Smiling reduces stress and anxiety, and it can be a great help in stress management. Scientists readily concur. They know that negative emotions can cause a cascade of biological reasons that harm the body. These include the chronic stress that increases inflammation, and inflammation has been linked to a host of health problems.
So it is not a stretch to think that smiling, a cousin of happiness, may also prompt changes in the body’s systems that can reduce certain diseases that prompt inflammation in the body.
Smiling, laughter, humor, and mirth are all good medicine. To put it in a few words, humor as medicine is not joke.