Laughter: What's so funny about that?

I'll screwed up. For those of you that don't know, I got my own microphone cover because all the other ones your smell bad. So I got one to keep in my drawer, and uh, it's Chuck's. And I'm paranoid that I'm making the microphone cover smell bad. Well there's three of them now, yeah, Well you keep switching them out and I can't smell it. So I'm like, all right, I got something for you. Speaking speaking of you, just laughing right there? You ready for this? Right? What do

you think I have integrity? I'm buying a cinnamon right now. I'm buying a cinnamon at the airport that I arrived at you understand why that's extra disgusting. Right when you're leaving, if you're at your destined you know, when you're at the airport, you're leaving. But you can go like, oh, I gotta eat. I need to do food because I might be trapped in the sky forever, and I obviously to eat right now. But this is I've landed, the

trip is over. Not too shabby. Check. That's the great Louis c. K. If I'm not mistaken, Yes, who I think is one of the funnier people on the planet today. I agree with you. You know, I started as a Saturday Night Live writer. Doesn't surprise me. Um. And that was from his h his special, right, like his like what's it called chewed up? Yes, chewed up? His stand up special? One one of his stands. Very good. Okay,

so I've got one for you. Okay, all right, I mean you couldn't get you to laugh here, listen up, chucker. All right. When I finished, I want to take all my graduation money and buy myself a motorcycle, but my mom said no, she who died in a horrible motorcycle accident when he was eighteen, And I could just have his motorcycle. He's that guy. That's Anthony Jeselnick. He's hilarious. Oh you saw him live, yeah, south By Southwest. Okay, that was that guy. So okay, all right, we're laughing.

This is a pretty good it's a pretty auspicious start to the podcast on how laughter works. Yeah, now we just have to be as funny as Louisa. Kay. Yeah, I don't think we should even try no pressure, Yeah, no, no, I think we should just be ourselves here and explain how after it works. Like this is a robust how stuff works articles. Actually it was written by Marshall Brain himself. Yeah. Um, and he went to town, uh, figuring out exactly how um laughter works why we laugh? And you can't up

with a bunch of really good data on it. We're gonna share here. He gets right into it too. Did you notice that with the joke with nothing man, it was like, oh no, I cut all that out. I think, oh you did. You didn't see the joke about Bill Gates and the president of General Martin. I cut all that out. No, wonder it seemed like he got right into it. Yeah, I cut that part out. Well. Yeah, well,

after after that, after the intro. He does start out with you know, first of all, laughter is not the same as humor and quote uh and that's a pretty good point. Laughter is the physiological response to humor. Right, So humor is a joke or um, Mo Howard slapping Larry Fine, Um, whatever is your bad Tom, you know, chasing Jerry, Jerry makes it into his mousehole and then Tom smacks's face or modaba tenda. That's where I thought you were going when you said Mo, No, Mo Howard

another funny moment, that's mo. What's most last name? Moda tenda? No he has the last name? Does he? Is it? Like? I don't know what it is. His first name is momar, but I can't remember what his last name is. Well anyway, So any of that is humor, and then we respond to in a certain way. And what's awesome is although we can't really say like why things are funny or why we even have a capacity to find things humorous. Um, we have a pretty good understanding of what happens in

the brain, right we do. UM. And we also know that what happens physically, like there's a there's a cascade of events that takes place in a very unfunny way. Um that that starts with your face, right, that's right. Uh. Right off the bat, fifteen facial muscles will contract. It's going to stimulate the zygomatic major muscle, which is the apparently the lifting mechanism of your upper lip. Yeah, and

think about it. When you're trying to stifle laughter, what you're doing is focusing on keeping that muscle from lifting, because once it hits that one point of no return, you're you just crack up. That's right, and that crazy Uh. Your respiratory system is upset, and your epiglottis apparently half closes your larynx, so that's why you sometimes can't catch your breath, and if you really get going, it's gonna

