I remember reading some years ago that children laugh somewhere around 300 – 400 times a day. In the same article it said that adults laugh as little as 15 times a day. Wow, that is a huge difference. To me it is sad statement that as we grow older we “lose” (or maybe we stifle) our ability to laugh. Me, I love to laugh. I don’t think that I am quite up to 300 laughs a day…but I get in about 100 a day. I believe that laughter is beneficial and extremely healing. I believe that it can be very therapeutic…not only for yourself, but those around you.
Dr. Richard Schulze said in an interview once that he encouraged his patients to learn 1,000 jokes as part of their healing process. While you might think this to be a tedious and unneccesary task to learn so many jokes, why not instead think of the laughter his patients got from taking on the assignment. While learning 1,000 jokes do you think their minds were focused on their illness or on laughter? I’m guessing that they were focused on laughing.
In his groundbreaking book, “Anatomy Of An Illness”, Norman Cousins describes how he started watching “The 3 Stooges” on a daily basis to “activate” his sense of humor and “regain” his laugh.
Yours In Health!
G.E. Moon II
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