Skepchick: The First Rule of Laugh Club is No One Laughs About Laugh Club

Understandably, you may have reservations about joining a so-called "Laugh Club." Surely many readers are already considering the number one most common worry about such an organization: what about the dirty jokes?

"It opens up a wonderful avenue of laughter without having to worry about dirty jokes," participant Dennis Buckley noted afterwards, wiping the sweat from his shiny dome.

Whew!

Not addressed in the article is the second most common worry: will a sweaty bald man drip on me?

Possibly.

While the Globe is quick to point out that these laugh clubs are non-profits, they rather gloss over the fact that Laughter Yoga International, "the organization that oversees them," isn't.

On Laughter Yoga International's web site, you can learn all sorts of information about laughing. Like, that it costs a lot of money to laugh the right way and to help other people laugh the right way. For instance, you can purchase the Complete Laughter Yoga Training Kit for just $195, or the Laughter Yoga Training Videos Combo Pack for just $265.

If you want to be a certified Laugher (HA HA HA no seriously) you can take any number of seminars, like Dr. Funshine's San Diego Weekend Laughter Leader Certification, happening next week! It's only $295 and while you're there, you might even be able to ask Dr. Funshine about that humerus fracture you suffered last year that seems to act up whenever you feel sad.

Also on LYI's site, you'll learn that laughter can fight cancer, a statement that hovers somewhere between "sort of true" and "not at all true," but probably falling safely within the "not legally accountable" spectrum. There have been compelling studies performed on smiling—one weirdly interesting experiment[1] involved subjects holding a pencil either between their teeth (thus forcing a smile) or between their lips (forcing a frown). Researchers found that the smilers found cartoons funnier than the frowners, suggesting that unbeknownst to you, your facial expression can affect your emotions, as opposed to the other way around.

It's not a far leap to say that laughing can work the same way and actually lighten your mood. And from there, you could suppose that people who are happier and less stressed would be less prone to illness and may even be able to withstand difficult treatments like radiation and chemo. Whether or not this means there's any basis to claim that laughing about nothing fights cancer is a decision to be made by the federal government, not Bostonist.

Bostonist contacted Richard Wiseman, psychologist and author of Quirkology, for comment. He had this to say:

Well, there is quite a bit of evidence to suggest that people who are able to see the funny side of potentially stressful events are physically healthier than others. The effects of laughter appear causal, because other work has involved showing randomly selected groups of people comedy vs action films in hospital, and those watching comedy films use lower levels of self-administered pain killers. However, I have not seen any research on pure laughter, rather than laughter as a product of finding something funny, but it wouldn't surprise me if it had several physical and psychological benefits.

So go ahead and join a laugh club, or buy some DVDs, or attend a laughing seminar, or read that Boston Globe article if you want a laugh. Just don't go off your cancer meds yet and for heaven's sake stay away from those dirty jokes.

[1] Davis, S. F., & Palladino, J. J. (2000). Psychology (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Image of pre-laugh club cat courtesy of I Can Has Cheezburger