All you ever wanted to know about laughing (and more!)

What is a laugh?
Do other animals laugh?
What makes us laugh?
What happens to our body when we laugh?
Why is laughing important?
Does laughing keep us healthy?
Who laughs more, men or women?
Who jokes more at work, bosses or other workers?
Do groups with jokers get less work done?
Do laugh tracks make us laugh more?
What's the most important quality for success in telling a joke well?

1. What Is A Laugh?
Physiologically, laughing is a series of spasmodic and partly involuntary expirations with odd vocalizations, normally indicative of merriment. Often, laughing is a hysterical manifestation or a reflex result of tickling. Normal laughing is of two types. These are mild laughter (when there is an occasion to laugh lightly or moderately) and hearty laughter (when there is an occasion to laugh more vigorously). Abnormal laughing is of three types: compulsive, forced, and obsessive--for which there is no occasion.

2. Do Other Animals Laugh?
The human is the only animal that we know for sure laughs. But we really would have to ask other animals about this.

3. What Makes Us Laugh?
Other than simple tickling, laughing is based on fear. Fear of loss of dignity, social embarrassment, exclusion from the group, being fooled/exploited, death, injury, or sex. The more anxiety-prone the subject is, the better it is as a subject for humor. Different societies find different things funny. So do different generations within a society. There is a fine line between comedy and tragedy, between the funny and the sad, between what makes us laugh and what makes us cry, between pleasure and pain. This is why watching someone slip on a banana skin is universally funny: Someone else loses their dignity--and that's better than it happening to us. In one US study, it was found that people laughed due to the following: 31 per cent of laughter was caused by wisecracks, put-downs, clever remarks, and the stupidity of others, 21 per cent by odd incidents and situations, 20 per cent by TV, movies, and plays, 15 per cent by a happy mood in general, and 13 per cent by actions and antics of others. (Of course, the sense of humor of Americans differs from that of all other peoples. For example, they think their TV sitcoms are actually funny.)

4. What Happens To Our Body When We Laugh?
When you give way to laughter, electrical impulses are triggered by nerves in the brain. These set off chemical reactions in the brain and elsewhere in the body. For example, your endocrine system orders your brain to secrete natural tranquilizers and painkillers. Other released chemicals aid digestion. Still others make arteries contract and relax and improve blood flow. Laughing may not be the best medicine, but it's certainly a good one.

5. Why Is Laughing Important?
Among other things, laughing restores balance and equilibrium. Charles Darwin argued that it helps us discharge surplus tension and mental excitation. Freud argued that laughter helps us deal with lustful thoughts. Laughing is important to our very survival. Laughing starts when we are about six weeks old. Darwin argued that a baby laughing gives pleasure to the caretaker and thus helps lessen the likelihood of parental rejection--both aiding personal and species survival.

6. Does Laughing Keep Us Healthy--Even Make Us Well?
Absolutely. Biochemically, laughter reduces the body's production of cortisol. It is known that cortisol suppresses the body's immune system. Thus, by laughter, the body's immune system is left unimpeded by cortisol. In particular, the immune booster, interlukin-2 is allowed to express itself without being inhibited by cortisol. Furthermore, research shows that when we laugh, our metabolism rate picks-up, muscles are massaged and stimulated, and a variety of biochemical substances rush into the bloodstream. Studies have demonstrated that, after a period of laughing, subjects not only feel momentarily relaxed, but they also have fortified themselves against depression, heart disease, and heightened their pain-resistance.

7. Who Laughs More, Men Or Women?
Studies show that men and women laugh just about equally. It has been found that men tell jokes far more often than women. But women smile more often than men. (Are women smiling at the men's jokes?)

8. Who Jokes More At Work, Bosses Or Other Workers?
This may come as a surprise, but a number of university studies have found that bosses joke more than other workers. For example, in a US study of staff meetings at Boston General Hospital, it was discovered that the senior doctors joked more often than the junior doctors and that the junior doctors joked more than the paramedics below them.

9. Do Groups With Jokers Get Less Work Done?
Quite the opposite. In an experiment conducted at the University of California at Los Angeles, it was found that groups that contained a frequently funny and witty person worked better on problem-solving tasks, worked better together, and were overall more productive than groups that had no "joker".

10. Do Laugh Tracks Make Us Laugh More?
The TV industry continues to debate whether canned laughter makes a show funnier. In a UK experiment, subjects listening to tape-recorded jokes laughed more when there was a laugh track in the background. However, even though they laughed more, when the subjects rated the jokes, they did not rate the jokes as any funnier than when there was no laugh track.

11. What's The Most Important Quality For Success In Telling A Joke Well?
First of all, the joke has to be funny. Professional comedians usually recommend that you always tell a joke while standing up. That way you can use your body much easier when you have illustrate something. Beyond this, when you tell a joke, you need a lively way of talking that's more relaxed and varied in pitch than when you're talking about serious matters. Of course, a sense of humor is important too, also a sense of timing, a good memory, brevity of expression (make all words count), self-confidence, an outgoing manner, a quick wit, and sensitivity to the nature of the audience. (For example, don't make World War II jokes in Berlin. "Don't mention the War!" as Basil Fawlty might say.)