Lighten Up w/ Humor & Play

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Misty L. Trepke

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Lighten Up with Humor, Play, and Pleasure

John W. Travis, M.D., M.P.H. and Sara Regina Ryan

 

http://healthy.net/scrfidyl/column.asp?

PageType=column & ColumnId=22 & ID=485

 

The process of becoming healthier can be presented as such serious

business that you lose much of the humor and joy of living that

characterize wellbeing. Many books about health are filled with

predictions of dire consequences for failure to follow particular

methods, horror stories of what certain foods or lack of foods can

do, or warnings about the cancer-causing qualities of everything.

It's enough to make you crazy!

 

Recent studies indicate that humor is an effective stress reducer and

that it may actually increase antibody production, which means a

stronger immune system. In 1964, Norman Cousins, then editor of

Saturday Review, helped to heal himself from a life-threatening

disease through a regimen of vitamin C, renewed self-responsibility,

and humor. His reading of several classic books on the subject of

stress convinced him that disease was fostered by chemical changes in

the body produced by emotions such as anger and fear. He wondered

whether an antidote of hope, love, laughter, and the will to live

would have the opposite effect. Encouraged by watching Marx Brothers

movies and Candid Camera TV sequences, reading humorous books and

stories, and listening to jokes, he found that short periods of

hearty laughter were enough to induce several hours of painless

sleep. Years later, Cousins recommended laughter to others, claiming

that this " inner exercising " was beneficial in stimulating breathing,

muscular activity, and heart rate.

 

It takes a long time to become young.

Pablo Picasso

 

Worldwide interest continues to grow in establishing the benefits of

laughter and humor in health, supported by wide-ranging scientific

research. The Humor Project Inc., based in Saratoga Springs, New

York, one of many associations dedicated to tickling the funny bone,

publishes Laughing Matters Magazine in twenty countries, and offers

Daily Laffirmations through its Web site, www.humorproject.com.

 

Raymond Moody Jr., MD, the author of Laugh after Laugh: The Healing

Power of Humor, has used this approach with his patients for many

years. Humor works, he claims, because laughter helps take your mind

off pain and problems, and catalyzes the basic will to live.

 

The arrival of a good clown exercises more beneficial influence upon

the health of a town than twenty asses laden with drugs. Thomas

Sydenham, seventeenth-century physician

 

Take a Seriousness Break Right Now

 

Look in the mirror and make the wildest, most distorted face you can

make. Now make an even wilder one.

 

Throw away your troubles. Stand up right now. Form your hands into

fists and bring them together at the center of your chest. Raise your

elbows on a line with your fists. Thrust your shoulders and elbows

back sharply, as if you are trying to shake something off your back

and shoulders. After the thrust, let your fists come together again

at the level of your chest, and thrust your shoulders and elbows

back again. Do this six to eight times in rapid succession,

saying " get off my back " each time you thrust back. Release whatever

is burdening you.

 

Read the comics in today's paper. Forget the front page for a while.

Put on a comedy video, if you have one. Cue it up to your favorite

funny part, and play it and replay it several times. Rent a few

comedy tapes or go to a light, entertaining movie. Do this regularly.

 

Collect jokes. Ask anyone around you for a joke or two. Get on an

e-mail joke-mailing list. Call a friend and have them tell you a

joke, even if they know you've heard it before. Now you share one

with them. Get silly!

 

Watch young children at play. Note the spontaneity and sheer delight

that often characterizes their activities.

 

Remember laughing so hard that your stomach hurt? Can you recall what

provoked that? Let yourself feel it again.

 

Therapeutic humor is any intervention that promotes health and

wellness by stimulating a playful discovery, expression or

appreciation of the absurdity or incongruity of life's situations.

This intervention may enhance health or be used as a complementary

treatment of illness to facilitate healing or coping, whether

physical, emotional, cognitive, social, or spiritual.

 

Redefining Play

 

Play is an essential component of wellness. It is necessary to keep

the fun-loving part of yourself alive, nurtured, and happy. The

dictionary defines play as recreation. Re-creation! So, in the

fullest sense of the term, it means to make new, to vitalize again,

to inspire with life and energy. When you give yourself time to play

you give yourself new life. What words do you associate with play?

Are they active words, like silliness, craziness, sports, games,

excitement? Perhaps one of the reasons people don't play more is

that they have accepted a very narrow definition of play. Maybe

they've looked around at what society tells them is " fun " to do and

found that it wasn't.

 

Imagine the world without pleasure. Life would appear colorless and

humorless, a baby's smile would go unappreciated. Foods would be

tasteless. The genius of a Bach concerto would fall on deaf ears.

Feelings like joy, thrills, delights, ecstasy, elation, and happiness

would disappear. The company of others would bring no comfort or joy.

The touch of a mother would no longer soothe, and a lover could not

arouse. Interest in sex and procreation would dry up. The next

generation would await unborn.

 

Ornstein and Sobel, Healthy Pleasures

 

Consider that play can also be described as absorbing, fascinating,

peaceful, flowing, restful—that it needn't be highly organized or

competitive. Perhaps you have forgotten the natural play of your

childhood, when you could lose yourself in exploring rocks, making a

fantasy realm out of a chair and a sheet, or singing for your own

amusement.

 

It is easy to get caught up in the frenzy of filling every minute of

your working hours with meaningful business. But this becomes a

self-defeating strategy when it flows into your leisure time as well.

The fear of " wasting " time has become an obsession for many, so they

end up on a fast track of play.

 

Teenagers suggest that you " chill out, " or " relax, dude. " These

admonitions are important as you approach play. Please don't use any

of the ideas here to burden yourself with increased demands on your

time and energy. Perhaps it's time to just do nothing for some part

of each day. Slowing down long enough to receive the simple

pleasures that are all around you is one of the most effective ways

to deepen your enjoyment of life and thereby enhance your overall

health.

 

We stake our lives on our purposeful programs and projects, our

serious jobs and endeavors. But doesn't the really important part of

our life unfold " after hours " —singing and dancing, music and

painting, prayer and lovemaking, or just fooling around?

 

Fr. William McNamara

 

 

What's Your Pleasure?

 

What does play mean to you? Is there enough fun in your life? Enough

time for simply fooling around? You will find it easier to begin

exploring this subject by making a Non-pleasure List of things that

aren't fun or playful or enjoyable for you. Things like skydiving, or

shopping for clothes, or running. You may even get a laugh or two out

of making the list. Once that list is out of the way, you may be

inspired to make a Pleasure List of what is fun for you—like checking

out garage sales, going out for breakfast with a friend, or taking a

sauna.

 

Go through your Pleasure List and indicate the last time you remember

doing each of these activities. Is there one item on your list that

you could do today? One that you will put on your schedule for this

week or next? Many people find it helpful to actually put the date on

their calendar, scheduling in times for doing something fun or for

just doing nothing.

 

 

John W. Travis, M.D., M.P.H., acknowledged as a founder of the

wellness movement, established the first wellness center in the U.S.

in 1975, and created the Wellness Inventory (the first wellness

assessment). He is author of the classic Wellness Workbook (Ten Speed

Press). The online version of the Wellness Inventory may be accessed

at http://www.healthy.net/well

by HealthWorld members and licensed by organizations.