This baby has either just spied a nipp!e (this same expression he will carry with him for the rest of his life), or is laughing. Either way, he is edible through and through.

What’s your go-to?
Meaning, what is the one thing you access in order to restore yourself to a place of balance?

Me, it is laughter. I imagine that the only situation in which I will not laugh is during a time of illness and/or death of a loved one. Barring that, there is always always always room for laughter in my world.

Yesterday, I came across the results of a study on The Science of Laughter, investigation done on the reasons for and the effects of. While the results are not entirely surprising, they are still worthy of mention and attention:

1) Laughter is in fact a signal to others, with its critical stimulus being the other person rather than the joke itself.

2) The laughter of the female — not the fella — is the critical index of a healthy relationship. A man can laugh all he wants, but if the woman isn’t laughing then that’s your signal to a potentially rocky relationship present and ahead. (Heteros, that is.)

3) There is no clear line between laughter and better health, rather it is more an indirect consequence. Since laughter is more about the other individual, this means that it brings people together and the healing rests within this connection to people more so than the laugh itself.

4) Humor may help temper intense pain and stress.

Aren’t these amazing findings? That inside of good, healthy, engaged human connections where laughter is an integral part of the communication geography, healing is to be found?

I think my favourite finding about the study is that laughter is a natural bonding agent between you and I. Though this is a really simple concept and I have always known that the more I laugh, the more drawn I become to the individual who makes me laugh, it’s really sort of lovely to see it laid out as in the article above.

So, especially to women. Pay attention to your laugh. It is an instinctual and now scientifically proven signal from your gut that the person before you is worth a little more attention than you may otherwise be willing to give.

Equally, pay (even more) attention to when you have stopped laughing as it may signal that one of your most important roads of communication needs a summer of heavy construction. Or it may mean that you need to build a new road elsewhere.