This is an interesting, inspirational book emphasizing the seemingly miraculous benefits of happiness, mirth and laughter.

As Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) wrote many years ago: 'The best doctors are Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet and Dr. Merryman'.

Stephanie Davies writes with warmth and enthusiasm. She imparts useful advice regarding the use of laughter in treating patients.

The book deserves a large audience.

Laughology took me on a wonderful journey of self-discovery. And although that's nothing to laugh about I often found myself smiling. I learned much about humour, laughter and fellow human beings - particularly valuable insights when they're family, colleagues or customers. 

Ms Davies certainly shows us how we take life much too seriously and how if we can take things with a bit more humour we would be much happier and more relaxed. It's worth picking up and reading to get a better perspective on life and laughter.

Did you hear the one about the stand-up comedian trained in behavioural and clinical health psychology who wrote a guide to the `science of laughter'? Infuriating as it may be at times to be told by some well-meaning, but woefully underinformed, acquaintance that you should `cheer up, it may never happen', there's a good deal of empirically proven truth in the adage that laughter is, if not the `best' medicine, certainly a therapy that's worth adding to your personal self-help toolkit. No, it won't cure cancer, or a cold - but it does have a whole range of benefits, both physical and psychological, and in this lively guide to what she calls 'laughology', Stephanie Davies explains with clarity and enthusiasm how it is possible to use your own sense of humour to harness positive emotions, reframe troubling situations, and generally develop a more useful and productive approach to various aspects of your life and work.

Author Stephanie Davies is Creative Director and founder
of Laughology, a training and consultancy firm that makes use of humour and positive thinking (see -˜Careers, April 2013). This is her -˜workbook for a new model of living'.

A comedian herself, she is studying for an MA linking humour, laughter, health and psychology, while practising the techniques in specialist mental health units. Laughology -˜provides you with a means to use humour and laughter to enhance thinking skills on every level for positive well-being, resilience and communication'.

As Davies admits, the techniques are largely common sense, but she challenges us to be proactive in finding ways to introduce more humour and laughter into our lives. -˜FLIP your mood' with Focus, Language, Imagination and Pattern Breaking. Find your laughter triggers. SMILE -” yes, that's an acronym too.

There's a light and cheery feel to this relatively slim tome. It's a playful and practical guide, and you'd have to be agelastic, or even misogelastic, to keep
a straight face throughout.

-˜Laughology' reads really well - it is clear and simple to use and the experiences referred to really help to bring the book alive. It brings positivity and colour into a person's life!

Laughology is a wonderful idea and gives people the tools live life to the full by linking humour, emotion, psychology and health.

You'd have to be agelastic, or even misogelastic, to keep a straight face through this playful and practical guide.

It is too tempting to not say it -” go on, you're pulling my leg. Someone flogging a book about laughter! Tell me another one (all said of course in a Cockney accent preferably whilst wearing a John Bull bowler hat and quaffing manfully from a pint glass). How surprised was I to open the pages of this that you hold in your hand and find a deeply compassionate exploration of the human condition through the medium of Laughology -” the technique of life enhancement through laughter. This is too superficial a description however. Stephanie has taken one of the simplest and most generic of human emotional expressions -” the laugh -” and, with insight and intelligence, dug deep beneath its public face (my brain is playing old Frankie Howard footage as I write) to find explanations in surprising places. As a neurobiologist I am very aware of the effects of emotional states on the brain but Stephanie expands and develops on this in a beautifully constructed piece of work that is understandable to anyone. Ultimately life is about finding ways to reframe the bad, not to ignore it but to make it manageable, to allow your brain the space to deal with the crap. As Stephanie so brilliantly points out in this book -” actually that reframing can as easily be done with a smile or a laugh as with any over-earnest depth exploration of areas that you would rather leave alone. Laugh and the world laughs with you. Maybe (though there is so much political correctness out there now it's a bit hard sometimes to know when you can laugh), but you can certainly adopt Stephanie's approach -” laugh and your internal world may learn to laugh with you. That sounds like a good result.

Well written and funny . . . Stephanie Davies has created a toolkit for helping us positively reframe our daily lives and for putting laughter at the heart of who we are.