Stress Most adults rarely get an attack of the giggles.
Children do it frequently.
And hard laughing is like an aerobic workout. William F. Fry, M.D., emeritus clinical professor of psychiatry at Stanford University Medical School, says that laughing 100 times is equivalent to 15 minutes on a stationary bicycle or 10 minutes on a rowing machine. Herbert M. Lefcourt, Ph.D., psychology professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, has looked closely at the impact of laughing on the immune system. What Lefcourt found was that students who listened to the funny tape had increased levels of S-IgA in their saliva compared to students who merely listened to a university lecture. The real key for stress management and coping ability is the capacity to see what is funny even in stressful situations.