I thought I would take a break this week from my usual topics of health and the occasional sports story and veer just a little off my usual path.

As I may or may not have mentioned in past articles — I honestly can’t remember — I work full-time in community health education and outreach.

I was recently in Harrisburg for a two-day departmental conference consisting of a series of speakers and training sessions. The other part of the meet-up was time spent with colleagues from all over the state. We do this at least once a year, and while I am interested in the speakers, my favorite part is hanging out with my coworkers, whom I rarely see in person.

As my supervisor pointed out, everyone just laughed and laughed. Apparently, some of us have a sense of humor. I was thinking about this on the drive home and realized that laughter truly is one of the absolute best things for maintaining joy and happiness in our lives, and it seems to me that we do not do it often enough. After all, it’s free, it’s easy to do, and it takes almost no effort. So, I looked into the topics of laughter, aging, and laughter in the workplace and found some interesting information.

According to an article published by the World Economic Forum, by their mid-20s, people laugh a lot less than they did when they were kids.

Also, laughter helps people bond, which is probably why I felt a bit closer to my colleagues after my two-day work event.

Laughter also promotes a sense of inclusiveness and helps to foster creativity.

The last thing I discovered in my research that I thought was interesting was that you don’t actually need to be funny to benefit from laughter; you just need to be open to it and allow yourself to enjoy humor.

According to researchers at Standford University, laughter in the workplace produces both better bosses and better employees. Not only can humor help us to be happier and more productive in our work, whatever that is, but it can also boost confidence and creativity. It has also been shown to improve workplace cohesiveness, which supports my feelings of being closer to my workers on my recent work trip.

One massive study involved 1.4 million people in 166 countries. Among other things, the study found that by age 23, people laugh significantly less than when they were younger. It seems the stress of life, work, and the “real world” take the fun out of people, and we don’t start laughing again until age 70. So, we live approximately 47 years without fun or humor, which to me is a crying shame and completely unnecessary.

Many studies have shown that laughing reduces stress hormones in the blood, such as cortisol, as well as increases endorphins, which are natural chemicals the body produces to make us feel good. Research has even shown that it can boost our immune systems.

As it relates to work, laughing strengthens work culture and bonds. Thinking back to when I was younger and not making any money, I still enjoyed work in large part because of my crazy coworkers and how they made me laugh every day.

Laughter has also been shown to spark creativity and allow us to approach problems as challenges and from different perspectives.

As I mentioned earlier in this article, the key to benefitting from laughter is not actually being funny and trying to constantly get other people to laugh by telling jokes or playing pranks. It is simply being open to laughing and being joyful.

In a Stanford University podcast, comedian and researcher Naomi Bagdonas explained that there was a point in her life where she realized that her professional persona was very different from her personal one and that she was very serious when work was involved. That is when she decided to use humor as a tool to become her more authentic self. Think about how powerful that is to be the “real you” all of the time. Being two different people, or more, is not only difficult and not fun, but it’s exhausting. I can’t recall it being written anywhere that we have to be boring and have multiple personalities to be successful.

Yes, this is an election year, and the powers that be want us to think the world is going to burn, so we’ll vote the way they want. But if we turn off the TV and social media, we’ll find that the sun still comes up every day, the leaves are still changing colors, and the birds are still singing. And there is still plenty to laugh about.