Laughing Your Way to Health
Too many people have a misunderstanding about a healthy lifestyle. People get the notion that everything they like is forbidden and everything they are supposed to eat tastes awful. While watching hours of TV and having a bowl of ice cream might give you a few moments of immediate gratification, the long-term consequences are full of pain and discomfort. The unhealthy lifestyle eventually leads to medication, disability, pain, depression, surgeries, and long waits in doctors’ offices. Laughing your way to health can be the easiest and funnest therapy you will ever have.
Have Fun While Laughing Your Way to Health
The healthy lifestyle not only remedies the above situations, but also has immediate gratification, as you will see below. All of these modalities feel good and are scientifically proven to bolster your health. While not all of these healthy pleasures may be possible for you right now, keep them in mind for when they are practical. Our strategy in this book is to engage all of your healing faculties into a grand symphony of wellness that cannot be denied. The more wellness you have in your body, the less illness you can have in your body. What are you waiting for! Have fun and get well.
Laughing Your Way to Health
“Humor is the balancing stick that allows us to walk the tightrope of life.” John Kennedy, 35th president USA
History is rich in the primitive attempts of our ancestors to reap the benefits of laughter. Ancient kings would employ the court jester to make him laugh. Humor is fooling the mind, with an unexpected punch line. Humor allows us to tolerate the injustices and incongruities of life. The logical mind struggles with the problems of life. The humorous mind provides shock absorbers to better tolerate the undesirable aspects of life.
The TV show MASH was one of the longest running shows in TV history, spanning 1972-83 and 256 episodes. It was more than great casting, acting, and script writing that propelled this success. The MASH episodes were about draftees in Korea around 1950 who were trying to make the most out of an intolerable situation. Stuck 8000 miles from home in a hostile situation with death all around, the MASH team did their best to keep a sense of humor, which make the macabre setting tolerable. We can all learn something from the MASH TV shows.
Laughing in the Hospital Setting
Hunter Campbell, MD opened a free hospital in 1971 with humor and dignity as its primary goals for the patients. The 1998 movie Patch Adams highlighted this dedicated doctor and his use of humor in a setting of sickness. Norman Cousins used humor to help reverse his arthritic condition and later his heart attack. His books, ANATOMY OF AN ILLNESS and THE HEALING HEART are classic works of the link between the health of the mind and the body. Cousins called laughter “internal jogging”.
Easy Ways to Lower Stress Levels
What do the following longevity experts have in common?
Answer: All are comedians who outlived their peers by a decade or so.
We could inundate you with the science behind humor. There are wonderful organizations laughter and health. We could show you the clear evidence linking depression with heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s and more. We could show you how there are measurable changes in the immune panel and digestion of someone who had a good laugh.1 and websites that have documented the peer reviewed science laughter and health.
We could show you the clear evidence linking depression with heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s and more. We could show you how there are measurable changes in the immune panel and digestion of someone who had a good laugh.
Laughing Leads to Healthy Living
Or we could just turn you loose on YouTube.com and let you chuckle your way through the thousands of great humor videos available for free. Search for Jerry Seinfeld, Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts, Larry the Cable Guy, Kathleen Madigan, Jeff Foxworthy, or any of the other talented comedians online. Remember, don’t take yourself too seriously. None of us are getting out of this life alive. Have fun. Wag more, bark less.
Excerpted from:
12 KEYS TO A HEALTHIER CANCER PATIENT
by Patrick Quillin
