Why People With a Great Sense of Humor Live Longer: If you want to live to 100, you should probably be in on the joke (Tanner Garrity, January 27, 2026, Inside Hook)
According to a 15-year follow-up of Norway’s Trøndelag Health Study, sense of humor is strongly connected to lower mortality rates. Humor decreases our risk of cardiovascular diseases, cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases. It enriches the brain, too — strikingly, the authors of the study described humor as a “health-protecting cognitive coping resource.”The research indicates that a life lived in good humor can help adult men reduce their risk of death from infection by 74%. Ultimately, humor isn’t just something that makes life worth living — it also functions as a valuable tool, which can help us deal with the inevitabilities of aging in a healthier, more resilient way.