A dose of humor is good medicine for today’s world.

After hearing bad, depressing news day after day, I need a dose of humor right about now. Perhaps you do, too.

According to studies, laughter strengthens our ability to cope with problems and has a positive effect on our health.

Humor can lower our bodies’ stress hormones and release happy hormones and chemicals such as dopamine, endorphins and serotonin.

Laughter also improves our heart health, blood pressure and muscle tension, according to medical professionals. It is a way to blow off steam in a beneficial way.

Even the Bible extols the positive benefit of laughter in Proverbs 17:22: “A merry heart doth good like a medicine …”

Probably that scripture inspired today’s common adage: “Laughter is the best medicine.”

My favorite kind of humor comes from words, both written and spoken. Words are powerful. They have caused war, divorce, murder and all kinds of atrocities. Yet they are nothing more than sounds that come out of our mouths or squiggly lines and loops and dots on paper.

Comedians deliberately create laughter with their words. Other folks, myself included, unfortunately, sometimes cause amusement by blurting out words with silly double meanings, or we speak before our tongues and brains consult with each other.

Several such examples are burned into my memory.

Recently at a jazz concert we were seated on high chairs along the wall, a view I enjoyed because I am short.

When at intermission my partner pointed out two regular chairs that remained unoccupied and suggested we move for the second half, I blurted out, “No, I love being high.”

People turned to look at me and laugh. Without intention, I guess I gave them a dose of good medicine that evening and embarrassed myself in the process.

Friends still remind me of a crazy mix-up and my equally crazy response to it at a birthday party I threw for my late husband.

Without telling anyone, I booked a singing gorilla to appear during the party to perform.

However, without telling me or anyone else, two friends who attended the party had arranged to surprise all of us with a scantily-clad stripper from another company.

When the doorbell rang midway through the festivities, I eagerly swung open the front door, expecting my gorilla. I will always remember the shocked expression on the young woman’s face when I looked at her and exclaimed, “Oh, I thought you were a gorilla.”

Fortunately she didn’t run away, and everyone had a good laugh.

Another such lapse of my brain/tongue connection almost led to calamity for a man who quickly tried to escape from me.

He was occupying the end of a park bench, listening to a concert, and my husband and I joined him on the bench.

Acting silly, I patted my husband’s face and said, “Let me pull your beard.” The poor man next to us tripped over his white cane as he jumped up and scurried off. It was then I realized he was blind and was sporting a beard.

I still laugh whenever I think of the former Sears store in Whitehall where my words caused a spectacle and probably brought my sanity into question.

On a rainy day as I walked through the store I felt like I was barefoot. The floor was cold. When I lifted my foot, I saw that the sole of my old shoe had completely disintegrated, leaving a trail of sole crumbs back to the door.

“I lost my sole,” I shouted, as nearby customers and employees all turned to stare. Realizing the absurdity of my loud announcement, I laughed hysterically as I rushed to the restroom to compose myself.

But I succeeded only in driving out everyone in there. Who wants to be cooped up in a public bathroom with a lunatic laughing wildly in the next stall?!

Whether we seek laughter or inadvertently provide it in others’ lives, humor is an important companion on our journey through the years. We need to be able to laugh, even if only at ourselves.

Humor is good for the soul (the sole, too!).

During these tumultuous times, may all of us find something funny that lifts our spirits and fills our bellies with laughs.