Endure Chapter 21: Laugh

Welcome to chapter 21 of my book, Endure. This has been Greenfield and each week on this podcast feed I will deliver to you a snippet of a chapter from my book on spiritual stamina entitled Endure, which you can find@getindore.com that's getindore.com so let's dive in. Chapter 21 laugh in chapter nine of this book, I explain how you know you've gotten stuck in a ho hum hypnotic rhythm of life when you found that you're no longer regularly dancing and singing and dreaming. However, I was recently reading my friend Randy Elkhorn's excellent book Happiness. You may have already noticed I highly recommend this book and his Heaven book as must reads. And in chapter 16 I came across the odd and compelling story of a man named Norman Cousins. It really got me thinking that to live a joyful, adventurous and fulfilling life, in addition to ensuring you you don't forsake dancing, singing and dreaming, you should also laugh more. So allow me to now explain Anatomy of an Illness let's begin with this story of Norman Cousins, which is detailed in his fascinating book Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Reflections on Healing and Regeneration. As a political journalist and activist, Cousins was also professor of Medical humanities at ucla, where he studied the biochemistry of human emotions and their relationship to healing. So this guy did indeed understand basic human medicine. In 1964, Couzens was hospitalized with a crippling disease of his collagen, along with a debilitating and painful condition called ankylosing spondylitis. Told by his physicians that he had a 1 in 500 chance of recovery, Cousins opted to take his health into his own hands. He and one of his doctors, Dr. William Hitzik, combated the disease together by creating a regimen of laughter, interestingly, along with hefty doses of vitamin C, and were not only able to reverse the damage, but allow Cousins to live to the ripe old age of 75 decades after his collagen illness first occurred. In his book, Cousins described how he educated himself with research and books that describe the link between negative emotions and illness. One of the more notable resources he mentions is Hans Selye's the Stress of Life, although I found other similar titles to be the Biology of Belief, the Body Keeps a Score, and the Emotion Code, all of which I mention along with the science behind emotions and healings and describe in very great detail in chapter 15 of my book Fit Soul. Cousins learned that negative emotions like frustration or suppressed rage are linked to the type of conditions he was experiencing and he of course, assumed the opposite to be true, that positive emotions like love, hope, faith, confidence and you guessed it, laughter and humor would yield similar results. Now you must understand that in addition to his debilitating condition, the pain medications he was being administered, the equivalent of roughly 38 pills of aspirin and phenylbutazone per day, were causing even more tissue damage and internal bleeding. So to repair his immune system, Dr. Hitzig utilized high doses of intravenous vitamin C to combat inflammation and nurture Cousins deteriorating adrenal glands. Then, to combat the unbearable pain, Cousins leaped into a daily digest of comedy and laughter, most notably Mark's Brothers films Candid Camera and selections from E.B. white's A Sub treasury of American Humor. He quickly discovered that just 10 minutes of induced hearty laughter seemed to produce inducible hours of painless sleep. The continued results were impressive. After several years of regularly scheduled laughter therapy, Cousins began to experience little or no pain in his day to day living, noting that I made the joyous discovery that 10 minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain free sleep. And also when the painkilling effect of the laughter wore off, we would switch on the motion picture projector again. And not infrequently, it would lead to another pain free interval. And finally, my favorite hearty laughter is a good way to jog internally without having to go outdoors. Impressive, huh? When paired with wise words from the Bible such as A joyful heart is good medicine. From Proverbs 17:22 A glad heart makes a cheerful voice, but by sorrow of heart the spirit is crushed. From Proverbs 15:13 and be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy all you upright in heart. From Psalm 32:11 along with many examples of our Creator laughing, smiling and displaying the emotion of joy, this story of Norman Cousins backs up the fact that we humans were designed to laugh, to smile to and to be happy as a core part of our existence. The Power of Laughter of course it's one thing to say that an emotion, say gratitude or humor, is important to overall health and can cause positive biological healing effects, and quite another to demonstrably prove it in research. But it's been done. For example, one of the most cited studies on laughter therapy is Dr. Michael Miller's research at the University of Maryland. Dr. Miller measured the blood flow of 20 healthy volunteers before they watched 15 minutes of two different movies. Either the dramatic, violent opening to the war film Saving Private Ryan or a segment from the late Woody Harrelson comedy Kingpin. The goal of the study was to measure the expansion or contraction of the endothelium, which is the inner lining of the blood vessels. A flow mediated vasodilation test was also used for the evaluation. This measures blood flow in the brachial artery in an arm that is restricted by a blood pressure cuff and then released. An ultrasound device then measures how well the blood vessel responds to the sudden increase in flow. Total of 8 of these tests were given to each of the participants after watching the stressful intro to saving Private Ryan. Dr. Miller found that 14 of 20 participants brachial blood flow was reduced by a constricted endothelium, while 19 of 20 participants endothelial lining seemed to do the opposite and significantly relax after the kingpin comedy segments. The results were quite dramatically opposite. Blood flow decreased by an average of 35% during the war movie and increased by an average of 22% during the