Free The Definitive Book of Body Language by Barbara Pease, Allan Pease Page B

you what was once described as a “natural high” and is the same experience that drug addicts get when they take dope. People who have trouble with laughing at the tough things in life often turn to drugs and alcohol to achieve the same feeling that endorphin-induced laughter produces. Alcohol loosens inhibitions and lets people laugh more, which releases endorphins. This is why most well-adjusted people laugh more when they drink alcohol, while unhappy people become even more despondent or even violent.
    People drink alcohol and take drugs to try to feel

how happy people feel normally.
     
    Paul Ekman found that one of the reasons we are attracted to smiling and laughing faces is because they can actually affect our autonomic nervous system. We smile when we see a smiling face and this releases endorphins into our system. If you are surrounded by miserable, unhappy people, you are also likely to mirror their expressions and become morose or depressed.
    Working in an unhappy environment is

detrimental to your health.
     

How Jokes Work
     
    The basis of most jokes is that, at the punch line, something disastrous or painful happens to someone. In effect, the unexpected ending “frightens” our brain, and we laugh with sounds similar to a chimp warning others of imminent danger. Even though we consciously know that the joke is not a
real
event, our laugh releases endorphins for self-anesthesis as if the joke is a real event. If it
is
a real event, we may go into crying mode and the body would also release its endorphins. Crying is often an extension of a laughing bout and is why, in a serious emotional crisis, such as hearing about a death, a person who cannot mentally accept the death may begin laughing. When the reality hits, the laughter turns to crying.

     
    The origin of human laughter is as a
primate warning signal
     

The Laughter Room
     
    In the 1980's, several American hospitals introduced the concept of the “Laughter Room.” Based on Norman Cousins's experiencesand other laughter research by Dr. Patch Adams, they allocated a room and filled it with joke books, comedy films, and humorous tapes, and had regular visits from comedians and clowns. Patients were then exposed to thirty- to sixty-minute sessions each day. The result was impressive—a dramatic improvement in patient health and shorter average hospitalization time per patient. The Laughter Rooms also showed a decrease in the number of painkillers required by those in pain, and patients became easier to deal with. So you could say that the medical profession now takes their laughter seriously.
    He who laughs, lasts.
     

Smiles and Laughter Are a Way of Bonding
     
    Robert Provine found that laughing was more than thirty times as likely to occur in participants in a social situation than in a solitary setting. Laughter, he found, has less to do with jokes and funny stories and more to do with building relationships. He found that only 15 percent of our laughter has to do with jokes. In Provine's studies, participants were more likely to speak to themselves when alone than they were to laugh. Participants were videotaped watching a humorous video clip in three different situations: alone, with a same-sex stranger, and with a same-sex friend.
    Only 15 percent of our laughter has to do with

jokes. Laughter has more to do with bonding.
     
    Even though no differences existed between how funny the participants felt the video clip was, those who watched the amusing video clips alone laughed significantly less than did those who watched the video clip with another person present,whether it was a friend or a stranger. The frequency and time spent laughing were significantly greater in both situations involving another person than when the participant was alone. Laughter occurred much more frequently during social interaction. These results demonstrate that the more social a situation is, the more often people will laugh and the longer each laugh will