Friday, April 18, 2014 9:30 am
|
Updated: 9:44 am, Fri Apr 18, 2014.
Midland Daily News
Bob Cummings
Photos
Has the phrase “laughter is the best medicine” ever bothered you just a little bit or seemed a little over-reaching?
I don’t think we’re supposed to take it too literally. It simply indicates that humor can be beneficial. These days, studies show, for example, that laughter reduces stress, strengthens the immune system, relieves pain and even burns calories.
The University of Michigan Health System, with which MidMichigan Health is affiliated, has a page on its website about “Humor Therapy” written by Healthwise.org. It says, “When you think of humor therapy, picture clowns in the children’s ward of a hospital cheering up sick children. Some hospitals now have humor carts that provide funny materials for people of any age. Many nurses have learned the value of providing a good laugh to those they care for.”
Pastor Joel Osteen told talk show host and comedian Steve Harvey in an interview last year that he read, “A toddler, a young child laughs 300 times a day. The average adult laughs like four times a day. God put it in them.”
We all have this innate, God-given ability to both share and respond to humor. And not only can we use it to help in caring for others, we can also utilize it on our own behalf.
When we’re feeling down, we can consciously use humor to look on the bright side, and feel more joy and less sorrow until the sorrow is completely displaced. Then we find ourselves full of joy and our experience is transformed.
The same is true when suffering, and thought is fixated on that — sometimes to the point that the suffering seems like it’s all there is — and we feel mesmerized by it. Humor can help free thought from the fixation. This can bring greater comfort, until we find that health, as well as joy, is normal.
We can intentionally and actively use humor in this way to help take charge of how we’re thinking and feeling. There is value in using this innate quality of joy.
Writer Charles S. Brooks, in his essay entitled, “On the Difference Between Wit and Humor” (Chimney-Pot Papers, Yale University Press, 1919), said, “Humorous persons, if their gift is genuine and not a mere shine upon the surface, are always agreeable companions and they sit through the evening best. They have pleasant mouths turned up at the corners. To these corners the great Master of marionettes has fixed the strings and he holds them in his nimblest fingers to twitch them at the slightest jest.”
Milford resident Bob Cummings writes about how consciousness and spirituality benefit health and serves as the spokesperson for Christian Science in Michigan. See more on his website, A Look At Spirituality and Health, at www.csinmichigan.com
Posted in
News
on
Friday, April 18, 2014 9:30 am.
Updated: 9:44 am.
Article source: http://www.ourmidland.com/news/cummings-taking-charge-with-humor-s-healthy-connection/article_30eddb5b-90ff-584f-847f-e03939c3927b.html