With the fearful strain
that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die. — Abraham Lincoln
I always
wonder when i see people, some smile, some try to smile, some pretend to smile
and some don’t even smile. What is so different with life of these people?
The answer is
there is nothing different in their lives. Difference is in the way these
people look at their life. Each one of us has problems. It has never happened
that none of us has ever faced problems in our lives.
Has it been ever
happened to you that you have spent a day without laughing????? . Have you ever
not felt lighter after laughing even though life is full of problems????? .Most
of us will have the answer “NO”. Laughter has been known from generations as
the best medicine .Laughter is a powerful antidote to
stress, pain, and conflict. Nothing works faster or more dependably to bring
your mind and body back into balance than a good laugh. Humour lightens your
burdens, inspires hopes, connects you to others, and keeps you grounded,
focused, and alert.
With
so much power to heal and renew, the ability to laugh easily and frequently is
a tremendous resource for surmounting problems, enhancing your relationships,
and supporting both physical and emotional health.
§ A
good, hearty laugh relieves physical tension and stress, leaving your muscles
relaxed for up to 45 minutes after.
§ Laughter
decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting
antibodies, thus improving your resistance to disease.
§ The body’s natural feel-good chemicals.
Endorphins promote an overall sense of well-being and can even temporarily
relieve pain.
§ Laughter
improves the function of blood vessels and increases blood flow, which can help
protect you against a heart attack and other cardiovascular problems.
Laughter
makes you feel good. And the good feeling that you get when you laugh remains
with you even after the laughter subsides. Humour helps you keep a positive,
optimistic outlook through difficult situations, disappointments, and loss.
More
than just a respite from sadness and pain, laughter gives you the courage and strength
to find new sources of meaning and hope. Even in the most difficult of times, a
laugh–or even simply a smile–can go a long way toward making you feel better.
And laughter really is contagious—just hearing laughter primes your brain and
readies you to smile and join in the fun.
Shared
laughter is one of the most effective tools for keeping relationships fresh and
exciting. All emotional sharing builds strong and lasting relationship bonds,
but sharing laughter and play also adds joy, vitality, and resilience. And
humour is a powerful and effective way to heal resentments, disagreements, and
hurts. Laughter unites people during difficult times.
Incorporating
more humour and play into your daily interactions can improve the quality of
your love relationships— as well as your connections with co-workers, family
members, and friends. Using humour and laughter in relationships allows you to:
§ . Humour
gets you out of your head and away from your troubles.
§ Laughter
helps you forget judgments, criticisms, and doubts.
§ Your
fear of holding back and holding on are set aside.
§ Deeply
felt emotions are allowed to rise to the surface.
Laughter
is your birthright, a natural part of life that is innate and inborn. Infants
begin smiling during the first weeks of life and laugh out loud within months
of being born. Even if you did not grow up in a household where laughter was a
common sound, you can learn to laugh at any stage of life.
Begin
by setting aside special times to seek out humour and laughter, as you might
with working out, and build from there. Eventually, you’ll want to incorporate
humour and laughter into the fabric of your life, finding it naturally in
everything you do.
Here
are some ways to start:
§ Smiling
is the beginning of laughter. Like laughter, it’s contagious. Pioneers in
“laugh therapy,” find it’s possible to laugh without even experiencing a funny
event. The same holds for smiling. When you look at someone or see something
even mildly pleasing, practice smiling.
§ Literally
make a list. The simple act of considering the good things in your life will
distance you from negative thoughts that are a barrier to humour and laughter.
When you’re in a state of sadness, you have further to travel to get to humour
and laughter.
§ Sometimes
humour and laughter are private, a shared joke among a small group, but usually
not. More often, people are very happy to share something funny because it
gives them an opportunity to laugh again and feed off the humour you find in
it. When you hear laughter, seek it out and ask, “What’s funny?”
§ These
are people who laugh easily–both at themselves and at life’s absurdities–and
who routinely find the humour in everyday events. Their playful point of view
and laughter are contagious.
One
essential characteristic that helps us laugh is not taking ourselves too
seriously. We’ve all known the classic tight-jawed sourpuss who takes
everything with deathly seriousness and never laughs at anything. No fun there!
Some
events are clearly sad and not occasions for laughter. But most events in life
don’t carry an overwhelming sense of either sadness or delight.
They fall into the gray zone of ordinary life–giving you the choice to laugh or
not.
As laughter, humour, and play become an
integrated part of your life, your creativity will flourish and new discoveries
for playing with friends, co-workers, acquaintances, and loved ones will occur
to you daily. Humour takes you to a higher place where you can view the world
from a more relaxed, positive, creative, joyful, and balanced perspective.
At end of the day i always remember these sayings
Don’t take life so seriously,.... nobody does.
Take your life seriously..its your life..if you
don’t who else will take it seriously.
These two saying even though being contrary, are
true in their own way, it only depends on the situation.
So keep smiling and keep spreading smiles.
