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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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Animals always have a way of making us happier and in a better mood. Its like they know when you are sad or upset, and it always helps when they are there. Overall, Pets are like what Daisy was for Gatsby. They make them happy when they are around, but eventually go away.

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Yeah, you read that right. Memes. And Gifs. The words that your mother can't pronounce. They make so many people happy. These make people happy because laughter is one of the easiest ways to be happy, and laughter is contagious. The goal of these memes is to make you laugh, which will in turn make you happy, even if for a short time. One of my favorite things to do with a little spare time is to scroll through Instagram for a good laugh. Laughter is an amazing way to feel better, and it is one of the best ways to create happiness.

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The Health Benefits of Humor and Laughter
Sure, it's fun to share a good laugh. But did you know it can actually improve your health? It's true: laughter is strong medicine. It draws people together in ways that trigger healthy physical and emotional changes in the body. Laughter strengthens your immune system, boosts mood, diminishes pain, and protects you from the damaging effects of stress. As children, we used to laugh hundreds of times a day, but as adults, life tends to be more serious and laughter more infrequent. But by seeking out more opportunities for humor and laughter, you can improve your emotional health, strengthen your relationships, find greater happiness-and even add years to your life.
Why is laughter the sweetest medicine for the mind and body?

Laughter is a powerful antidote to stress, pain, and conflict. Nothing works faster or more dependably to bring your mind and body back into balance than a good laugh. Humor lightens your burdens, inspires hope, connects you to others, and keeps you grounded, focused, and alert. It also helps you release anger and forgive sooner.

With so much power to heal and renew, the ability to laugh easily and frequently is a tremendous resource for surmounting problems, enhancing your relationships, and supporting both physical and emotional health. Best of all, this priceless medicine is fun, free, and easy to use.

Laughter is good for your health

Laughter relaxes the whole body. A good, hearty laugh relieves physical tension and stress, leaving your muscles relaxed for up to 45 minutes after.

Laughter boosts the immune system. Laughter decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, thus improving your resistance to disease.

Laughter triggers the release of endorphins, the body's natural feel-good chemicals. Endorphins promote an overall sense of well-being and can even temporarily relieve pain.

Laughter protects the heart. Laughter improves the function of blood vessels and increases blood flow, which can help protect you against a heart attack and other cardiovascular problems.

Laughter burns calories. OK, so it's no replacement for going to the gym, but one study found that laughing for 10 to 15 minutes a day can burn approximately 40 calories-which could be enough to lose three or four pounds over the course of a year.

Laughter lightens anger's heavy load. Nothing diffuses anger and conflict faster than a shared laugh. Looking at the funny side can put problems into perspective and enable you to move on from confrontations without holding onto bitterness or resentment.

Laughter may even help you to live longer. A study in Norway found that people with a strong sense of humor outlived those who don't laugh as much. The difference was particularly notable for those battling cancer.

Physical health benefits of laughter:

Boosts immunity

Lowers stress hormones

Decreases pain

Relaxes your muscles

Prevents heart disease

Mental health benefits of laughter:

Adds joy and zest to life

Eases anxiety and tension

Relieves stress

Improves mood

Strengthens resilience

Social benefits of laughter:

Strengthens relationships

Attracts others to us

Enhances teamwork

Helps defuse conflict

Promotes group bonding

Laughter helps you stay mentally healthy

Laughter makes you feel good. And this positive feeling remains with you even after the laughter subsides. Humor helps you keep a positive, optimistic outlook through difficult situations, disappointments, and loss.

More than just a respite from sadness and pain, laughter gives you the courage and strength to find new sources of meaning and hope. Even in the most difficult of times, a laugh-or even simply a smile-can go a long way toward making you feel better. And laughter really is contagious-just hearing laughter primes your brain and readies you to smile and join in the fun.

The link between laughter and mental health

Laughter stops distressing emotions. You can't feel anxious, angry, or sad when you're laughing.

Laughter helps you relax and recharge. It reduces stress and increases energy, enabling you to stay focused and accomplish more.

Laughter shifts perspective, allowing you to see situations in a more realistic, less threatening light. A humorous perspective creates psychological distance, which can help you avoid feeling overwhelmed and diffuse conflict.

Laughter draws you closer to others, which can have a profound effect on all aspects of your mental and emotional health.

