Does anybody remember Readers Digest? It’s in just about every waiting room out there – the doctor’s office, the dentist’s office, the car mechanics shop.
The Reader’s Digest is the first thing I look for when I’m in a waiting room anywhere. I don’t always have time to read the “Drama in Real Life” but “Laughter is the best Medecine” is always the first page I look for.
Little did they know in 1922 – the year that that Reader’s Digest was founded – that they were really on to something. They had actually discovered a natural vaccine on par with the discovery of Penicillin.
We all love to laugh. It makes us feel good, that’s a given. But there is also scientific proof that laughter can help to maintain good physical and mental health.
Laughing naturally releases endorphins in the brain and it’s been said that these endorphins induce a euphoria similar to the high you can get from a drug like Heroin – without all of the nasty side effects like destroying your life.
Laughter also relieves stress and anxiety. Have you ever heard of “nervous laughter”? This is when you start laughing in a situation where laughter is not appropriate – for example, laughing at a funeral.
The theory is that when we are at risk of being overwhelmed by our emotions, expressing the opposite emotion can help us cope and restore emotional balance. The same theory applies to crying at a wedding.
I am definitely a stress laugher; especially at work. I’ve even pissed off the occasional client and/or manager because it looks like I’m not taking the situation seriously. But the reality is that I am taking the situation so seriously that I need to reach out to my trusted coping mechanism in order to calm down and begin to think clearly.
Remember this the next time you scowl at the class clown in the board room. This person may not be the buffoon you think he is and that this reaction may be necessary in order to become productive. Of course, it could also mean that he is just a buffoon – it’s a tough call sometimes.
Laughter also plays a role in your social life and your relationships. We all know that it’s the funny guy or gal that everyone is drawn to. It’s human nature to want to feel good and be happy. No one purposely seeks out the Downer in the crowd. I challenge you to find a eulogy out there that doesn’t include something along the lines of “it’s his/her sense of humour that we will miss the most”.
I have to tell you that I know a number of Downers (I did not seek them out, they are a part of my life against my will) and I can tell you without a doubt that the Downers hate the folks with a great sense of humour – let’s call them the “Uppers”.
They hate them because they easily draw people away from their “Downer” club. Downers have to work hard to suck people in whereas Uppers don’t have to work at it at all. And Downers only flourish when they are dragging others down with them.
Okay. So laughing is great for physical, mental and emotional health and for society as a whole.
So why aren’t we laughing anymore?
Society is so angry and stressed now that the laughing has stopped. Could this be the reason for the dramatic increase in depression? Again, I have no real research to back me up but common sense tells me that, with the warped sense of priorities in society right now, the opportunities for laughter are fading.
Oh sure, we laugh but is it healthy laughter? Or is it stress laughter?
President Donald Trump has produced a wealth of material for comedians everywhere but are we just laughing to avoid looking at the real truth? That this man may very well destroy America and every other country associated with them? (I am referring to my own country – Canada) This is not funny.
We laugh at the “first world problems” of the Hiltons, the Kardashians and the Real Housewives of Atlanta but is this laughter productive? I don’t even know why people laugh, they aren’t funny. They just make you feel better knowing that their lives sometimes suck too. Again, this is not funny.
We spend a lot of time laughing AT each other now when we should be laughing WITH each other.
There is a wealth of reality shows on TV now that are designed to create controversy, competition and anger. I don’t watch them; I find no entertainment value in them at all. I like the old fashioned situation comedy. Nobody ever screamed at their TV during an episode of “Jerry Seinfeld” or “Friends”.
And the poor kids! Major depression among teens in the U.S. has jumped 37% in the last decade. That is a real statistic by the way; I didn’t make it up. You don’t need studies to tell you why, you just need to look at what society expects today. Kids today have so much more than just peer pressure now.
The kids are cracking and turning to sex, drugs and alcohol at younger and younger ages just to cope.
We tell them that they need to know what profession they will follow by the age of 15 and that a degree is no longer enough; a Masters Degree is the only way to get that great job anymore.
And then we tell them that there probably won’t be any jobs anyway but go ahead and incur tens of thousands of dollars in educational debt before your thirty years old anyway.
Oh, and by the way, you probably won’t have to pay it back because the world will destroy itself with nuclear bombs before that.
And since you essentially don’t have a future to look forward to, feel free to kill yourself early with the crap food we are marketing to you and the sedentary life we have created for you.
My personal prediction is that we are on the road to a rebellion similar to the flower children of the sixties. Unfortunately, these drugged out children will have guns instead of flowers.
Oh dear. This post has taken a bit of a dark turn but that happens sometimes. I start to write with one intention but it morphs into something else. I am compelled to follow what the fingers tell me I want to say.
I guess what I really want to say is that we need to find and create opportunities to laugh more. We need to help ourselves and our kids. We need to get funny!
We need more laughter in our lives.
Laughter can heal, laughter can motivate and laughter can create change.
It’s really hard to aim a gun when you’re laughing.
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