activate your tear ducks. That's why you cry with laughter sometimes. Yes, And I guess those happen in a sequence depending on how hard you're laughing. Right. Um. Not only that you talked about the epiglottis closing the larynx right so that that you're trying to gasp for air, which is also why sometimes you can go for a pretty long period of time without making any sound whatsoever, because you're epiglottis has um completely close to your life. You can't breathe

this right exactly. But when you're when you're drawing in and gasping, it makes the laughter sound right or w whit you snort? Right? Yeah, you don't snort normally when you're walking around, No, it's absolutely true. Um snort. Ever when you laugh sometimes once in a while, Yeah, me too. It's funny. It's such an embarrassing thing too, certainly, like kind of I'm proud of That means I'm really laughing, right sure, um, And when I cry, it means I'm

really laughing. It's wonderful. But um so when when we make this uh, when we're drawing air in right to try to survive and live, um, where we make a sound and we make a certain sound. And what I've what I found is that it's universal. Ho ho ho. I thought you meant when you're breathing or ha ha ha, that's the laugh, right. What's crazy is is it happens like almost universally people say ha ha ha or ho ho ho, right, and they deliver that same laugh at

about the same rate about every two milliseconds. Structure. Yeah, and the h is almost a delivery vehicle for the vowel either the O or the A, the long or the long A or the short am aha ha. I've never paid that much attention to myself. But you don't intermix them ever. No one has ever in the history of humanity ever genuinely intermixed hot and ho into a real laugh. And that interesting it is. And you also have your own signature laugh, just like your voice is

your own, and your hiccupping pattern is your own. It's your laugh generally is the same like it might might range, but that is your laugh. You're never gonna laugh like, Wow, that sounded like someone else all of a sudden, right, Yeah, that'd be weird. My signature laugh is pink. It's really I don't know what that means, but I'm laughing. So um, well,

there there you go. Then it was it was successful. Um. And we also apparently humans have some sort of um laughter detector that as far as I know, since we call it a laughter detector, it means science hasn't figured out what that is yet because that's to do with the brain. But just based on observation, UM, we have an ability to pick up on other people's laughter, and

for some reason that can make us laugh. It's contagious, and as we laugh, it can make the other people laugh and so on, and laughter just kind of keeps going. That's right. Something else interesting about laughter is the more you try to stifle it, say you're trying to really keep your zygomatic major muscle in a relaxed position, the more the funnier the situation becomes. The church, even heathens

know that it's called the church eagle. If you've never setting footed side of church, you still call the church giggles. And I have actually gotten the church giggles in church big Oh yeah, sure, when I was a kid like it. I remember being specifically being a teenager. This one time I got the church kiggles really bad because something a guest preacher said. He misspoke in a funny way and it's something you shouldn't have laughed at, and I couldn't help it, and I literally for like, I had to

excuse myself. I was the only person that had to get up in leave. Did he shout center at you

on your way out? No? No. So one last little universal aspect or pretty much universal aspect of laughter specifically, um, and we should say, like this is based on the article how laughter works, but it includes humor quite a bit as well, but laughter specifically, Uh, there's this aspect of it called the punctuation effect, where it doesn't it doesn't normally I know what you're saying, I know your idea, but it doesn't normally come in the middle of a sentence.

It normally comes at the end of a sentence or the end of a phrase, or in a dead space a period, which hence the name punctuation effect. That's one of those things where I was like, do you really need some researcher to tell you that, like that you laugh after you speak, because you can't do both at

the same time. No, But I think the point is that you're not like most people don't in the middle of a joke laugh and then continue on with the joke, and then laugh and then continue on and then deliver the punch line. And if they do, everybody thinks they're terrible joke teller. Well, if you're laughing at your own joke anyway, probably doing it wrong. Or when um, when uh, Henry Hill and good Fellas, right, he's just ticking off Joe Pesci and he tells him he's a funny guy

