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Posts Tagged ‘laughter is the best medicine’

Find Your Magic

Posted in after the diagnosis, coping with chronic illness, coping with life threatening illness, living with chronic illness, Living with Illness, overcoming adversity, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on June 7, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

If you’re on a personal pilgrimage toward health and healing, you’re always on the lookout for things that will improve how you feel and aid the body in rebuilding itself.  It’s interesting because although in this blog we focus on you, the individual with a health challenge, there are some things that are good for anyone whether or not they have a diagnosis.  Find your magic is one of those cross-over issues.

Finding your magic is not about getting a black top hat and a wand, saying an incantation, and waiting for the miracle to happen.  Finding your magic is about creation.  It’s about those small or big things that have an impact on how you feel physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  The body is a complex machine and one of the concerns is the hormone cortisol.  Cortisol is released during times of stress.  Prolonged or continuous releasing of this hormone certainly impacts your health, that’s not just for those with an illness.  Finding your magic is about creating experiences that will eliminate those negative influences on your body, mind, and soul.

This isn’t simply about visualization, which I believe to be extremely effective for reducing stress and guiding the body toward a place of peace.  This is about creating experiences that become part of your everyday life.  Those experiences don’t have to cost money.  Last weekend I made a batch of blueberry muffins.  I made a couple of pots of coffee, brought out the muffins and all my neighbors came over for an impromptu gathering just sitting in the driveway.  It was a great way to start the weekend, not to mention having a few good laughs (good for the immune system…just ask Norman Cousins).

Perhaps your magic comes in the form of a venue.  I find I’m most at peace when I’m near water.  I love the sound, the smell, and the experience of the ocean.  It’s expansive nature and its enormity helps me put things in perspective.  Creating art in my studio produces a magical experience for me.  It gives me the alone time I need to re-energize my soul (I’m an introvert and I recharge my battery alone, not in groups).  I love the process of creating and I get the added bonus of a finished piece of art when I’m done.

Magic isn’t only something you see in a Harry Potter movie.  It’s those moments in your life when you take a breath and acknowledge the wonder of it all.  Yes, having a chronic or life-threatening illness ups the ante on the need for magic, but no matter where you are on your journey to wellness, magic is within your reach.  How do you create magic in your life?  Tell us by leaving a comment or email me at greg@survivingstrong.com.

I’d appreciate you forwarding this post to friends and family who are in need of a little magic in their lives!

 

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Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz and Babaloo

Posted in art and healing, creativity and health, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 9, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Welcome to Art and Healing Wednesday!!

One of the great advantages to living in different parts of the country is that you never know what small treasures you’ll come across.  One day at work I heard some people talking about the “I Love Lucy” museum in Jamestown.  Why Jamestown you ask?  Because Jamestown is where Lucille Ball was born and she made reference to it quite frequently on the show.

I took a road trip yesterday to see the museum and although quite small, it’s in a store front off Main Street, it’s packed with memorabilia that will tickle your funny bone.  The best part of this journey is that if you ever watched the television show (and if you never saw it you must be from another planet) it takes you right back to those memories of a simpler time in your life, most likely prior to your diagnosis.

Comedy is an underrated art form.  People believe that comedy, like photography, is something anyone can do and they try, but often fail.  Comedy is not just a joke it’s truly an art form.  It requires wit, understanding of the times we’re in, and most of all a great delivery.  I’m a great story-teller, but not a great joke teller; believe me there’s quite a difference.  We don’t often realize how many writers are on a comedy show.  Ever watch the Emmy Awards?  During the award for writing, the nominees are often teams of up to 10 or 12 people…that’s a lot of exchange in the writing room to make the work funny.

So what does this have to do with art and healing?  Well if we look at comedy as an art form, then we next have to look at the impact comedy and thus laughter have on the body.  Normal Cousins author of “Anatomy of an Illness” describes how he dealt with his excruciating pain issues.  He checked out of the hospital and into a hotel.  Cousins had his wife go rent Marx Brothers movies for him to watch.  He found that 20 minutes of a good belly laugh gave  him 2 hours of pain-free sleep (that’s a great return on your investment).

I know that while in the Lucy-Desi Museum (www.lucy-desi.com) I laughed and not just a chuckle, but to the point that tears were rolling down my face.  To see the actual sets, and watch the video clips made me think of the episode in the chocolate factory or stomping the grapes, or Vitameatavegamin.  They even have the set-up and a video camera with the script on a prompter so you can do the commercial and have your friends watch you on the monitor. 

The symbol for theater of the two faces representing comedy and tragedy are together for a reason.  We often can’t have one without the other just as we can’t have darkness without light.  Go rent some of your favorite comedies and sink into your favorite chair and allow the comedy to take you away on an adventure to a place of freedom.  The laughter will be a shock to your body, mind, and spirit if you’ve been too serious for too long (often happens after a diagnosis of a health challenge).  Let the laughter sweep over you and allow the body to utilize the hormones released to promote health and healing.

Do you have a favorite “I Love Lucy” episode?  I’d love to hear what made you laugh the hardest…just leave a comment and let’s celebrate Lucy and Desi!

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Why We Have to Laugh

Posted in after the diagnosis, coping with chronic illness, coping with life threatening illness, living with chronic illness, Living with Illness, tagged , , , , , , , , , on February 17, 2011 | 1 Comment »

Do you read the newspapers?  Do you watch the news on television?  Do you listen to the radio in your home or car?  If the answer is yes to any or all of these then you you’ve been exposed.  You’ve been exposed to negativity, despair, anger, hostility, fighting, animosity, and the rest of the negative emotions and actions that plague our world.  Just ask yourself this, “When I’m finished being exposed to the media, friends or co-workers conversations about the world, or the statistics of the prognosis of your diagnosis, how do you feel?”

If we follow Newton’s laws of physics, energy can’t be created or destroyed.  If that’s the case, what happens to the negative energy you’ve been exposed to?  If we did a scan of your body could we see that spot of negativity on your organs, or your brain?  Not exactly, but I bet it shows up in your lab results or how you feel physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Fortunately there’s an antidote to all this negativity energy.  It’s kind of like math, a negative is balanced out by a positive and what’s the best positive?  Laughter.  I was at work yesterday and we were having a great day, but one of my co-workers made a comment that had me rolling in the aisles.  I had tears streaming down my face and I felt like I’d lost 10 pounds and was 10 years younger.

This is the reason that movie production companies make comedies and they do well, because we need to laugh.  We need that moment biochemically, physically, emotionally, and spiritually when everything shifts.  We release the pent-up emotions we’ve been holding because, believe it or not, as adults we can’t hold two emotions simultaneously.  You drop the luggage you’ve been carrying around and feel lighter.

The ramifications are that you’re physically, emotional, and spiritual body is carrying less so it’s working more efficiently.  You’ ve allowed the mind-body connection to focus on its work; the work of health and healing.  You’ve ignited the immune system allowing it to protect you from other illnesses and work toward making you better or well.

Does laughter cure everything?  Probably not, but ask Norman Cousins, author of Anatomy of an Illness, who found watching Marx Brothers movies, that 20 minutes of a good laugh, gave him 2 hours pain-free.  If you ask me that’s a pretty good return on your investment.

Want to get started laughing?  Have a joke or a story  to share so we can all laugh with you?  Send it to me and at greg@survivingstrong.com and I’ll put up stories and jokes on the blog so we can all laugh.

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