Meditation is a great way of relaxing your mind/body/soul/spirit and tuning your life by being in the present moment. One great form of meditation is Zazen (Zen sitting meditation) where you concentrate on your breath....

A Zen master once said that a single deep belly laugh is more useful (physically and spiritualy) than half an hour of deepest meditation.

No wonder the happy laughing Buddha is one of the most favored religious objects in the East.

By now most people have heard of the story of Norman Cousins. He was a successful writer and journalist when he was diagnosed with a fatal disease. He released himself from the UCLA hospital and checked into a hotel near the hospital and got 16 mm prints of comedy films (Marx Brothers, the Stooges and so on). He spent the next few weeks just watching these funny movies and laughing his head off.

Soon he was feeling better and eventually his illness was over. He wrote about his experience in the seminal book "Anatomy of an illness."

The doctors were so impressed by Cousins' healing that they started one of the first neuroimmunology departments (name of the new mind/body field) to examine the healing effects of laughter, relaxation, meditation and other ways of improving your health through working on your mind. Cousins became the head of the department at UCLA.

One thing that the neuroimmunologists discovered is that when we laugh we produce both lots of endorphins (body's natural pain killers and healing molecule) and serotonin (the "happiness" neurotransmitter). Moreover, even simply smiling increases these wonderful chemicals. It does not really matter if you force a smile. Your facial muscle positions needed to smile will start the secretion of the "happy" molecules.

So next time you are down and want to get "high" go for the natural free legal drugs. Force a smile, watch a funny movie and laugh, laugh, laugh. There is something magical about laughter that once it starts it gets easier (I imagine it's all those endorphins and serotonin)...

Your outlook and perspective on your life will influence the performance of your brain. If you are optimistic and laugh a lot, then your brain will perform better in cognitive areas such as learning, test taking, and so on as well as keeping you healthy . Some may say that basic intelligence may never change after childhood, however even if that were true your actual performance does change depending on your attitude and expectations.

Again this is where laughter comes into its own. When you smile, better when you laugh you get a better attitude, you become more optimistic, and your expectations improve. Then your cognitive abilities will increase and you'll perform better.

So next time you have an exam, test, or major problem solving laugh your brain to maximum efficiency and "Ace that exam."