Everyone wants to live a healthy stress-free life. But how can people be healthy if they sometimes seem to contain feelings of anxiety or depression? These illnesses can lower one’s immune system and shut down defense that protect them from illnesses. The only number one answer to that question is to be happy. By focusing on being happy one can live a long healthy life. The best way to become happy is to laugh. Laughing is a great way to relieve stress hormones that harm the body. A man about man named Norman Cousins discovered that laughing is a good way to reduce pain and stress. If someone is depressed, stressed, or needs a little rest, laughter can be the simplest answer; it is the best medicine.
Laughter is practically a one way ticket to having a healthy life. Laughing reduces stress hormones like adrenaline (epinephrine) and critisol (Gilbert). The immune system benefits from this because of the increasing activity and number of Killer T-cells. Laughter brings happiness to people’s lives no matter how depressed, stressed, or sick a person can be. Richard Mulcaster argued that “laughter produced warmth through the body” (Khatchadourian 84), while others like George Vasey, author of “Laughter and Smiling” opposed to Mulcaster’s statement and said that “laughter was a sickness, like a coughing fit” (84).
In the article “The Laughing Guru” by Raffi Khatchadourian a man named Norman Cousins studied the affect that laughter has on Illnesses. On a trip to the Soviet Union Norman contracted anklylosing spondylitis, a painful degenerative disease of the joints, caused by experiencing intense stress and severe pollution. After receiving information from his doctor about his chances of the disease ever surpassing, Norman left the hospital and checked himself into a hotel with a bottle of vitamin C and laughed himself off to a couple episodes of “Candid Camera” and the “Marx Brothers”. There he discovered that those ten minutes of laughter had a kind of anesthetic effect and granted him at least two hours pain-free of his aching joints. Instead of stressing over his disease Norman substituted pain for pleasure, in this case “Laughter”. “Laughter, Cousins claimed, helped cure his chronic ailment” (85).
A woman named Saranne Rathberg read an article on Norman Cousins and his “leading force on therapeutic humor”. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer on top of having a divorce, being a single mother, and losing a parent, she still continue to looks at the brighter side of things. After being diagnosed with the disease she went by her local video rental store and stocked up on Eddie Murphy, Jerry Seinfeld, and Jackie Mason videos; in the end crying her eyes out in laughter. Saranne stated that “You cannot control the things that happen, but you can decide how you’re going to respond to them...” (Froymovich). Her reaction is similar to that of Norman Cousin’s because instead of getting depressed over the fact that she contracted breast cancer, including the hardships she’s been through, she still goes on strong to make sure she is happy. After watching all the videos Saranne and her five-year old daughter made a list of all the things that brought them joy and made a promise to laugh every day; twice a day.
Being joyful is another positive emotion to becoming healthier. Saranne Rathberg stated that “If you practice thinking in a joy-filled funny way, you become very good at living a joyful, funny life” (Froymovich). Joyful people are often healthy, both physically and mentally, they value strong positive relationships, and they don’t allow the extremes of life-sudden highs or sudden lows-to influence them unduly. Joy is an emotion that arises from within us and is not affected by the things that happen to us. Instead of looking for external things to provide happiness in our lives, we must strive to find the joy within (Joy and Happiness).
Being healthy and having longevity sounds best without stress. If someone wants to improve their health they need to start focusing on the things that bring them happiness. In order to produce good health having positive emotions are needed. In other words, thinking positive thoughts for a month when you already have a heart disease will not cure the disease, but lower and reduce stress levels over a period of years (The happiness-health Conn.). Having a disease and being happy is better than having a disease and being depressed because depression lowers the defenses in one’s immune system and leaves them susceptible to illnesses or make an illness worse. Laughter is always the answer.
Does happiness affect your health? The human body it is being run by the mind, and the individual himself. In other words, the mind affects the body and the body affects the mind also. It goes both ways, but the main factor is the mind. If you have a positive attitude in life, if you know you can make any situation better and you have no negative emotions, then the body will survive better. Laughter is essential for our biological health. The most important element people lack is the ability to laugh at one's self. When we laugh heartily, our bodies release endorphins into the bloodstream. Endorphins resemble the opiates in their abilities to produce a sense of well-being, which may work as natural pain killers (Laughter and Health). Laughter is a great way to become healthy. It is something that everyone can accomplish without fault. It is the best way to survive through difficult situations whether it affects a person mentally or physically. Norman Cousin’s discovery of how laughter affects illnesses was helpful to many people like Saranne Rathberg because even though life comes to a problem that cannot be solved does not mean there is not eventually an answer. People like George Vasey can say that “laughter is a sickness”, but what about the positive effect that laughter has bestowed on people, with illnesses, who at times were on the edge of giving up. With laughter in mind any illness can be overlooked, after all “Laughter is the best medicine”; people just have to be willing to take a shot.
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