It is said that laughter has existed since the dawn of mankind. Cavemen laughed to signal to the rest of the group that the danger had passed. Nowadays we laugh at everything from someone losing his pants to something terrible happening. It's about the brain not knowing how to react and then we laugh. It seems that we find different things to be funny but it’s pretty common to laugh if someone else starts laughing. Once we’ve started laughing the body releases endorphins and they make us feel good. Nature has provided us with laughter in order to absorb all the atrocities that we are exposed to. Otherwise, you’d probably self-implode every time the bus was late or someone was mean to you at work. Then the world would have been quite empty of people and instead there’d be small piles of clothes here and there to remind us of the annoying situations that had arisen. Not so nice.

You can either visit an authorized laughter therapist or you can self-educate yourself in laughter therapy. There are CDs and books that in a pedagogical manner give examples of exercises in laughter therapy.

Bonus: http://www.skrattaforlivet.se/

Bonus 2: Laughter is contagious http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFpOiX515w

Today’s guest blogger is Elin Grelsson, a freelance writer and sidekick in P3's Brunchrapporten. She’s also writing a novel and blogs on http://sakerunderhuden.blogspot.com.

There are people who claim that one's identity is static and that we are who we are. Fuck them, frankly.

There are people who claim that you have become someone. As if life is striving for this peak, then you will have become "yourself". Fuck them as well.

I think that you, every day and throughout life, are someone and you are never the same as the day before. There is no single core that You are. There are thousands of small pits inside you that you can pick up whenever you want.

An alter ego is a perfect aid to get the guts to poke around all those pits you have inside you.

Your alter ego is much like the imaginary friend you had as a child. The difference is that now you are your own imaginary friend.

My alter egos, I have had several in different periods of my life, have been born out of frustration. A feeling of being stuck inside myself.

My latest alter ego, Woman Artist, materialized some years ago. It was then that I seriously began to pursue my writing. First off, it was scary. I didn’t dare to beat myself on the chest and show how good I actually was.

Secondly, I was bitter and frustrated with all the creative guys who never excused themselves in the way that I, and other girls in the same industry, often did. They took up space instead, elbowed their way forward and constantly talked about their creative work and their creativity.

I thought of Bergman, Strindberg, Lundell and all the other male artists. Those who had relationships that mostly seemed to be about having muses, and being seen as Great Artists.

They became the inspiration for the Woman Artist, the world's most annoying creative woman who just went on about creating, art, and how important and indispensable she was to culture. Who took herself too seriously and who treated men as muses and women as sisters, just as culture men have always had each other’s backs in their red rooms.

Through Woman Artist, I was all that Elin Grelsson didn’t dare to be. I took the qualities that I hadn’t dared to highlight, the fact that I actually think I'm good and important for real, and magnified them up to gigantic proportions. The Woman Artist was born out of my own fear, fueled by a society where girls still often excuse themselves in a completely different way than guys do.

When an alter ego is at its best it fills that precise function. It works against your fears, highlighting the characteristics of yourself that you don’t know you have or you don’t dare to develop. The alter ego is your own personal superhero.

During the coming weeks, 365's very own Alexander Kandiloros will be writing a post every Wednesday. There’ll tips on how to travel almost for free, how to arrange a lunch with Regina Spektor and ideas for new sports and livelihoods, such as below:

At a Thai beach a friend complained about how tourists destroy Thailand. Pool tables and Coca-Cola at each beach, who do we think we are? We should leave them alone and their culture rather than infect them with Western inventions. Really, I ask, is it that how culture works? All the pool-playing Asians I’ve encountered have liked the game.

And what would Sweden be like, without pizza, kebab, or sushi? Have they invaded Sweden, destroyed our culture, or they have enriched it? We are all citizens of the world. Swedish, Mexican, Chinese, these concepts are outdated. We are all just people, who want to have fun, eat good exciting things, and to be comfortable.

The idea of taking something home with me that wasn’t fake clothes or a stomach disease began in Beijing when I saw these colorful projectiles flying between senior citizens in the several parks. Further down in Asia we saw the same thing. Old and young kicking at something I didn’t at first understand what it was. I finally bought one to get to the bottom of the mystery at hand and it turned out that the thing was made out of four colored goose feathers with suspension in the bottom that you kick. A combination of badminton and Hacky Sack.

Jianzi.

I had never seen anything like that, and none of those I asked at home had either. Now a few months later, the first load has arrived, and with luck they’ll make summer in Sweden a little more fun, and a bit more colorful.

If you find something in your travels that’s fun, clever, or useful that you can’t find in your home country; by word of mouth or on the Internet, do the following:

1) Find out if there is a reason that there isn’t any in your country.
2) Calculate what it would cost to bring the thing to your country.
3) Bring the thing to your country.
4) Sell it to shops, start an e-store, or sell it to those you know.

Bonus: You will find Jianzi here. http://www.getjianzi.com/