Straight from the happiness lore Some sayings have been with us so long that their origins are now wholly forgotten. Popular aphorisms such as "It takes 43 muscles to frown and only 17 to smile" claiming that a greater number of facial muscles are needed to produce a frown than to generate a smile are [...]
For the children: If it was true then children awake 12 hours per day would be laughing at least once every 1-2 minutes from sunrise till sunset. For the adults: Studies are limited and inconsistent. One research does suggest that adults laugh an average of 17.5 times per day (Martin RA, Kuiper NA. Daily occurrence [...]
The size of that particular research sample was one person. This claim appears to have been initiated in 1969 by a journalist who interviewed Dr. William Fry, a then leading researcher into the psychology of laughter at Stanford University (emeritus professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences). In that interview Dr Fry claimed that the body [...]
In general: Do not be afraid of your tears. Refusing to embrace your shadow is refusing to accept your humanity. It never ends well. In particular: Laughing and crying are very closely related. You cannot stimulate one without stimulating the other. Laughing and crying engage the same set of muscles, only with different contractions: laughing [...]
This is the story of a man who laughed lots, made others laugh, and still felt like dying. Frank used humor, and lots of it. The jokes were on him, all self-deprecating. Truth is, Frank hated himself.
The Nantes Laughter Club is possibly the most successful of its kind in the Western world. The secret is in the team. Here is how they do it.
This article talks about making money as a laughter professional, or rather how very few people actually succeed to have a full time laughter business. There is of course hope and it can be done. Here is how: Practice, persevere, be very patient.
Carmile Gallo in his highly acclaimed book ‘Talk Like TED: The 9 Public Speaking Secrets from World’s Top Minds" (2014), devotes the 6th secret on lightening up with laughter. Here are four simple ways to add more laughter to your speech.
Was Gelos - Greek God of Laughter - also a god of warriors? The answer is not as clear cut as you may think. This article reviews humor in Ancient Greece, and how Sparta - home to its most military organized and brutal people - was one of the only two ancient Greek city-states known to have built a special temple for Gelos in which to worship him. A proposed explanation is that "It is easier to practice psychological honesty about dark aspects of human existence with the protective shield of laughter."
Laughter Yoga advocates childlike playfulness and that is wonderful, but what many don't understand is that playfulness in the world of adults unfolds in at least three distinct stages. First you have to warm up to it, then you have to consolidate it, and then you can do what you want that is outside of [...]