Laughter brings people together and strengthens relationships

There's a good reason why TV sitcoms use laugh tracks: laughter is contagious. You're many times more likely to laugh around other people than when you're alone. And the more laughter you bring into your own life, the happier you and those around you will feel.

Sharing humor is half the fun-in fact, most laughter doesn't come from hearing jokes, but rather simply from spending time with friends and family. And it's this social aspect that plays such an important role in the health benefits of laughter. You can't enjoy a laugh with other people unless you take the time to really engage with them. When you care about someone enough to switch off your phone and really connect face to face, you're engaging in a process that rebalances the nervous system and puts the brakes on defensive stress responses like "fight or flight." And if you share a laugh as well, you'll both feel happier, more positive, and more relaxed-even if you're unable to alter a stressful situation.

How laughing together can strengthen relationships

Shared laughter is one of the most effective tools for keeping relationships fresh and exciting. All emotional sharing builds strong and lasting relationship bonds, but sharing laughter also adds joy, vitality, and resilience. And humor is a powerful and effective way to heal resentments, disagreements, and hurts. Laughter unites people during difficult times.

Humor and playful communication strengthen our relationships by triggering positive feelings and fostering emotional connection. When we laugh with one another, a positive bond is created. This bond acts as a strong buffer against stress, disagreements, and disappointment. Humor and laughter in relationships allows you to:

Be more spontaneous. Humor gets you out of your head and away from your troubles.

Let go of defensiveness. Laughter helps you forget resentments, judgments, criticisms, and doubts.

Release inhibitions. Your fear of holding back is pushed aside.

Express your true feelings. Deeply felt emotions are allowed to rise to the surface.

Use humor to resolve disagreements and tension in your relationship

Laughter is an especially powerful tool for managing conflict and reducing tension when emotions are running high. Whether with romantic partners, friends and family, or co-workers, you can learn to use humor to smooth over disagreements, lower everyone's stress level, and communicate in a way that builds up your relationships rather than breaking them down.

How to bring more laughter into your life

Laughter is your birthright, a natural part of life that is innate and inborn. Infants begin smiling during the first weeks of life and laugh out loud within months of being born. Even if you did not grow up in a household where laughter was a common sound, you can learn to laugh at any stage of life.

Begin by setting aside special times to seek out humor and laughter, as you might with exercising, and build from there. Eventually, you'll want to incorporate humor and laughter into the fabric of your life, finding it naturally in everything.

Here are some ways to start:

Smile. Smiling is the beginning of laughter, and like laughter, it's contagious. When you look at someone or see something even mildly pleasing, practice smiling. Instead of looking down at your phone, look up and smile at people you pass in the street, the person serving you a morning coffee, or the co-workers you share an elevator with. Notice the effect on others.

Count your blessings. Literally make a list. The simple act of considering the positive aspects of your life will distance you from negative thoughts that block humor and laughter. When you're in a state of sadness, you have further to travel to reach humor and laughter.

When you hear laughter, move toward it. Sometimes humor and laughter are private, a shared joke among a small group, but usually not. More often, people are very happy to share something funny because it gives them an opportunity to laugh again and feed off the humor you find in it. When you hear laughter, seek it out and ask, "What's funny?"

Spend time with fun, playful people. These are people who laugh easily-both at themselves and at life's absurdities-and who routinely find the humor in everyday events. Their playful point of view and laughter are contagious. Even if you don't consider yourself a lighthearted, humorous person, you can still seek out people who like to laugh and make others laugh. Every comedian appreciates an audience.

Bring humor into conversations. Ask people, "What's the funniest thing that happened to you today? This week? In your life?"

Simulated laughter

So, what if you really can't "find the funny?" Believe it or not, it's possible to laugh without experiencing a funny event-and simulated laughter can be just as beneficial as the real thing. It can even make exercise more fun and productive. A Georgia State University study found that incorporating bouts of simulated laughter into an exercise program helped improve older adults' mental health as well as their aerobic endurance. Plus, hearing others laugh, even for no apparent reason, can often trigger genuine laughter.

To add simulated laughter into your own life, search for laugh yoga or laugh therapy groups. Or you can start simply by laughing at other people's jokes, even if you don't find them funny. Both you and the other person will feel good, it will draw you closer together, and who knows, it may even lead to some spontaneous laughter.

