A Joke A Day Keeps The Doctor Away

Knock, Knock! Who’s there? Annie. Annie who? Annie way you can let me in now?!

Cringe. Knock-knock jokes are renowned for being childish and, quite frankly, terrible. But while they might not win us accolades at cocktail parties, any joke that brings a smile to our lips might just be good for our health.

That’s according to research commissioned by leading online bingo website Jackpotjoy.com, which concludes that here in Britain we’re laughing only half as much as we should be, and that it’s making us a nation of gloomy malcontents.

According to researchers, Brits laugh an average of 7.2 times a day. Yet psychologists say to maintain good mental health, we should be laughing at least 15 times a day. To show us just how unfunny we are, they’ve contrasted the number of times adults laugh with that of pre-school children. Carefree toddlers, the researchers say, giggle an average of 300-400 times a day.

Apart from becoming Peter Pan and refusing to grow up, what can we do to inject more fun and humour into our daily lives? Well, Jackpotjoy has an answer to that, as the entertainment company has begun a campaign to get the nation laughing again.

A fund of £250,000 called the Jackpotjoy FUNdation has been opened which people around the country can apply to for a laughter grant. If the funny committee at Jackpotjoy likes your idea for a stunt or trick which will make you and others laugh, they’ll give you the funds to carry out the task!

Jackpotjoy was motivated to open the fund after they saw just how critical the humour deficit in Britain had become. In the survey, a staggering 66% of Brits claimed they were in desperate need of more fun in their lives with lack of money (55%) and the spate of bad weather this summer (46%) cited as the main factors for the lack of fun and laughter. Other obstacles to having enough fun included work pressures (30%), family pressures (23%) and the end of the summer events (Jubilee and Olympics) and Bank Holidays (20%).

People in Leeds were revealed to have the highest daily laughter quota of 8.7 times a day, followed by Plymouth (8.6 times a day) and Newcastle (8.5 times a day). People with the fewest funny-bones were found in Norwich who laughed the least at only 5.4 times a day, nearly three times less than the recommended daily dose, followed by Brighton (6.1 times a day) and Glasgow (6.2 times a day).

Pollsters also revealed that people think this decade, 2010-2020, is proving the least fun since the war and post-war years of the 1940s!

Consultant psychologist, Anjula Mutanda commented on the laughter recession happening in the UK by saying at the release of the research report, “The importance of fun, laughter and joy cannot be underestimated, and the wealth of benefits that laughter provides are endless.’

Patron of the Jackpotjoy FUNdation, Barbara Windsor, comments: “It can be really easy to forget about having fun when dealing with all the pressures of everyday life but we all know how good it feels to have a good old giggle or a proper belly laugh and that’s what we’re aiming to do with the Jackpotjoy FUNdation.”

So if you have an idea that will cheer up the nation, now is your chance to get the funds you’ll need to see it through. Go to the Jackpotjoy site on Facebook for more details.



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