Does laughing have health benefits?

I have often heard variations of “laughter is the best medicine”, and other similar phrases in conversation. My question is wether laughter does in fact have health benefits?

I was reading somewhere about these groups who tried to make eachother laugh for this reason. One successful method was to seat two people opposite eachother in a room, and to have them stare at eachother in the eyes and try to out-whistle eachother face to face. I tried this with some friends and found that it always produced genuine laughs. Funny stuff. :stuck_out_tongue:

Anyway, even if we can produce genuine laughs like with the whistling method, will this have any measurable benefits for the body?

Some people think so.

Omigod! Just looking at some of those laughing people on the 2nd link really made me laugh! Thanks!:slight_smile:

More:
http://www.laughteryoga.org/health.htm

Great links guys, this really deserves furthur research.

I like this passage:

From here: http://www.laughteryoga.org/health.htm