Why are we eating for health? Let’s laugh.
I wish to discuss the very serious business of humour. Is humour the best medicine? Let’s have a look at how it can enhance wellness.
Wise King Solomon said, “A merry heart doeth good like medicine.”
I am not sure he used words like “doeth,” but his message was clear.
Fast forward about 2,500 years to the 1960s. You may have heard of Dr. Norman Cousins, author of the bestseller, Anatomy of an Illness, who had a nasty debilitating neuromuscular disease. He credits his recovery to ingesting large doses of vitamin C and daily doses of laughter, watching Marx Brothers and Three Stooges films in his hospital room.
You see, in addition to relieving stress, laughter releases endorphins, a natural painkiller, related to morphine. It also lowers blood pressure.
The consensus that humour is helpful to your health is widespread. The indigenous Dakotas and Lakotas had heyokas who were comedians that were believed to have the power of healing by making people laugh. They would do this by telling funny stories, gently teasing their subjects or doing tricks, such as performing a task backwards. Their antics were meant to heal people.
Many hospitals today have humour carts, in addition to crash carts, where volunteers or staff or clowns cruise the hospital wards with funny material such as puppets, comics and cartoons, videos and other paraphernalia. While I practiced law for over 40 years, I had a puppet of cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn on my desk. I would ask clients who could use a smile to squeeze his belly, and he would utter in his Texas drawl, ‘Ah say son, go away. You bother me.”
This experience I shall admit did not necessarily help me win a case (though it should have), but it made the clients see me as more human and it made them more relaxed.
You may also have heard of laughter yoga, which originated in India. Today, there are thousands of clubs around the globe. The leader starts to laugh for no reason at all.
For example, he might say, “I just finished dining at an expensive restaurant. You are the server and you are handing me the bill.” As the subject pretends to hand the leader the bill, the leader then pulls the flaps out of his pockets, showing they are empty, and then starts laughing uncontrollably. It does not take long for the laughter yoga group to join the giggles. Laughter is contagious. The group then practices similar scenarios in pairs.
The interesting thing is that the brain cannot distinguish spontaneous laughter from self-induced, so if you fake a laugh, you still get the benefits.
I have tried it and it works. (When I say I tried it, I don’t mean I tried to stiff a restaurant. I don’t recommend doing that at all. Your laughter may be short lived after the manager arrives on the scene).
As I mentioned, a major benefit of humour is relief of stress. I had to undergo a cardiac stress test and I was concerned once the speed got cranked up on the treadmill that my heart rate would rise too high and I might suffer an event. I told this to the cardiologist, and Dr. X (his real name) who had a good sense of humour, said to me, “If you drop dead on my treadmill, that will piss me off royally.”
To this point, I was totally in knots, but his comment broke me up. My stress evaporated instantly. (I need not add that I survived the test).
With stress managed properly, you can think clearer and act more effectively. Humour allows you to detach yourself from a situation for long enough to interrupt the negative pattern, and this will enable you to think clearly and recover the situation.
Dr. Viktor Frankl, noted psychiatrist and author of Man’s Search for Meaning, who spent time in concentration camps during WWII, credits a sense of humour with saving not only himself but others who regularly deployed it. He discussed a favourite device of his, logotherapy. If, for example, you are afraid of sweating while public speaking, he suggests that instead of telling yourself, “I won’t sweat,” do the opposite. Tell yourself, “This time in front of that wedding crowd, I’ll sweat 10 litres worth.” This had worked for many of his patients who were afraid of screwing up one way or another.
And the beauty of humour is that humour begets humour. If you use it, others in your presence will respond in kind. Legendary comedian Victor Borge said, “A smile is the shortest distance between two people.”
At my nearby supermarket, there is a cashier who I had never seen smile. This disturbed me and I tried to avoid lining up at her register, even if the line was shorter. I recently tried an experiment. I bought a bag of potatoes and while plopping it on the belt, together with a chicken, I said, “There is a special this week. Buy five pounds of potatoes and the chicken is free.” Without hesitation, she smiled and said, “That was last week’s special, sir.”
I was stunned. It worked. I will add, since then, she smiles whenever she sees me. I will not push my luck when she rings up my order and announces the amount due, by turning out the flaps of my empty pockets. Or, then again, maybe I will. After all, she does have a sense of humour.
Marcel Strigberger, retired from his Greater Toronto Area litigation practice, continues the more serious practice of humorous author and speaker. Marcel is the author of two books, which can be found on Amazon, iBooks and through Indigo and other retailers. www.marcelshumour.com
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