According to the Mayo Clinic, there are a multitude of physical health benefits to laughter. Laughter can increase your oxygen intake, which can in turn stimulate your heart, lungs, and muscles. Laughing further releases endorphins, the feel-good chemicals our bodies produce to make us feel happy and even relieve pain or stress. The act of increasing and then decreasing our heart rate and blood pressure through laughter is also ultimately calming and tension-relieving. Laughter can even boost our immune system response through the release of stress-and illness-reducing neuropeptides.

• Emotional release; reduces anger and violence.
  Prisoners often experience extreme negative emotions like anger, fear, worry, and loneliness. This leads to a troubled state of mind that can easily break into rage and violent forms of release. Therapeutic laughter is an excellent natural way to provide violent-free emotional release through catharsis. It also provides new ways to deal with these strong emotions in a healthy, non-violent, and non-confrontational way.

• Stress reduction.
  Prisoners experience high stress levels, especially in overcrowded facilities, with a resulting lack of privacy. Therapeutic laughter reduces stress levels quickly and naturally and provides new ways of dealing with stress, which can lead to long-term stress reduction. By providing a new mental perspective, laughter often transforms the perceptions of problems that were seen as huge into minor irritations.

• Laughter promotes empathy and communication, improves cooperation with authority, and reduces disciplinary problems.
  The regular practice of therapeutic laughter leads to a positive state of mind. In some prisons, a substantial improvement in the overall mood and atmosphere of the establishment has been reported.

• Improves mood-state, decreases depression and psychological problems.
  Regular therapeutic laughter sessions can result in an improved state of mind and an increased willingness to participate in voluntary training, education, and work opportunities that are offered.

• Improves health and reduces health-related costs.
  Regular therapeutic laughter sessions provide excellent cardio and aerobic exercise, increasing oxygen levels in the bloodstream and major organs. Physiologically, laughter boosts the performance of the immune, digestive, and cardiovascular systems. A reduction in outbreaks of colds, flus, and other illnesses has been noted after a few months of regular therapeutic laughter sessions.

While all prisoners can benefit from therapeutic laughter sessions, the greatest improvement in their state of mind has been observed among younger prisoners. From LaughterOnlineUniversity.com

• Improved efficiency and work performance
• Improved emotional intelligence
• Strong team building, a change from individual competitiveness to team cooperation
• Improved mood, morale, and state of mind
• Better able to perform under stress
• Decrease in domestic problems
• Reduced staff turnover
• Improved health and wellness