and He's like, what am my clown do? I amuse you? You think I'm you think I'm funny? Right, And then like they they the tension is relieved and he jumps on him or no, he doesn't jump on him yet, and he goes, you really are a funny guy, and then they starts laughing again. He didn't go you really are and laugh a funny guy. The punctuation effect. Yeah, I think that's lame. Well, okay, let's move on then to why we laugh like this is a This is

one of the parts where we just don't fully understand. Well, uh, some people have their ideas obviously. Uh. It all goes back to Tuck Tuck, and people think that initially it might have been as a ah, a release of tension

from the passing of danger. Took Tuk and his buddies are sitting around in the saber Tooth Tigers nearby and they are all quiet, and then they think maybe laughter started as a relief that the danger is now gone, or maybe it took Tok farted right afterwards, which is always we had to get one of those in there. Um that Another explanation is that it's a form of social bonding. Sure that you don't really laugh around people

you don't trust. You at the very least, don't genuinely laugh around people you don't trust, right, Yeah, you have to be at ease to laugh. Yes, generally speaking, Um, it's also a means of asserting dominance. As far as I understand that, dominant individuals in societies, whether it be human or maybe chimp, um, the jerks and other words, tend to um create laughter more. But it's not necessarily genuine laughter, not comfortable after it's a way of controlling

the social climate. But as far as genuine laughter goes, there seems to be a necessity for trust and um, there's some sort of positive feedback loop, right where when you laugh with somebody you feel comfortable around them, and they laugh and they feel comfortable around you, and that lettle comfort can lead to more laughter and it's again a positive feedback, and then you're all just having a

rip more good time. Right. And then afterward, after you've shared this experience of these this person, you feel even closer to than than before. That's right, When you share a good laugh with someone, it bonds you. Yeah, I feel that way for sure. So in that sense, it's a social signal. And there's other studies that back up the idea that this it's laughter is expressly designed for the as a social bonding glue. Yeah, you're thirty times more likely apparently to laugh in a social setting than

when you're alone with the TV off. Then again, I wonder about that. It's like, don't you need some sort of stimuli or they did they do? When they did, they didn't have anything on the study, Like did they put someone in a room alone and give them like a funny book or something. I don't understand how that works. Probably Okay, I think that maybe a book um would do it. It says, no pseudo social device like a television, So what are you laughing at? Then? If you're just

in a room. But that's what I'm saying, like, maybe like you, you just are reading jokes on strips of paper, okay, like a bazooka gum jokes nobody laughs at the Yeah, that's that. That explains that. Well. In nitrous oxide, they found German physiologists named Willobald Rook. They he found that laughing gas was even less effective when you're alone. Yeah, which which is true because you're just high. Is that

the deal. Oh yeah, I don't. I can't remember if I ever had laughing gas, to be honest, Oh really no, I've never liked had surgery. You don't necessarily I mean you do kind of laughing. You're funny and everything seems funny. And I have noticed, like when when you're at the dentist, uh, and there, you know, the dentist and the hygienist during

there and they got you like nice and loaded. Everything's kind of funnier and you're talking and all that, and then when they leave and you're by yourself, you're just like looking at the ceiling tile because it looks crazy. But it's not necessarily funny. You should try it, man, it's my whole life free. I hate the dentist too. That would probably change that experience. You'll still hate the dentist, but you'll be like, at least there's this okay, gotcha doctor,

feel good? Uh? It is uh. The study of laughter, Josh has a name, is called gelatology, or it's g lotology. That's the physiological study of laughter. That's what it said, right, But I just want to make sure that that's clear, because we're kind of vacillating between laughter and humor, and this is the physiological study of humor of laughter. Thanks for clearing that up. Uh. Emotional responses, um start in the I'm sorry emotional responses or the function of the

frontal lobe. But when it comes to laughter, it's all over the map. It's not just the frontal lobe. They hooked people up to E E. G s and showed them funny things and found that it's all All parts of the brain are involved in the laughter response. So it's not just emotional. But it's not necessarily all over the map. I mean, it is all over the brain, but it follows a prescribed neural circuit. That's right, Like they can go, oh, it's going here next see, um,

what what parts of the brain does? It include the cerebral cortex. Electrical wave moves through there and if now I didn't really understand this, but if the wave takes a negative charge, then you're gonna be laughing. If it's a positive charge, then there's no response. So I guess that just measures whether or not you think something's funny.

