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pahunkboy -> stress as science of laughter (11/26/2008 7:49:23 AM)
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The article gets into the various research on how people laugh, it says you are 30x more likely to laugh around others then alone.
I did not know it is actually possible to laugh oneself to death. amazing. maybe this could be a weapon in the war on terror?
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Stress may have also played a role in one of the most anomalous and dramatic episodes of laughter in recorded history. In 1962, in the small village of Kashasha, Tanganyika (modern Tanzania), a group of students at a boarding school began to snicker following some remark or event which is now lost to history. For reasons unknown, the laughter was abnormally infectious, and soon the greater part of the student body was incapacitated with the contagious convulsions. In an effort to quell the inexplicable outbreak, administrators closed the school and sent the giggling students home, but this allowed the epidemic to spread. Parents, siblings, and neighbors were reduced to wriggling, vocalizing masses, and the Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic rapidly propagated to thousands of people including other schools, workplaces, and a neighboring village. The sporadic, uncontrollable episodes quickly became unpleasant for the sufferers, leading to abdominal pain, fainting, respiratory problems, rashes, and uncontrollable weeping; but it continued nonetheless. Reports vary regarding the duration of the epidemic– spanning anywhere from six to eighteen months
/snip http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=938#more-938
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