Medical Research Findings - Page2
 

Some hospitals use a system called SMILE (Subjective Multidimensional Interactive Evaluation). This is a computer program that determines what kind of humor people prefer. The patients fill out a survey which includes questions about attitudes toward humor, emotional state, and stress level.

How does your brain process funny stuff?

According to scientists there are three steps to experiencing laughter: a cognitive part which helps you get a joke, another part is the movement of the muscle that helps you to smile and laugh and an emotional part which makes happy feelings that accompany a merry experience.
Scientists discovered that humor appreciation happen in the frontal lobe of the brain. This area of the brain gets activated when the person actually think the joke was funny. People who have damage to this part of the brain do not understand the punch line or even funny cartoons.
Other studies show that brain activity from humor may have medical benefit. Scientists have evidence that watching humorous videos and listening to funny tapes reduce feelings of pain, prevent bad stress reactions, and boost the brain’s battle against infection.

Everybody agrees that humor doesn’t seem to have any harmful effects.