comedy. This led Dr. Miller to conclude that laughter may be almost as healthy as exercise. In a similar study Also led by Dr. Miller, researchers asked several questions about humor experienced in everyday activities to volunteers, half of which had experienced a heart attack and undergone coronary artery bypass surgery and half of which had not. The results correlated with his previous study displaying that people with heart disease responded less humorously to everyday life situations. But there's more. For 15 years, spanning a timeline from 1984 to 1999, researchers at Loma Linda University in California have been studying the effects of laughter on the immune system. In one of those studies, participants watched Laurel and Hardy comedy shows with IVs in their arms. While researchers drew continuous blood samples, their results were astounding. Natural killer cells that attack viruses and tumor cells significantly increase in number and activity. The immune system's T cells, along with signaling components like antibody immunoglobulin A, immunoglobulin G and gamma interferon, which helps antibodies attack dysfunctional or infected cells, also also increased both during laughter and well into the following day. Researchers at the University of Sakaba in Ibaraki, Japan, have also found surprising results related to blood sugar levels and laughter. They collected blood sugar measurements from participants with type 2 diabetes both before and after a meal. After dinner. On the first day, the patients attended a boring 40 minute lecture. Then on the second day, the identical dinner was consumed, but this time it was followed by a 40 minute comedy show. The postprandial or after meal rise in blood sugar was significantly lower following the comedy show compared to the lecture, and the same results seem to occur even in healthy subjects without type 2 diabetes. The researchers stated that in conclusion, the present study elucidates the inhibitory effect of laughter on the increase in postprandial blood glucose and suggests the importance of daily opportunities for laughter in patients with diabetes. Finally, from a research standpoint, not necessarily related to laughter per se, as I was researching happiness, humor and health for this chapter, I came across an interesting study titled Hand Grip Strength and Self Perceptions of Physical Attractiveness and Psychological well being. Well, this study investigated the link between hand grip strength and self rated physical attractiveness, sexual history and social characteristics in 145 male university students. Hand grip strength correlated, not surprisingly with both height and weight, but also with levels of self, perceived happiness, social confidence, and even overall physical attractiveness. So one might hypothesize that healthy doses of good humor not only make you healthier, but could make you stronger too. Based on this research into the field of laughter therapy, multiple organizations have now been created, including Patient tv, which is an audio visual communication that offers comical programming on patient television stations Smile, the subjective Multidimensional Interactive Laughter Evaluation, a service that allows participants to answer questions about how they're feeling and what types of humor they enjoy, followed by a prescripted list of suggested reading materials, videos and audios that a person might enjoy, and even a laughter first aid kit designed by humor therapist Peggy Stabholz, which is basically a container they get shipped to you filled with jokes, videos and comics targeted to combat depression. And then all hardcore science aside, there's the frequency and energy effects of laughter that, from the energy, body frequency and quantum physics standpoint I introduced you to in chapter 15 of my book Fit Soul, also seem to be quite profound. As Brian Scott notes in the humor section of his book the Reality Revolution, a level of energy that is really powerful and accessible is that of humor and laughter. We can diffuse dark, depressing situations with little humor to lighten the energy in the room. Books about ghosts will tell you you can protect yourself from ghosts by laughing. It literally raises the vibrations of energy in a room and can instantaneously change your own energy. For that reason, I believe humor is the most powerful energy we can focus on and become a part of. So whether it's raising your vibrations, scaring away all the ghosts in your closet, decreasing your blood sugar, lowering your blood pressure, or increasing your health span and lifespan in general, laughter is a demonstrably powerful addition to your life toolbox. How to have more laughter in your life so I hope that by now you are convinced of the significant relationship between positive emotions, humor, laughter and overall health and I'll link to all that research if you go to getindoor.com chapter 21 that's chapter two one should you want to read more. But it's one thing to know you should be laughing more and quite another to know how to practically implement more laughter, comedy and humor into your life. Admittedly, this is still something I'm working on myself as I'm one of those guys who can crush a 16 hour workday totally straight faced and completely forget to smile, laugh, joke or introduce any other humor or comedy into my own life because let's face it, I'm busy. However, I have found a few tactics that seem to have worked well for me lately that I'd like to share with you now. Number one Family Dinners for our nightly family dinners, which are one of the most cherished and magical parts of my day and parts of my day I've mentioned multiple times in this book, we all prepare a mouth watering meal together, then gather around the table over our food and for nearly an hour play hilarious games like exploding kittens, unstable Unicorns, bears versus Babies, Mustache gubs, Scattergories, Telestrations, idiomatic, and all manner of other funny card games and board games that are inevitably covered in food crumbs and grease by the time dinner is done. A gradual game destruction that's well worth the laughter that ensues during our entire family feast. Often we'll proceed these dinners by putting on a silly