Even Harvard University Health Services has gotten in on the act, offering a Winter session course in laughter yoga, which stands on its head our everyday understanding of laughter's cause and effect. Laughter yoga couples breathing exercises with voluntary laughter to elicit its beneficial physiological response.

"It's just a different category of laughter," Dattilo said. "We experience them very differently, but the body doesn't."

Dattilo uses laughter to treat those struggling with depression through behavioral and non-medication-based approaches. She claims to not be all that funny herself, but rather someone who came to appreciate laughter's benefits through a broader interest in restoring playfulness to our adult lives.

"The framework that I use includes things like exercise and natural, quality sleep; social connection, things like gratitude practice—these are all things we know work," Dattilo said. "And one of those categories is play, or pleasure, and laughter is one of the main tools that I use to help people activate the pleasure and reward centers of the brain, to get them to playfully approach life, make time for that sort of activity as an important pillar of health and wellness." 

In some ways, Dattilo said, it's an effort to find what's been lost for many of us as we were forced to "grow up."

"As adults, we don't laugh nearly as much as we used to. The idea that we would have fun, play, and make time for those things is often seen as a reward or something you have to earn or something you do when the work is done," Dattilo said. "But the work is never done."

Dattilo has become involved in an effort to inject laughter into the workplace. "When you're not regularly activating the pleasure/reward centers of the brain they go offline. So, in order to feel good, we have to practice feeling good. And laughing is one of the most cost-effective ways to do that."

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For full article: A laugh a day keeps the doctor away?