Creating opportunities to laugh;

Watch a funny movie, TV show, or YouTube video

Invite friends or co-workers out to a comedy club

Read the funny pages

Seek out funny people

Share a good joke or a funny story

Check out your bookstore's humor section

Host game night with friends

Play with a pet

Go to a "laughter yoga" class

Goof around with children

Do something silly

Make time for fun activities (e.g. bowling, miniature golfing, karaoke)

Tips for developing your sense of humor

An essential ingredient for developing your sense of humor is to learn not to take yourself too seriously and laugh at your own mistakes and foibles. As much as we'd like to believe otherwise, we all do foolish things from time to time. Instead of feeling embarrassed or defensive, embrace your imperfections. While some events in life are clearly sad and not opportunities for laughter, most don't carry an overwhelming sense of either sadness or delight. They fall into the gray zone of ordinary life-giving you the choice to laugh or not. So choose to laugh whenever you can.

How to develop your sense of humor

Laugh at yourself. Share your embarrassing moments. The best way to take yourself less seriously is to talk about times when you took yourself too seriously.

Attempt to laugh at situations rather than bemoan them. Look for the humor in a bad situation, and uncover the irony and absurdity of life. When something negative happens, try to make it a humorous anecdote that will make others laugh.

Surround yourself with reminders to lighten up. Keep a toy on your desk or in your car. Put up a funny poster in your office. Choose a computer screensaver that makes you laugh. Frame photos of you and your family or friends having fun.

Remember funny things that happen. If something amusing happens or you hear a joke or funny story you really like, write it down or tell it to someone to help you remember it.

Don't dwell on the negative. Try to avoid negative people and don't dwell on news stories, entertainment, or conversations that make you sad or unhappy. Many things in life are beyond your control-particularly the behavior of other people. While you might view carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders as admirable, in the long run it's unrealistic and unhealthy.

Find your inner child. Pay attention to children and try to emulate them-after all, they are the experts on playing, taking life lightly, and laughing at ordinary things.

Deal with stress. Stress can be a major impediment to humor and laughter, so it's important to keep your stress levels in check. One great technique to relieve stress in the moment is to draw upon a favorite memory that always makes you smile-something your kids did, for example, or something funny a friend told you.

Don't go a day without laughing. Think of it like exercise or breakfast and make a conscious effort to find something each day that makes you laugh. Set aside 10 to 15 minutes and do something that amuses you. The more you get used to laughing each day, the less effort you'll have to make.

Using humor to overcome challenges and enhance your life

The ability to laugh, play, and have fun not only makes life more enjoyable but also helps you solve problems, connect with others, and think more creatively. People who incorporate humor and play into their daily lives find that it renews them and all of their relationships.

Life brings challenges that can either get the best of you or become playthings for your imagination. When you "become the problem" and take yourself too seriously, it can be hard to think outside the box and find new solutions. But when you play with the problem, you can often transform it into an opportunity for creative learning.

Playing with problems seems to come naturally to children. When they are confused or afraid, they make their problems into a game, giving them a sense of control and an opportunity to experiment with new solutions. Interacting with others in playful ways helps you retain this creative ability.

Here are two examples of people who took everyday problems and turned them around through laughter and play:

Roy, a semi-retired businessman, was excited to finally have time to devote to golf, his favorite sport. But the more he played, the less he enjoyed himself. Although his game had improved dramatically, he got angry with himself over every mistake. Roy wisely realized that his golfing buddies affected his attitude, so he stopped playing with people who took the game too seriously. When he played with friends who focused more on having fun than on their scores, he was less critical of himself. Now golfing was as enjoyable as Roy had envisioned. He scored better without working harder. And the brighter outlook he was gaining from his companions and the game spread to other parts of his life.

Jane worked at home designing greeting cards, a job she used to love but now felt had become routine. Two little girls who loved to draw and paint lived next door. Eventually, Jane invited the girls over to play with all of her art supplies. At first, she just watched, but in time she joined in. Laughing, coloring, and playing pretend with the little girls transformed Jane's life. Not only did it end her loneliness and boredom, but it sparked her imagination and helped her artwork flourish. Best of all, it rekindled the playfulness in Jane's relationship with her husband.

As laughter, humor, and play become integrated into your life, your creativity will flourish and new opportunities for laughing with friends, coworkers, acquaintances, and loved ones will occur to you daily. Laughter takes you to a higher place where you can view the world from a more relaxed, positive, and joyful perspective.

