Laughter is an expression of emotion...joy, surprise, nervousness and amusement. Yes because we do and hear it so often, we often forget how strange and important it actually is.  

Did you know...

• Laughter is a signal we send to others and it disappears when there's no one else around. Ask a friend to laugh. She probably can't on command.

• Females tend to do more of the laughing and males tend to do most of the laugh getting. Chances are the class clown will be a boy.

• Laughter is contagious. If you've ever experienced a case of the giggles, you know how spontaneous and hard to control laughing can be.

• Although laughter did not evolve to make us feel good or improve our health, scientists have found that it raises our heart rate and blood pressure and helps soothe intense pain. Surgery patients who watched funny videos requested fewer painkillers than another group who watched dramas.

• By the time a child reaches kindergarten, he or she is laughing some 300 times a day. By the time that kid becomes an adult, he or she will laugh only about 17 times a day.

• Although the healing power of laughter is still being debated, the stress levels of students who recently participated in a study were shown to significantly lower after watching a humorous movie.