I guess I don't know, or else. Like it literally like one type of electrical charge will trigger this response and another type won't like it just passes over you. But the human electric though, well either way. Um, an electrical wave is generated when something that's potentially funny, potentially funny stimuli is encountered. Within four tenths of a second. Yes, this electrical signal is generated, and it's it. It's determined I guess in four tents whether you thought it was

funny or not. Yeah. So, but that's a great question. I mean, like that's a card or the horse kind of question, like does it turn positive or negative because we found it funny or do we find it funny because it turned positive or negative. I think it's the humor. You have to find it funny, and then the brain

reacts to that response. That's what I think. So let's say that it does take a negative charge, this electrical wave that just covers your brain, and um, it starts spreading through this neural circuit, starting with the left side of the cortex right, which analyzes the words and structure of a joke. Yep, making sense of it all. Ye, of the words themselves. The frontal lobe, which is in

charge of emotion. That's right, you got the right hemisphere, the cortex, which basically it sorts out whether or not the joke makes sense to you. Right, Well, that's where you put it together, like the the right um, the right hemisphere, the frontal lobe is the place where we managed to construct emotion and intellect of the cortex, and that's where we that's where you get the joke. Right. They've also found that that's the hard since you need

all these different systems in the brain. But that's the part when it's damage that produces the um most damage to experiencing humor, getting humor, finding anything funny, Yeah, it's real sad uh. Of course, you have the motor sections that get all the physical responses going, like slapping your knee or doubling over or whatever you do that's wacky

when you laugh. And there's there's also another big one that um, I didn't think of, but it made perfect sense when I when I thought about it, which was the sensory processing area of the occipital lobe towards the back of the head. But that's where you visualize things. So it's like imagine what a snake wearing a vest does look like, you know, and then that makes you

laugh as well. So it's almost like all of these different like the structure of the joke, the words, and all that um, pulling in past emotions, your emotional response right then going um, visualizing the thing that's just been described.

All this stuff is brought together to produce the sensation of finding something funny, and then that motor part is triggered, and that's when you start crying and you can't breathe and you say ha ha ha or ho ho ho every milliseconds, or flail your arms about her whatever you're into the Olympics system. I didn't get a lot out

of this part, especially the comparison to the alligator. It was a I have a I have a big question markt that didn't really there's a whole paragraph in this um in this article everybody that it has no purpose for being there. Chuck and I can't make heather tails of it. If you can email us later. Um, but I chucked. The Olympics system part didn't make much sense to me until I found a theory um that that

we that we can talk about called incongruity theory. UM. Well, it's one of the theories of why we have the ability to find things funny or why things are funny and others aren't. And incongruity theory says that, um remember with curiosity. That was also a theory for why we're curious, like, you know, this pencil just fell up and I want to go find out why that. That's a theory to explain why things make us curious. There's also a similar theory for why things can be found funny, and it's

when you tell a joke. We were the joke tellers, riling up the expectation and the listener and then delivering something totally different. That that moment of incongruity that makes the brain like, whoa, it just slipped on ice and

it's regaining its footing is thrilling. That's one explanation. The other explanation for incongruity theory is that we find things funny so that we can learn how not to think or how not to act right like you don't you don't you just don't walk around acting like the Three Stooges. We find it funny because it's something we don't do. We learned to not do it like that, or we can we cannot follow logic just in a madcap screwy

