London, Sep 14: Having a good laugh not only makes you feel better but also helps you deal with pain.
A polite titter may please others, but it does nothing to flood you with feel-good endorphins, say Oxford University scientists.
Robin Dunbar, leading evolutionary biologist at Oxford, recorded laughter when his subjects watched comedy on TV, and during comedy routines at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B reports.
Their laughter levels were compared with those who watched factual clips or drama, according to the Daily Mail.
Dunbar then assessed their pain tolerance. Tests included measuring how long they could stand a frozen wine cooler sleeve on their arm, and how long they could stand with their backs against a wall and their knees bent.
The results revealed that those who watched comedy in a group laughed the most and had a heightened pain tolerance. The researchers said: "Laughing is physically very exhausting, and anything that taxes the body physically triggers endorphins as a natural response as part of the pain control mechanism." IANS

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