You're Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile

Wisdom Nugget: "A cheerful disposition is good for your health; gloom and doom leave you bone-tired"

Smile
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“If you can find humour in anything, you can survive it.” - Bill Cosby

Laughter is physically good for you like a vitamin - it relieves muscle tension, improves your memory, boosts your immune system and helps prevent heart disease; among other things. It’s worth it to even fake laughter at your boring friend's "unfunny" jokes. It calms you down, why deny yourself the pleasure? A little drop of healthy humour will settle things down between friends after a bitter argument, faster than anything I know. Irrespective of the weight of that burden, it’s shattered under the strength of a generous dose of healthy humour - humour makes burdens light keeping them from crushing us.

Just in case you're one of those who find almost every joke not funny enough, here are a few pointers to (help) make you laugh.

1. Think of something you find funny. Not surprisingly, the easiest way to laugh is to think of something that you personally find very amusing. This can be useful for those occasions where everybody but you is laughing at a joke. Hear Agnes Repplier, "We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh"

2. Smile: If you do want to fake or create a laugh, start with a smile. Scientists have found that genuine laughter is almost accompanied by the contraction of about 15 facial muscles, most of which are the same you use when you smile, it can actually put you in a better mood and make you more apt to laugh. Smiling has been shown to make you feel good; therefore a smile precedes laughter, as you have to feel good before you laugh.

3. Laugh at the appropriate time. Genuine laughs almost always begin at the end of a phrase or sentence.

4. Watch one of your favourite comedies, or ask your friends for a funny movie they have recently watched. You could go watch it with them for more laughs.

5. Talk about something cheerful or funny.

6. Have your own sense of humour too. Make your own joke - something that is truly funny to you.

Laughter is contagious. It’s also beneficial to life and relationships. Laughter reduces stress and tension. Laughter stimulates the immune system. Laughter increases natural painkillers in the blood leading to a decrease in systemic inflammation. Laughter reduces blood pressure and lifts your spirits. Laughter brings couples closer - it keeps a relationship fresh. Jay Leno puts it thus, “You can’t stay mad at somebody who makes you laugh.”

Our emotional, spiritual and physical health improves with daily doses of joy in the Lord. So today make sure you take some time to laugh and rejoice. Joy, smiles, gratitude and laughter are perfect medicines for our soul, available to everyone without negative side effects. Why not give yourself a generous dose of laughter today? 

Laugh Anyway

Wisdom Nuggets: "No matter what your heartache may be, laughing helps you forget it for a few seconds."
                                                                                                   - Red Skelton

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Research has shown that the health benefits of laughter are far-reaching. Bill Cosby said "Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it."

1. When you make fun of yourself, you disarm those who would make fun of you and defuse possible confrontations.
2. Laughter relieves tension, stress, anger, irritation, grief, and depression. Similar to crying, laughter lowers emotional barriers, allowing the release of pent-up emotions. After a hearty session of laughter, you experience a sense of true well-being.
3. Medical researchers have found that laughter boosts the immune system.
4. Laughter reduces pain by releasing endorphins that are more powerful than equivalent amounts of morphine.
5. Humor helps merge the 2 hemispheres of the brain. The left hemisphere is used to interpret the verbal content of a joke. The right hemisphere interprets whether it is funny or not.
6. Laughter adds spice to life. Laughter is to life what rain is to the earth.
7. When you develop your sense of humor, you become more productive, communicate better, and tend to be a better team player.
8. Laughter provides the balance we need to get through the many hurdles of life.
9. Laughter is another form of exercise - According to Dr. James Walsh, "it massages all the organs of the body"
10. Laughter/humor helps you to rise to any challenge and handle the unexpected with ease.

Many adults avoid doing fun things because of what I'll like to call "FOWOT", fear of what others think! The bad news is we let this fear control a chunk of our lives and yet the truth is that no one else is ever thinking about us. They are too busy worrying about what WE are thinking about them - how ironic?

Alan Alda says "When people are laughing, they're generally not killing one another" and Red Skelton concludes, "No matter what your heartache may be, laughing helps you forget it for a few seconds" and its usually a great feeling.

He Who Laughs, Lasts

Wisdom Nugget: “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones”

“The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.” - Mark Twain

Laughter is a convulsive physiological response to psychological stimuli, such as humorous material, or physical stimuli, such as tickling. The sudden release of tension during laughter causes a decrease in skeletal muscle tone, literally rendering the body “weak with laughter.” The diaphragm contracts and relaxes rapidly, often leading to hiccups or coughing. Some people double over and shake uncontrollably as though they were having seizures (“a fit of laughter”).
Scientists have been studying the effect of laughter on human beings, and have found, among other things, that laughter has a profound and instantaneous effect on virtually every important organ in the human body.

Laughter reduces health-sapping tensions and relaxes the tissues as well as exercising the most vital organs. Laughter, even when forced, results in a beneficial effect on us, both mentally and physically. Physicians have noted that laughter acts as an anesthetic by distracting the patient’s attention from pain - by reducing tension, by changing the patient’s expectations and by increasing the patient’s production of endorphins, which are natural painkillers (Peter and Dana, pp. 7-9).

Psychologists note that clowns and their regressive form of humor can coax people out of a state of withdrawal (Moody, pp. 27, 111-15).

 
Next time you feel nervous and jittery, indulge in a good laugh. Laughter is the best medicine for a long and happy life. He who laughs lasts.

 
It is said that Dr. Theodore Cuyler and Mr. Spurgeon were once out in the fields enjoying God's sunshine and the beauties of nature. Dr. Cuyler told a story at which Mr. Spurgeon laughed until his sides shook. Suddenly Mr. Spurgeon said, "Theodore, let's get down on our knees and thank God for laughter." And these two happy Christian preachers knelt in the field and thanked God for His great gift of laughter.
Martin Luther wrote "If you're not allowed to laugh in heaven, I don't want to go there".