We know that humor promotes health and fires up the brain’s engines to learn more. But have you ever considered what makes us laugh and what does not? In The Scientific Quest for the World’s Funniest Joke, we read three conditions for funny jokes.

Apparently jokes are funniest when we come away feeling superior, while others look stupid. For example, “A guy walks past an asylum, and can hear inmates inside screaming, “Thirteen! Thirteen! Thirteen!” he presses his face to a hole in the fence and suddenly feels a jab in the eye, followed by shouts from inmates…”Fourteen! Fourteen! Fourteen!.

We also laugh more at events that we’re taught to take seriously. How about this one listed… “For eighteen years my husband and I were the happiest people in the world. Then we met.”

It seems people also laugh most at incongruity, puns and word plays. Here’s the joke quoted to illustrate a play on words…” Guy comes to a local gym and asks… “Can you teach me how to do the splits?” Coach replies … “How flexible are you?    man shoots back … “I can’t make Tuesdays.”

What do you find funniest in a joke?

The book also tells us what makes people laugh least. People said they disliked jokes about fellow countryfolk. Check out this one to see if you agree…

When NASA first signed up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens do not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion to create a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface - including glass - and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300 degrees Celsius. The Russians used a pencil.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to know what makes mid-lifers laugh, and what doesn’t. Would you have chosen these for the top jokes in the world? What makes you laugh and what does not?

What makes you happy? Adults do pretty much anything to get babies laughing, and who can deny that their laugher’s contagious. For instance, who could keep a straight face around these laughing quadruplets?

Recently, Adrian White a University of Leicester psychologist came out with a ‘world map of happiness.’

Data analyzed for this study came from UNESCO, the CIA, the New Economics Foundation, the WHO, the Veenhoven Database, the Latinbarometer, the Afrobarometer, and the UNHDR, to create a first world map of happiness.

Interestingly, the study came from findings of over 100 different studies around the world, which questioned 80,000 people worldwide. For this study data was analyzed for people’s responses to health, wealth and access to education.

The 20 happiest nations in the World are:
1. Denmark
2. Switzerland
3. Austria
4. Iceland
5. The Bahamas
6. Finland
7. Sweden
8. Bhutan
9. Brunei
10. Canada
11. Ireland
12. Luxembourg
13. Costa Rica
14. Malta
15. The Netherlands
16. Antigua and Barbuda
17. Malaysia
18. New Zealand
19. Norway
20. The Seychelles

Other interesting results listed:
23. USA
41. UK
62. France
82. China
90. Japan
125. India
167. Russia

The least happy nations listed included …
176. Democratic Republic of the Congo
177. Zimbabwe
178. Burundi

What makes you happy? My more important question is … “Why do kindergarten age children laugh 300 times a day and adults laugh on average only 17 times a day?” What makes babies happy that we mid-lifers sometimes miss?

Hey, move me to Denmark - they seem to get it….

Everybody loves a good joke, but when the chips are down humor can be hard to find. That’s why the book, LaughLab is such a hit. LaughLab started as an experiment to discover the world’s funniest joke, and the book is a summary of the findings.

Dr. Richard Wiseman from the University of Hertfordshire collaborated with the British Association for the Advancement of Science for the discovery. You can download a copy of it here, to hear humor that lifts your day.

Sometimes life where you stand can crack you up, when you least expect it. Because I’m a rather serious golfer I’m still laughing at the red fox who swipes every golf ball it spots from other serious golfers in Montana.

Humor comes faster to those who look around for the funnier side of a thing. Check out Christopher M. Knight’s Top 7 Tips to Laugh … where research shows the importance of laughter for a healthy mind. Did you know that a funny movie boosts a healthy flow of blood to your brain? Or that you learn more and remember more when you laugh?

Knight says you’ll find more humor if you…

1. Identify what makes you laugh and actively look for those situations. Your brain will actually help you find it when you decide to focus on more fun and games!
2. Watch at least one funny movie per week, and play funny cd’s or tapes in the car while driving to work (excellent way to get over morning moods!).
3. Make fun of what you actually fear. See the comic side in your fearful thoughts, exaggerate them and make them ridiculous.
4. Act silly and make other people laugh; that will get you sniggering too.
5. Have a roll on the floor with your kids or your dog. Try a pillow fight for a change.
6. Take some laughing yoga classes; they’ll get you cracking up.
7. Laugh at yourself each and every day. If you can make the problems you face funny, or at least see them in a different light, they will probably cease being a problem.

Take time to play, and humor will likely find you. Joel Goodman, director of the Humor project, showed in an interview how to mix laughter with play and he finds more to laugh at than most. How about you?

Bad news and cranky neighbors are here to stay — but what’s silly that could crack up your day anyway? Get others in on the laugh and it’s twice as funny. In fact laughter adds new friends and strengthen relationships you already have, according to laughter therapists.

Not all laughter benefits the brain equally though. Whenever we focus on … or laugh at most … determines how the brain rewires itself for more health benefits.

For example… over time… seniors who laugh at common stereotypes of aging … or people who laugh at gambling and wild living… are more apt to live those negative stereotypes. It’s because of the brain’s plasticity and that’s another post coming to the Brain Boomber site soon.

In the meantime, though, what makes you laugh anyway?