When you find something really funny, why do you sometimes "laugh until you cry"?

1 ANSWERS

1. Saba
   

   Experts don't really know. One thing to consider: Laughing and crying are similar psychological reactions. "Both occur during states of high emotional arousal, involve lingering effects, and don't cleanly turn on and off," says Robert R. Provine, Ph.D., a psychologist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and author of Laughter: A Scientific Investigation (Penguin, 2001). We associate crying with sadness, but tearing up is an even more complex human response. Tears are triggered by a variety of emotions—"by pain, sadness, and in some cases even extreme mirth.
   
   It's just the way we've evolved," says Lee Duffner, M.D., a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Miami's Bascom Palmer Eye Institute. As it turns out, that's good, because both laughter and crying can ease a stressful experience, probably by counteracting the effects of cortisol and adrenaline. So if you ever find yourself laughing until you cry, count yourself lucky.

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