When last have you had a belly full of laughter? One that makes water run down your face or makes you drop and roll? Well, it is good to laugh. Laughter is the best medicine. There's nothing more pleasurable than a good, hearty laugh. Laughing doesn't just make you happy; it's good for your mental health as well. Research has shown that laughter even has the ability to heal and make you healthy. It also claims that laughter has many benefits namely:

It lowers blood pressure. First, blood pressure rises when you start to laugh, then it goes down below the normal level.

Laughter also increases heart and pulse rate, and reduces stress.

Laughter protects the heart. It improves the function of blood vessels and increases blood flow which can help protect you against a heart attack and other cardiovascular problems.

Laughing strengthens the heart. When you are always stressed, fats and cholesterol in the heart and the arteries accumulate faster. Laughter, by reducing stress, helps prevent the buildup of fats and cholesterol, and makes the heart stronger and keeps it in a more healthy condition, thus lessening the likelihood of having a heart attack.

Along with reducing stress, laughing will lower your blood sugar levels as well. Having a blood sugar level that is too high contributes to diabetes and obesity along with other health conditions.

Laughter dissolves tension, stress, anxiety, irritation, anger, grief, and depression. Like crying, laughter lowers inhibitions, allowing the release of pent-up emotions.

Laughter boosts the immune system. It decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, thus improving your resistance to disease.

Laughter triggers the release of endorphins, the body’s natural feel-good chemicals. Endorphins promote an overall sense of well-being and can even temporarily relieve pain.

Humor helps integrate both hemispheres of our brain, for the left hemisphere is used to decipher the verbal content of a joke while the right hemisphere interprets whether it is funny or not.

In addition, the insides of your body get a workout too. Blood circulates faster as your heart pumps at a faster rate and you get more oxygen delivered to your brain helping you think better.

As you move the muscles around your face and neck, you stimulate the activities in your secretory glands that aid in metabolism.

Digestion of foodstuffs is improved. Metabolic rate also increases which can help in weight maintenance.

With so much power to heal and renew, the ability to laugh easily and frequently is a tremendous resource for surmounting problems, enhancing your relationships, and supporting both physical and emotional health.

Therefore, it is important for you to adopt a laugh-ready attitude. Hang out with people that laugh. We absorb funniness from other people that laugh heartily. They spread positive energy to us. Look around you for opportunities to make you laugh. Laughter is a good medicine.

Here are a few jokes that I hope will make you laugh.

1. A woman goes to the post office to buy stamps for her Christmas cards. She says to the clerk, "May I have 30 Christmas stamps?" The clerk says, "What denominations?" The woman says, "God help us. Has it come to this? Give me 6 Catholic, 12 Methodist, 10 Anglicans and 2 Church of God."

2. A carpenter was giving evidence about an accident he had witnessed. The lawyer for the defendant was trying to discredit him and asked him how faraway he was from the accident. The carpenter replied, "Twenty-seven feet, six and one-half inches." "What? How come you are so sure of that distance?" asked the lawyer. "Well, I knew sooner or later some idiot would ask me. So I measured it!" replied the carpenter.

3. A man goes hunting, and after climbing a steep cliff, comes face to face with a bear. The bear growls fiercely and the man, startled, falls backwards down the hill. During his descent, he drops his gun. As he stops at the bottom, he realizes that both his legs are broken, and there is no hope for his escape. In a desperate attempt to save his life, he cries out, "Lord, make this bear a Christian, and I will gladly take whatever lot you hand me." The bear stops in his tracks, looks quizzically up to the heavens, and calls in a deep, loud voice, "O Lord, bless this food of which I am about to partake!"

4. A young man saw an elderly couple sitting down to lunch at McDonald's. He noticed that they had ordered one meal, and an extra drink cup. As he watched, the gentleman carefully divided the hamburger in half, then counted out the fries, one for him, one for her, until each had half of them. Then he poured half of the soft drink into the extra cup and set that in front of his wife. The old man then began to eat, and his wife sat watching, with her hands folded in her lap. The young man decided to ask if they would allow him to purchase another meal for them so that they didn't have to split theirs. The old gentleman said, "Oh, no. We've been married 50 years, and everything has always been and will always be shared, 50/50." The young man then asked the wife if she was going to eat, and she replied, "Not yet. It's his turn with the teeth!"

5. A lawyer was on vacation in a small farming town. While walking through the streets on a quiet Sunday morning, he came upon a large crowd gathered by the side of the road. Going by instinct, the lawyer figured that there was some sort of auto collision. He was eager to get to the injured parties but couldn't get near the car. Being a clever sort, he started shouting loudly, "Let me through! Let me through! I am the son of the victim."The crowd made way for him. Lying in front of the car was a donkey.

It cannot be emphasized enough, laughter is in and of itself a form of therapy and its benefits are many. So go tell a joke, watch a comedy, read an amusing book or go visit one of your more humorous friends. And then laugh because it’s good for you!

Remember, you don't stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing.

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