logic is attendant to jokes by finding them funny as well. Yeah, that's I think that's one part of some types of comedy for sure, is when the punch line is unexpected in some way in congruous, like for instance, Um, the other day, I was hanging out at the house with Emily and I was singing songs to my dog. Um, there's a lot of things like that in our home, and I was singing the song I was playing patty Cake with my dog, Charlie, who was a girl. And I said, well, you gotta know that for the song

to make sense. And so I was singing this song and I said, patty cake, patty cake, Baker's chick, bake me a cake that's shaped like a standard cake. It. Emily just thought that was the funniest thing she'd ever heard. But that's a good example, like that Limerick thing where you, I mean, it's the same, what's the Limerick joke where you think you're gonna say something dirty and it's actually

something great normal. I know what you're talking about. I can't think of it right, But it's that unexpected, incongruous thing that works so well in comedy. So many times you have me that you thought I was gonna say something else I did and I blushed, You did, your face got a little red. So um. Incongruity theory is old and very widely accepted, although it's also criticized for being overly broad. Explain a lot of stuff totally. But it's like, I don't understand why everybody has to have

a theory for everything. Why can't it be like, Yes, incongruity explains some type of humor, superiority explains another. Well, that's another. That's what I like to call the America's Funniest Home Videos humor, which is we've talked about before, And that's when you focus on stupidity or misfortune a gufall and not a god fall. That's a laugh, a boner, a mistake, and um, it makes you feel superior to the guy that just got kicked in the groin, and

you think that's funny. It is because it's not you getting kicked in the groin. I guess I've never analyzed it like that, but yeah, I guess better him than me what I'm thinking? And I kicked in the groin? Would you think it was funny? No? I wouldn't, But that doesn't explain why I find it funny when it happens to somebody else. Well, in a way, it's just the superiority theory. And I don't think that literally means you feel superior. But it's just funny to see someone

fall down sometimes and they should call it something else. Um. Let me say one more thing about in congruity. Okay, there's a dude out there named Alistair Cook who came up with a book and in it I know him, you do, well, not personally really, I hadn't heard of him until recently. Anyway, he came out with a book and in it he had he came up with an equation to basically figure out how humorous something is. So

humor equals Are you ready for this? The guy came up with a formula to humor equals um the amount of misinformation present in the joke, right, which is part of incongruity times um the potential for the joke listener to take it seriously. Right, So the bigger the whopper is and the more finesse with which you tell it, the more humorous this joke is going to be. That makes sense. There's also the comedy is tragedy. Plus time. We've all heard that things that aren't funny today might

be funny in ten years. That's why too soon you can also get a laughing actually just by saying too soon when you make a bad joke in poor taste or Alan al said, did you ever see Crimes and Misdemeanors? What do Allen? Movie? Alan Alda was this really pompous director in that movie. And when he was he's trying to explain comedy to what Allen And he said, if it bends, it's funny. If it breaks, it's not funny.

But that's kind of true though, It's that take it to a certain point, but don't break it, because then it's just not funny. I don't know, sometimes it's funny to break it. I think there's always just because you don't take something it's funny doesn't mean that someone else does. Yeah. I don't think you should ever begrudge somebody for taking something funny, even if it offends you. There's not a

lot that offends me, as you know. Um. The last one is relief theory, which is, like you were saying, um, some people populate was the first experience of laughter? Um was some danger past and everybody was just relieved so they were laughing. Right, Um, have you seen Emerson the baby that's um scared of his mom no blowing her nose. Oh, it's awesome. You gotta see it. This kid is terrified, like you've never seen a human being terrified whenever his

mom blows his nose. And then he starts laughing and she does it again. He's terrified again, and it's really just I'll send you the link. It's awesome. But yeah, he supports relief theory. Uh. The other thing too about superiority theory before we move on, is that's that's the basis of a lot of comedy period. Like Louis c k is so funny because he's talking about how fat he is and how he never has sex anymore and like what a piece of crappy as a human and