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Laughter is the Best Medicine The Health Benefits of Humor and Laughter Sure, it's fun to share a good laugh. But did you know it can actually improve your health? It's true: laughter is strong medicine. It draws people together in ways that trigger healthy physical

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Everyone has something they enjoy doing in their free time whether it is pottery or a sport or even collecting rocks. Hobbies are a great way to get away from the pressures of everyday life and create kind of an escape, especially for those who are unhappy. Hobbies give us a chance to do what we love the most. From personal experience, my happiest times are when i'm out on the wrestling mat embarrassing someone, or when i'm drawing. I may not always be happy with having to come to school or my classes or friends, but these two things always make me happy. Even though it is a temporary solution to unhappiness, hobbies are a great way to be happy.

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If you ask any very religious person, even in their hardest times, they will tell you they have faith in their god and that their beliefs make them happy. Through personal experience some of my happiest moments have been connected to my church, or my youth group. Some of the happiest people are not rich, they are not famous. They are happy though their relationships with their beliefs and spiritual connection. So, even though it is clearly not the first thing to come to mind when thinking of happiness, religion can be closely tied to happiness in those who retain their faiths throughout their lives and do not let it waver in hard times.

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In any cases, marriage is seen as a way to be happy. It brings you together with the person you love the most, yet it is not the truest way to being happy. In an article from the American Psychology Association it describes how happy marriages lead to happiness and vice versa. In a toxic or unhappy marriage, neither side is happy. It makes both miserable. But in a marriage where both truly love the other, happiness is always present. If the relationship is mutually beneficial and good for both of the parties involved, it does bring true happiness. Look, for example, at a couple who have been married for 50+ years. They are almost always still in love and happy as can be, even in the hard years. These loving marriages describe how marriage can bring true happiness. This is what the whole entirety of Gatsby's life was about. All he wanted to have was Daisy, and he knew she would make him happy. He chased her away from Tom in order to marry her, believing it would make him happy, but in the end his insanity over her drove her right back to Tom. This is an example of how the pursuit of happiness can also be harmful to ones life, because in the end Gatsby dies (woah major spoiler). So Gatsby believed that marriage with Daisy would make him happy, yet in the end this pursuit ended his life, so marriage is not always a true route to happiness.

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Cover Story

Opening session keynote speaker and Harvard researcher Daniel Gilbert kicked off APA's convention with his finding that the life goals we strive for don't always make us happy.

By Christopher Munsey

Monitor Staff

October 2010, Vol 41, No. 9

Print version: page 20

When he was growing up, best-selling author and Harvard psychology researcher Daniel Gilbert, PhD, said his mom urged him to aim for three things in life - finding someone nice and getting married; building a fulfilling, well-paid career; and above all, having children - a sentiment echoed by American culture.

In the past 20 years, research led by psychologists is shedding light on whether the trifecta of marriage, money and kids does bring happiness, said Gilbert, author of "Stumbling on Happiness" (Knopf, 2006). As it turns out, his mom and society were right about some points and wrong on others, including:

It's not marriage that makes you happy, it's happy marriage that makes you happy, Gilbert said. Married people are happier than unmarried ones, perhaps because the single best predictor of human happiness is the quality of social relationships. "Marriage seems to buy you a decade or more of happiness," Gilbert said.

And people in unhappy marriages experience a spike in happiness once the marriage is dissolved, he said. Using a sampling application that contacts people via their iPhone, one of Gilbert's graduate students has found that people are happiest when they're having sex and talking, or otherwise investing in social relationships. Resting and relaxing don't bring happiness because when you're not engaged in a task - even a generally unpleasant one - your mind wanders, and you may ruminate on unhappy experiences.

If you hear someone say "money can't buy happiness," say "give me yours," Gilbert joked. People with money enjoy better nutrition, can go places with loved ones, worry less about their children and have more freedom to set their own schedules, he said. But money's ability to buy happiness levels out for people in the United States, with huge increases in happiness for people who vault into a middle-class income of $40,000 to $70,000. Once that level is reached, increases in wealth generate smaller rises in happiness.

Happiness falls for both men and women after the first child is born. Some 20 years of research shows that people without children are happier than people with children and that people with young children living with them are the least happy of all, Gilbert says. For women, spending time with their children ranks about the same as vacuuming on happiness scales. While the data establish that children don't make their parents happy - a fact that Gilbert acknowledged as contrary to his own intuition - parents need to believe that they do because of all the time and effort it takes to raise them well.

