If laughter really is the best medicine, then Brisbane Comedy Festival is a booster shot of pure, concentrated hilarity injected straight into your hypothalamus – the part of your brain that plays a key role in the production of loud, uncontrollable chortling, guffawing and crying with laughter.
But you don’t have to know about the socio-historical origins of why we laugh (laughter is a social vocalisation that binds people together in stressful situations, according to Psychology Today) or have studied the documented health benefits of laughing together (a good laugh stimulates your heart, lungs and muscles by enhancing your intake of oxygen-rich air, activates but then relieves your stress levels, and helps reduce some of the physical symptoms of stress by decreasing your heart rate and blood pressure, according to the Mayo Clinic) to know that an hour or two of hilarity is genuinely good for you.