a bad dad. And that's that's not just him, that's a lot of comedians take that route that self and see that goes beyond self deprecating even it's like make fun of myself, like everyone laugh at me and how miserable I am, and feel better about yourself because you're not fat and bald. And then relief theory. Also, Um explains how uh, laughter is a great way to diffuse a Mexican standoff, right, because you're in there and you got your gun on one guy, he's got his gun

on you. And then if you laugh and you can convince him it's a genuine laugh, he becomes disarmed and then blam right, you're you're the last man standing. I'm gonna remember that. Haven't you ever seen any movies? Yeah, that happens to the movies. You're right, that's why that's scientific fact. Are there really Mexican standoffs? Has that ever happened? Three people? It has? I think you can do it with two. But yeah, and I thought the definition was

three people. No, I don't know. I know that if you have your gun on somebody and they have their gun on you, I think that's a a a Chilean standoff, right, And I'm just taken. So we've just dragged humor through the mud and just basically we've just eviscerated it. We've vivisected it. Um, So let's find out what's not funny, chuckers Um. Apparently it comes down to and again, there's researchers out, there's a guy named Robert Provine, who's quite

a career for himself, like studying humor and laughter. Um. But this laughter or humor research um has yielded that there's basically two factor in somebody not finding something funny that's age makes sense and attachment to the subject or the victim that says it all. When you're a little baby, you're discovering the world, you think your mom uh sneezing is funny, no terrifying, No, no, no, I was just using a different example. Or your dog, you know, lapping

water is funny because it's all brand new. You get a little bit older, things are gonna change. When you're a little toddler, you're gonna think poopoo is funny. Well, when you're an adult, you might think poopoo is funny. When you're an awkward teenager, you might be more into h jokes that make fun of authority figures or that focus on sex and like all these new things when

you're trying to figure yourself out. And then as you mature, supposedly you're supposed to get a little more evolved with your humor and barriers are broken down much more um and uh, like you may joke about work, right sure, the old the old boss, the old man, the old lady. Right, um.

And and with all of these, each of these stages, even though like an adult thinks a teenager sense of humor is just trap, right, um, if you if you kind of take away that evaluation and look at all of them equally, people laugh about or find things funny based on what's a stresser in their life. So what stress is a teenager oute is totally unrelatable for an adult, so they're not gonna find it funny. There's it's not

a stressor. So mainly most of the stuff we laugh about or we find funny are based on stressors in our lives. Yeah, that makes sense, and your intelligence level has a little something to do with it, um, as far as what you find funny, I've known people, and I'm sure you have that were dumb and that didn't get jokes or humor. I used to have a rule of a measuring stick for intelligence. You remember the show Doctor Kats. Did you ever meet anybody who was like, oh,

I can't watch that show. That's those quickly lines is driving me crazy? Yeah, yeah, you have it. That's pretty good. They just use that it was infallible. Yeah, or I mean, there's a lot of TV shows like that, but it's all just I don't know, it's all subjective. It's I guess it's not right to say someone's not smart. But I've known some dummies that in a quick paste funny conversation they just sit there like I don't get it.

They're lost. Yeah, it's sad and drags everybody else down, and really they should just stay in their rooms, right, um so chuck josh. Uh. Lastly, I guess where you come from is another aspect of what you find funny and what cultural for sure? May I may I play an example of that. I brought another one today. Okay, I have a joke. There is it cheer the cheer walk Oh with a shot la la la, you walk on the street that he's a walking from. Yes, well, what's a funny image? Yes? Nice that one was using

her occipital lobe. Oh boy, that was from the genuinely perfect movie Borat. Yeah, there's not not much as funnier to meeting Borah. I love it, Yes, but it's a great example of how, uh, something could be funny in theory to a to a foreigner that the person in the culture outside of that, and that's the whole basis of pride. That's all he does talk about things that

