Having a happy disposition affects how long you live, up to 7 years longer than grumpy folk.

Researchers at Wayne Statue University in Michigan looked at 230 pictures of major league baseball players from 1952.  They categorized the pictures according to how much they were smiling and their laugh lines.  They then looked at life expectancy.

Players who were in the ‘no smile’ category lived about 72.9 years compared to those with had the biggest grins who lived 7 years longer to an average age of 79.9.  Remarkable how a slice in time from someone’s life (a mere snapshot) was adept at predicting longevity.

Laughter and smiling are universal.  We learn to laugh before we learn to walk or talk.

The ancient Greeks were onto this when they built their hospitals beside the theatres.  They knew that  patients got better faster if they watched comedies while they were convalescing.

Today we call it bio-psychoimmunology – a mouthful meaning our brains aren’t nearly as smart as we think they are.  Laugh or smile even when you don’t feel like it and the benefits to your psyche and your body are the same.  Your brain can’t tell when your laugh is real or not and regardless, releases a flood of hormones that make you feel better, lowers your blood pressure, massages your internal organs and more.

Sobering if it weren’t so funny.  The old adage ‘put on a happy face’ has some merit after all.

I’m teaching a workshop on Friday called ‘Because Laughing Matters‘ at the Every Woman conference in Whistler, British Columbia.  This is a topic dear to my heart.  And if it’s not dear to your heart it should be because:

• humour is strategic, it primes the brain for learning – when we’re laughing we’re using the most sophisticated part of our brain, the same part of our brain we use for critical analysis, creativity and innovation

• employers need help acknowledging how strategic humour can be – according to Chuck Hamilton of IBM it was only 40 years ago that the Ford company fired an assembly line worker for laughing on the job

• great leaders enable their staff to laugh on average 3 times more than average leaders (from Daniel Pink’s Whole New Mind)

• the ancient Greeks were onto something – they built their hospitals next to their theatres because they realized patients who were convalescing got better faster if they watched comedies

• it’s universal and a universal one at that bridge – we all laugh, in fact it’s one of the first things we do – we learn to laugh before we learn to walk or talk

• suffering is optional – if we feel threatened or unsafe or uncomfortable we get busy downshifting to the most ancient part of the brain, the part we have in common with reptiles.   It’s what Seth Godin calls our lizard brain. Ain’t no learning happening then (unless you call getting ready to fight or flee learning).

Please join me at the conference and we’ll laugh together.  Because laughing matters.

If you can’t join us then I invite you to find a reason or two to laugh that day.

After all, if it’s good enough for Buddha it’s good enough for me.