So, a guy walks into the doctor’s office and says, Doc, I broke my arm in three places. The doctor replies, well, stay out of those places.

Admit it, you just groaned and maybe laughed a little. If so, that’s good. You’re helping your health.

There’s truth in the saying that laughter is the best medicine. Research has shown laughter can help reduce inflammation and stress hormones, improve circulation and enhance the immune system.

Researchers have studied how laughter changes brain function and have found it can stimulate healing gamma waves in the brain. In fact, just finding something funny or amusing, without full-on laughter, can produce brain benefits.

A report in Everyday Health points out we all may have lost some of our sense of humor from the stressors we all facing because of the pandemic. It’s up to each of us to regain some of that mirth.

This doesn’t mean thinking of challenging situations as funny, or ignoring pain and suffering. It means allowing the lighter side of life to emerge more often to release tension and recharge our batteries.

Try to find the humor in everyday situations. If you spill your coffee, make a joke about it, something like saying: Now it’s half and half — half in the cup, half in my lap.

And stop the “doom-scrolling.’’ This is the term for endlessly consuming negative and anger-producing content on your phone or computer. Sometimes, a silly cat video can be a tonic. If you find pages with funny content, like them. They’ll be more likely to appear in your feed.

Take a cue from the good doctor. When a guy walked in waving his arm and said, Doc, it hurts when I do this, the doctor told him, then don’t do that.