are funny in Kazakhstan. So, um, British humor. You've always heard about British humor very specific and like if you think, like I didn't like Faulty Towers, well you just don't get British humor. Like on, oh, I just not thought it was funny. Yeah it was hit or miss. Fawlty Towers, Monty Python was even hit or miss. I mean just sometimes you're not in the move for absurdainity. Agreed, And there is a British humor. But I found the Brits are a little prone to get up on their high

horse about like, well, you just don't get it right. Well, no, you know you have a British friend, don't you. Oh yeah, Justin will tell me. I don't get it took Oh, it's just it's pretty human. You don't understand, right, No, leave me alone while my beans drenched and catch up. Justin's been here since he was seventeen though he's so he's American, He's American Georgia and even until the girls

come around um, so chuckers. Oh lastly, um, if you have an attachment to the subject, say you know you're you're your brother really did die in a motorcycle accident, You're never gonna find it. Might not find that Anthony doesn't nick joke funny, or if you literally couldn't care less about people dying in motors cycle accidents, you're probably

not going to find that funny. And that researcher Provine has basically divided that up into two ends of the spectrum, which based on things people commonly say, which is is it offensive or what's the point? Or it is I'm sorry it is offensive or what's the point? Well, there you have it. That means you Yeah, that probably means you have a personal something at stake. Yes, and you found even in time won't even cure that. Yeah, that's like the Twin Towers falling. It was the first comedians

to start joking about that. It was remember that being a very like tense thing when people started making jokes about that. But I think one of the ways to digest raw and negative emotions is to eventually laugh about it, right, Yeah, because it's the best medicine. So, speaking of medicine, Chuck, that's a nice set up. Um. There is no less than two UM groups dedicated to studying humor, and these are international associations, well ones American UM what is it?

The American Association for Therapeutic Humor and the International Society for Humor Studies, and they are bona fide. They have conferences all over the place. Because it's real, dude, it is UM. And there's like a definite hint of Patch Adams in there. So I'd like to just skim right over this. But there is a physiological effect to laughter,

UM that is totally beneficial of the body. That's right, right, And it kind of goes back to fight or flight in a way very much, because we've talked about this gazillion times. When the fight or flight response kicks in, that kind of a lot of your other bodily functions cease to happen and everything freezes up. And when we laugh, though, is that uh, laughter shuts off the stress hormones, certain stress hormones that the fight or flight response would normally

be shutting down your like immune system. It shuts that down and actually boost to your immune system right temporarily, UM, not only that it boosts the production of gamma interfere on um B cells and T cells, which are all UM engaged in warding off disease or boosting the immune system. Right, UM the production of blood platelets increases UM UH, SAL, salivary immunoglobulin A, which UM protects against respiratory diseases. All

of these cells and antibodies their production is boosted. So basically, we're just inherently healthier when we laugh, which is pretty awesome if you ask me so. Not only is the is the fight or flight the sympathetic uh, the sympathetic nervous system like deadened, but we're actually getting healthier, right, That's just that's awesome. It's pretty amazing. It also gives you a pretty good workout. They found that laughing one hundred times is about the same as fifteen minutes on

an exercise bike works out your diaphragm. You know you've had your stomach kurt from laughing so hard, Yes, crunches, I know, it feels so good. It feels so good your stomach kurts, and you realize you just peed yourself a little. I've never pead myself laughing. Really, it's a gas. Uh. There's a guy named Norman Cousins. Have you ever heard of this dude? He is uh or was an author, humorist, political activists, and he studied the biochemistry of emotions for

many years. And U c l A. And he struggled with heart disease and then eventually a severe form of arthritis. And he watched Marx Brothers films, and uh basically found that belly laughing for ten minutes. Watching one of these Marx Brothers films allowed him to sleep pain free for two hours. And then it literally he could feel it wearing off as if it were a medicine. And then he would watch funny stuff again. If only I could laugh at March but There's films, I'd be a happier person.