song and having a bit of a dance off or slipping away after dinner upstairs into my son's bedroom to read a humorous story by authors like P.G. wodehouse, Mark Twain, or even Jack Andy. Stand Up Comedy Well, I eschewed stand up comedy for many years because I considered it to be either a waste of time or chock full of offensive material. I've recently refreshed my love for a good family friendly comedian. And now when driving in the car and wanting some light hearted audio or looking for the occasional fun show to watch with the kids, I'm now enjoying stand up comedy once again, particularly from the likes of funny folks like Jim Gaffigan, Brian Regan, Jerry Seinfeld and Jim Brewer jokes Recently I've begun leading up to holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, the New Year, etc. Hunting down holiday topic oriented joke websites and telling my children and wife themed jokes leading up to or on a holiday. You know, silly quips such as what goes O o O, Santa walking backwards or what did the turkey say to the turkey hunter on Thanksgiving Day. Quack quack. For some reason, jokes and holidays seem to go together like, well, turkey and cranberry songs. Songs don't have to be funny per se to elicit feelings of joy and happiness. Heck, just the other night as I was listening to a relatively stale science podcast, I pushed the wrong button on my iPhone and accidentally switched it into full blast Kanye west song Stronger. Yeah, I have a lot of old songs on my phone. I immediately felt a surge of energy, which isn't surprising, especially relative to the podcast I was listening to before the song came on. But I also felt an uptick in overall positivity of mood and even broke out into a smile as I began to sing along. So occasionally taking a break from audiobooks, podcasts, or pure silence to pipe upbeat tunes into your eardrums, bedroom, living room or office can be a sort of gateway drug into laughing and smiling more as the beats pick up your spirit Pranks every day doesn't necessarily have to be April Fool's Day at your home, but lighthearted, relatively harmless pranks such as a bit of extra hot sauce mixed into a family member's ketchup, drawing a mustache on a sleeping friend, putting a fake plastic spider into a briefcase, topping off a toilet with dry ice, or filling someone's closet with blown up balloons can all be ways to keep spontaneity, dopamine, smiles and laughter high in your household. On the Resources webpage for this chapter, I'll link to more ideas for harmless, funny pranks you can play without necessarily needing to buy Walmart out of toilet paper to go TP an entire house. Outfits and clothing well, let's face it, dressing up in silly outfits can instantly spread infectious laughter and giggles amongst any crowds. Get some funny T shirts with witty slogans and actually wear them to places you normally wouldn't, like a fancy restaurant or a kid's piano recital. Host an ugly sweater party. Make your own hoodies, sweaters and other clothing with witty phrases or cartoons. I like to use the website called Zazzle for this. I have one friend who takes his family out to dinner once a month, with everyone dressed up in their favorite pair of footy pajamas or craziest hat. You get the idea. Use your wardrobe to spice things up a bit too. Even if it's not Halloween day, Just smile. Finally, as one of my favorite recent songs by the Black Eyed Peas reminds us, just smile. The mere act of turning up the corners of one's mouth and forcing a smile has been shown in research to create a sort of positive feedback loop cycle that can pick up your mood even if you're not really truly happy at the time. So whether you're by yourself or with others, try just smiling more. Turn up the corners of your mouth. Yep, research has shown that smiling actually works to trick your brain into happiness. The name of that song, by the way, is Be Nice. And the infectiously catchy chorus goes like hey, be different, be nice, just smile, I promise it'll change your life. Hey be different, be nice, just smile, I promise it'll change your life Summary well, ultimately, as Randy Alcorn details over the course of 479 pages in his book Happiness, which I cannot recommend more highly to you as a companion read or audiobook, listen for a deeper dive into the topic of joy, laughter and humor from a spiritual and physical healing standpoint, along with the book Anatomy of an Illness. God is a happy, joyful God and He wants us to be happy too. The entire gospel is called the Good News of Great Joy for good reason, and the fact that God has gone through extraordinary lengths, like this great sacrifice of Jesus to ensure our eternal happiness speaks volumes to the unimaginable happiness you can experience in eternal life in heaven. But in the meantime, here on the old Earth, joy and happiness are within our reach, especially if we understand their immense importance in our lives and take practical measures like those I've given you in this chapter to ensure we're surrounded by happy moments of laughter throughout each day. So grab your ugly sweater, smile, break into song, tell a joke, play a prank, watch some comedy, and stop being so darn serious already. Like I said, this is still something I'm working on myself. But with each passing day, I I find myself more and more capable of being funny, feeling joyful, laughing, smiling, and enjoying the positive physical vibrations that seem to manifest from doing so. So what tactics have you found to be helpful to stay smiling and joyful on an average day? How often do you laugh during the day? Do you have ways you plan to inject more humor and smiles into your life? How do you feel your emotions and energy change if you simply smile to yourself? Right now, we'll try plastering on a big goofy one to see what I mean. You can respond to these questions and all the reflective questions I have for each chapter. If you go to getindoor.com where you can get the physical or digital version of this book to interact with the book just a little bit more. In the meantime, for resources, references, links and additional reading and listening material for this chapter, you can visit getindoor.com chapter 21 that's getindoor.com chapter 2 1.