Gwen’s Healing Garden

The #1 Web Site Gardening For The Soil Gardening For The Soul

Did You Know | Environmentally Friendly Gardening Products | Non-toxic Cleaning Products | Indoor Gardening With Foliage Plants

Subscribe to the FREE monthly GHG Newsletter and receive free the E-book A Book Of Quotes: Subscribe here

Laughing For the Health of It

By Catherine Fenwick

Think about spending a large percentage of your emotional day feeling negative. Think about spending most of your time around people who spend most of their lives being negative. It's not difficult to imagine a sinking, unhealthy response. Overexposure to negativity can make you feel sick. I believe it depletes your strength, making it more difficult for you to resist disease.

A DIRTY DOZEN OF NEGATIVE EMOTIONS
angry	bored	lonely	depressed
shocked	hostile	defeated	frightened
guilty	sad	ignored	hurt

Now think about spending most of your day with people who relish the delectable dozen of positive emotions. It gives you a lift just thinking about it. Exposure to an abundance of positivity can make you feel well. Positive emotions add a certain quality that enhances every aspect of life.

A DELECTABLE DOZEN OF POSITIVE EMOTIONS
joyous	calm	hope	cheerful
love	bountiful	kind	delighted
peaceful	happy	vivacious	affectionate

"Laughter is a symbol for all of the positive emotions"

Laughter enhances every aspect of life and is a symptom of health and well being. It is a way of getting off the downward spiral of negativity. Laughter is so good for us that medical researchers have started to take it seriously. Many books and articles have been written on the subject. Some writers claim their sense of humour saved their lives. Without humour, I think we don't have much of a life.

Think back and remember people you have really liked. (Print this out and fill it in.)

NAME THEM	LIST THEIR QUALITIES
Relatives
Friends
Teachers
Co-workers
Others

I'll bet you mentioned "sense of humour" as one of the qualities attributed to most of the people you like. Humour isn't for everyone. It's for people who want to enjoy life and feel fully alive.

Laughing is healthy. A good long hard laugh is like internal jogging. It gets the heart beating faster, brings in extra oxygen and stimulates blood circulation.

Laughing activates the hypothalamus, pituitary and adrenal glands. This results in the production of endorphines (internally produced morphine-like molecules) which makes us feel better. The whole body relaxes and disease fighting immune cells reproduce like crazy. With all these benefits, I think laughter should be prescribed by Doctors as an adjunct therapy in the treatment of illness and disease.

Norman Cousins wrote about his experience with life-saving laughter in Anatomy of an Illness. He believed that laughter, along with hope, faith, will to live, purpose, and determination can assist medical science in overcoming life threatening diseases.

Laughter won't prevent us from dying in the long run, but it may increase life expectancy. It certainly adds to the quality of life. If positive emotions are healing, we should be getting as much as we can.

What things do you do that you consider to be healing activities?

Ask yourself this question: "What do I still want to do before I die?"

Well, what are you waiting for!

(This chapter of Cathy’s book Love and Laughter: A Healing Journey deals with the relationship between happiness and health. Read it just for the health of it.)

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Cathy Fenwick is an author, educator, and therapist. She develops and presents workshops on how to get more healthy humour into your life. Her books include: Love and Laughter: A Healing Journey (2004); Telling My Sister’s Story (1996); and Healing With Humour (1995). You can checkout Cathy’s website at www.healingwithhumour.com or e-mail cfenwick@sasktel.net for more information about her books and workshops.

Home | Top

For more information or questions about material on this site contact www.gwenshealinggarden.ca/Contact_Form.htm

"Laughter is a symbol for all of the positive emotions"

NAME THEM

LIST THEIR QUALITIES

Relatives

Friends

Teachers

Co-workers

Others

Well, what are you waiting for!