Science has shown that laughing for ten minutes will increase blood flow, use 80 muscles, and burn up to 40 calories. Since laughing uses so many different muscles and gets the heart pumping, it is basically a mild aerobic workout. (more…)

Have you ever wondered what makes us laugh? What is it about comedy that makes us feel amused? I have asked myself and Google these questions and I have some interesting answers.

First off let’s define humor. At the time of this writing, wikipedia says this about humor: “Humor is the ability or quality of people, objects, or situations to evoke feelings of amusement in other people.” This doesn’t tell us what triggers the feelings of amusement. I have noticed that all jokes, puns and riddles have one thing in common; they all poke at some kind of pain. Everything thing that makes us laugh involves a painful act whether it be physical, emotional or mental. The more pain stacked up, the funnier it is - to a point. If it goes too
far, the comedy becomes a tragedy.

Good jokes are painful on many levels. All jokes are basically painful because after the punchline, the audience says in their head “I can’t believe I didn’t see that coming,” and laughs. A joke is a mental surprise. When a magician produces a bird, is it “magic” if the audience sees the bird coming? If the audience didn’t see it coming and is surprised, how is this different from a joke? If they saw it coming, the magician was not very good and no magic was performed.
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