You don't laugh at March Brothers. No, I'm more like in awe, like wow, these guys were comic geniuses. But to find something that comic genius doesn't necessarily mean to find it funny interesting. I don't. I don't, although I do have to say and maybe like I'm like a fan of The poor Man's Marks Brothers, but I do laugh out loud. You me and I both laugh out loud. At Three Stooges. Now, I would think you would laugh

at March Brothers because they have watched it. Man that that's not even like higher class of comedy than three students. I'll have to check it out again. No, Gratcha was he was a sharp tack. Yeah, sure, And I think that that kind of translates so a different part of my brain is activated where I'm like watching him on an intellectual level. With with the Three Stooges, I can just turn off and it's just funny. I got you

all right, Um, do you got anything else? Yeah? U c l A has a study they're doing now too, Um where they they inflict pain on children there. It is the funniest thing of this wolds. Uh. They take healthy kids and they wire them up and then ask them to put their hands in ten degrease celsius water and hold it there for as long as they can. It's painful. It's not like inflicting damage though, you know

what I'm saying. And Uh, on average kids can hold their arms in the freezing water for eighty seven seconds. But if they're shown funny videos while they're doing that, their heart rate, blood pressure and breathing and all their vital signs get better and stronger, and they can last up to longer. And then afterward they sample the we've talked about cortisol, the stress hormone before. Then there's saliva and they laughing helps their bodies recover much faster. So

it's physical, baby, it's very neat. It's all in the spit. I guess that's the that's the point of this whole How Laughter Works podcast. It's all about your spit. It's that the deal. Hey, you should check out. I think it's a national geographic maybe Natio Nova. It's one of those. It's one of those two um documentary on stress, like the Physiological effects of stress. Who read about that too? Really awesome, it's very good. It's that article actually, physical

effects of stress. It's good. It's streaming on Netflix. Check it out. All right, you got anything else? I got nothing else? All right? Well, if you want to learn more about laughter, type in laughter in the search bar how Stuff Works dot Com, which brings up Chuck. It's been a little while. Listener mail Josh. We asked for bear stories and we got him. And this is what I thought was the best one. This is from Chris ef in Vancouver, BC, Canada. It's British Columbia. Two years ago.

The bear population came out of the mountains early because of poor barry supplies. Basically, this guy's neighborhood was rampant with bears for for a summer. Um I'm sorry. In the spring, I'm sorry. In the autumn, he returned from walking his dog, walked into his cardboard and there was

a large bear cub chowing down on my garbage. My dog was an energetic labradoodle, how old and happy excitement of what he thought was the biggest squirrel he had ever seen, and chased after the cub, who we named boot Dog, ran around uh Chase's cub in the backyard, and all of a sudden, booze mother came around the corner, and they later named this one Marie Hardy. She weighed about two and fifty pounds and walked up to this guy and the dog, who was barking four ft away.

When I hit her on the head with my golf umbrella. The south stopped deadner Track sat back on her haunches, shaking her head in disbelief, and was very surprised to be smacked with the umbrella. For about five seconds, and then she came straight at me in the garage and I smacked her again with significantly less profound effect. Gave me time to back out of the cardboard and do the only thing I could think of, which was to open the umbrella in her face and yell and scream

and close my eyes. Yeah that sounds like a reasonable thing to do. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I mean, I am so tense right now. What happened? I opened my eyes again and Moriarty was gone into the brush along with Boo. But they became regular visitors throughout the rest of the fall, ranging through the neighborhood for scraps, and then they returned the next summer with a new small cub that we named Boo Too Happy ending for Chris and ps, we're proud Civa contributors, which is really

a lord that our Kiva team is killing it. We're about to hit sik in loan. Yeah, so go guys. If you want to join our Kiva team, you can go to www. Dot Kiva k i v a dot org slash team singular slash stuff you should know. Join up, start donating and uh help contribute to the cause. And if you want to send us an email about laughing something you thought was very funny or even better than that,

because we probably wouldn't find it that funny. Send us a link to something that's actually funny, all right, and we will judge you, well, we'll judge your laughing skills. Um. Send it to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you