"As a result of that sacrifice, we love them all the more," Gilbert said. "We don't value our children in spite of how difficult they are, we value our children because of how difficult they are."

Related APA Resources
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Cover Story Opening session keynote speaker and Harvard researcher Daniel Gilbert kicked off APA's convention with his finding that the life goals we strive for don't always make us happy. By Christopher Munsey Monitor Staff October 2010, Vol 41, No.

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As we often have seen through Gatsby, money is not the path to true happiness. Many times throughout the story he lets us know that he would give up all his money just for Daisy. It is not what makes him happy, and it is not what he searches for because he already has so much. The people who go to his parties are happy with his money and the way he uses it for their enjoyment, but obviously money is not the true route to happiness, being with the one you love is what brings happiness. So, in essence even though people like Gatsby use money as a possible way to attain happiness, it is not the true route to ones happiness.

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In our society we are often taught that winning does not matter, yet deep down nothing brings greater satisfaction than seeing your hard work pay off. In a way, it is as if we push ourselves unconsciously to achieve that sweet victory.

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Music almost always seems to make us feel better. Many studies have found that when listening to happy or upbeat music, people are more motivated and happy than they were before hand. Personally, I always listen to music that hypes me up before I wrestle, and it always eliminates my nerves. Listening to music is not the only piece though. Performing music in a band or orchestra or singing has even better effects on emotional health. A study from the University of Missouri found that among 1500 people still in school, their satisfaction in every school area was greater when they participated in some sort of music class. Concerts are yet another example of how music makes us happy and brings us together. Overall, no matter your mood music can help to lift you up, and is one of the easiest ways for instant satisfaction.

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Music can make us feel uplifted, contented and can improve our health, too.
The aim
Whether you're performing it or listening to it, music can increase your happiness (as well as the happiness of those around you.)
The theory
Music can lift the spirits. But science has now shown it has a physical effect on our bodies, too. As we listen, music works on the autonomic nervous system, which is responsible for controlling blood pressure and heartbeat, as well as the limbic system, which is responsible for feelings and emotions. A review of 23 studies by Bradt & Dileo (in 2009) involving almost 1,500 people found music helped to reduce blood pressure, heart rate and anxiety in heart disease patients.

Music can benefit psychological wellbeing, too. Research from the University of Missouri published in The Journal Of Positive Psychology found for the first time, that upbeat music can have a very positive effect on our wellbeing.

'People were successful at raising their positive mood as long as the music they listened to was happy and upbeat,' said Dr Yuna Ferguson, the lead author.

And participating in music-making can also increase our happiness, and help us to get on better with others. A 2013 Finnish study of 1,000 pupils who took singing classes found they reported higher satisfaction at school in almost every area.

Lead researcher Päivi-Sisko Eerola said 'synchronising' with each other may 'even make people like each other more than before'.
Try it out

Listen to music every day. Just 25 minutes every day for at least 10 days will help to prevent back pain and make you sleep better. Keep up the habit beyond 10 days if you can.

Play music while working out. Experts from Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, USA, say listening to music during exercise can help to release endorphins to increase your endurance, boost your mood and distract you from the discomfort you may feel during your exercise session.

Pick music to suit the situation. Any type of classical music, such as pieces by Mozart or Beethoven, can help relieve muscle pain. For an effective, beneficial workout, researchers say the best music is high energy, high tempo music such as hip hop or dance.

Join a choir. Experts found that if we actively engage with the music - feeling it rather than letting it simply be in the background - it can give us extra emotional oomph and make us feel happier (Ferguson and Sheldon, 2013).

Listen to music while working or studying. If you're trying hard to crack that difficult report or you're struggling with the final touches of a dissertation, music could help get your brain in gear. A study of children ages eight to 11 found that those who took extra-curricular music classes, developed higher verbal IQ, and visual abilities, in comparison to those with no musical training (Forgeard et al., 2008).

MARTHA ROBERTS is an award-winning UK health writer and mental health blogger at mentalhealthwise.com Photograph: iStock

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Music can make us feel uplifted, contented and can improve our health, too. The aim Whether you're performing it or listening to it, music can increase your happiness (as well as the happiness of those around you.) The theory Music can lift the spirits.