What did the drummer name her twin daughters?
Anna 1, Anna 2.

What’s small and red and has a rough voice?
A hoarse radish!

Whether these jokes made you groan or giggle, undoubtedly a smile crossed your face as the meaning became clear. Research shows that you don’t need a belly laugh to reap the rewards that smiling and laughing bring; it’s the frequency of laughter, not the heartiness or the duration that has the most impact. And smiling is the gateway drug to laughter. Laughing by yourself, even fake laughter, believe it or not, is good for you, and better than not laughing. The fact that we are much more likely to smile and laugh when we are with other people is bolstered by the many and thorough studies on the far-reaching benefits of regular, social interaction. There’s even a name for the study of laughter and its effects on our well-being: gelotology (not to be confused with gelato, the Italian ice cream). But how good is good?

Consider this: it’s been estimated that babies laugh approximately 300 times a day, while the average adult laughs only 30 times a week. That’s no laughing matter. As we grow older, we stop laughing as much and as freely as we once did. There’s certainly an environmental component at work: as we age we’re increasingly aware of the world beyond us, and the emotional weight of sad, terrible, and painful events that happen to us, others, and the natural world, exacts a toll on our ability to find, let alone allow ourselves, a moment of mirth. But our natural inclination to react to something we find humorous is also dampened over the years by doubt and fear. (How young were you the first time you laughed at a joke when no one else did, or said something you thought was witty, but got blank stares, instead?) In groups, we hesitate before reacting, waiting to see how others respond—did they laugh? Or grimace? Even alone, some of us censor ourselves, because laughing out loud, like dining alone, brings on an awkward, self-conscious unease. Jokes, clever or corny, can break through that learned resistance because they lead to smiles, chuckles, giggles, and laughter, as do hanging out with people we find funny.

Laughter’s reputation as an effective part of the healing process dates back to before the common era, but modern science has just gotten around to proving it with hard numbers. In 1974, JD Laird attached electrodes to participants’ eyebrows, jaws, and both sides of their mouths, asking them to contract the set of muscles when stimulated by the electrode as they watched cartoons to test the hypothesis that a manipulated smile influenced how funny participants found the cartoons. Later experiments looked to see what effect, if any, a forced smile would have. One experiment showed that participants whose smiles were artificially induced by holding the chopstick in their teeth, found the cartoons more humorous than the participants who held the chopstick in their lips. You can try a simplified version of it yourself, no electrodes needed: hold a chopstick between your lips, while reading this joke to yourself:

Why do hummingbirds hum?
Because they don’t know the words!

Now move the chopstick and hold it between your teeth while reading the same joke. Notice a difference? When the pencil is between your lips, you’re involuntarily frowning, but holding it in your teeth makes you involuntarily smile because it pulls back the corners of your lips.

Studies continue to show that laughter has the potential for myriad therapeutic applications, such as: generally reducing symptoms of depression, dementia, and insomnia; decreasing anxiety, depression and stress in cancer patients; improving pain tolerance, learning ability and memory; and increasing sociability and communication in people with mild dementia. Because of the positive associations we have with sunshine and smiles, inspirational messages coupled with the image of a smiling sun have been found to elevate mood and reduce agitation. One 2019 study even showed that participating in a laughter yoga group did more to diminish the severity of symptoms in participants with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), than anti-anxiety-medication groups or control groups.

Already, as a result of promising research and reams of anecdotal evidence, laughter is being integrated into holistic approaches to medical treatment. Hospitals, for example, have regularly scheduled clown visits (and not just for the pediatric floor), while laughter yoga is already used in many therapeutic practices to treat trauma, and in corporate and university settings to address anxiety and stress. Despite encouraging results tying laughter to positive health outcomes, most studies have been quite small, with fewer than several hundred participants.

More rigorous and large-scale studies are needed to definitively assign health benefits to laughter. According to Age Watch, a watchdog group that reviews health information for older adults, one such evidence-based research project that has more conclusively proven a correlation between laughter and heart disease and stroke is a Japanese study published in 2020 of 20,000 community-dwelling older Japanese adults, age 65 and older. After adjusting for those with depression, this study found that how often people laughed each day was the key factor associated with “a lower prevalence of cardiovascular diseases.”

So should you take a laughter yoga class, practice laughing when you’re alone, seek out the company of funny friends, or sign up for an app that sends you daily jokes and positive messages designed to make you smile?

All of the above. There is enough evidence to prove a positive impact on good health and overall well-being… and no evidence shows that laughing and smiling can hurt. Of all the preventative measures we can take to “alleviate,” “minimize,” or “lower the risk of” any number of health concerns, laughter is simple and free. Until the hard numbers roll in, there’s no harm, only fun, in letting yourself laugh.

Now, what do you call a magician who loses his magic?
Ian.