laughing for at least fifteen minutes can add around 2 days to your overall lifespan. Live long and…laugh! :)

25) Studies show that while individuals usually rank “appearance” as very high on their list when looking for a mate, we tend to find individuals who laugh more attractive.

26) The average person laughs around 13 times a day. Oddly enough, very few of those times are due to a joke or an intentional action. More often, we laugh at chance happenings or things that were never intended to be funny in the first place.

27) We laugh up to 30 times more when we are in the company of others than when we are by ourselves. When they say that laughter is contagious, they were really right!

28) When a group of people laugh, each member of the group will instinctively look at the person they feel closest to.

29) Women and men differ in laughter. When women are talking, men and women audiences laugh less than when men are talking.When women are speaking to an audience of one or more men, women laughed more than twice as much as the men. Scientists have shown that these gender differences emerge in kids as young as 6 years old.

30) Your Brain Can Detect Fake Laughter.Your brain automatically goes to work deciphering why someone is deliberately laughing.

31) You’re much more likely to laugh in the presence of others, if others are laughing, and if you’re familiar with the comedian.

32) laughing increases our short-term pain tolerance.

33) laughter functions to create social bonds.