Go Ahead, Laugh a Little. It's No Joke That It's Really Good For You

Among the criteria that people have for choosing a mate (oh, right, like you don't have any?), it's surprising that a good sense of humor doesn't get more play. Not just a good sense of humor, but having the ability to make your partner/lover/the one you're with really laugh. That deep down belly laugh that, it turns out, is doing us more good than say, staring at the object of your affection's pin-up girl looks or handsomeness.

Dr. Tian Dayton writes in a piece for the Huffington Post that laughter has major health benefits and presents the idea that we may very well be able to laugh our way to better health and fitness. For example, laughing can:

• relax your muscles
• reduce stress hormones
• alleviate pain
• elevate the immune system
• cleanse the lungs from deep respiration
• act as a type of cardiac exercise by being equivalent to "internal jogging."

Additionally, laughter works our brains as well by stimulating the frontal lobe, which is "involved in social emotional responses."  The brainwave activity gets spread around to other hemispheres of the brain, engaging them while you "get" the joke.

With myriad YouTube videos out there with all manner of things to make you giggle, turns out that laughter might be the medicine after all.

Photo courtesy of Uschi Hering@sxc.hu