Friday, December 01, 2006

laughter: still the best medicine


Butterfly ako, brown lang ang wings.
-ipis

It comes in all forms: corny, sarcastic, puns. The hahahas and hehehes arrive in all accents, intonations, and timbre. It’s everywhere.

These days, people really have a lot to smile and laugh about. Sounds kinda cheesy, but we were quite cheered up when Pacquiao dealt a decisive left punch right on Morales’ face. We smile at the simple fact of our strengthening nation’s currency, and we are relieved that there’s no more additional news of killings in the community.

“People these days really have a good reason to laugh because life has much to offer,” said Ma. Nenita Daming, an english junior. “We just have to look at the brighter side of things.”

Ah, laughter. What do you think it is? The fastest way of straightening out a bowl of hopelessly jumbled up and tangled thoughts? A pressure easer? A pain reliever?

Actually, laughter helps clarify a person’s objective in social interaction and gives an emotional context to our conversation. It is a part of human behavior regulated by the brain. Now that explains why your friend or any companion would tell you to “just laugh about it” when a problem comes.

Have you noticed that laughter is contagious? It’s provocative. Just make sure you do have a good reason to laugh about, lest your friends think there’s something wrong with you.

According to Marshall Brain in his article “How Laughter Works”, he stated that all human beings love to laugh, and that the average adult laughs 17 times a day. Whoa! From absurd forwarded text messages, comics strips, late night comedy sitcoms, and your classmate’s tripping on the sidewalk, everything encompasses the Filipino humor and need for laughter.

Education sophomore Gino Lisondra said, “Aside from researches about the health benefits it gives, laughing makes humans human. It’s as simple as that.”

And here, I present a list of benefits derived from these spells of happiness which has been gaining popularity with Time magazine, Reader’s Digest, and on the internet.

1) Laughter establishes a unique kind of communication. Laugh as much as you want with your friends or anyone with you. This is a way of showing or letting them feel you’re real.

2) Laughter dissolves tension. As Ms. Evelyn Aldecoa mentioned in our Speech 23 class, a single joke in the opening line of your speech can lighten up the mood.

3) Laughter gives an extra kick in your everyday life. For me, it is to life what bagoong is to a fresh green mango!

4) In the book “Medical Physiology”, authored by Dr. Arthur Guyton and Dr. John Hall, laughter activates the ventromedial prefrontal cortex part of your brain. It produces endorphins—a certain substance that gives you a light and calm feeling.

5) Everybody just loves someone with a sense of humor. Just don’t overdo it, or you’ll just encounter a shoe propelled towards your face in an instant.

6) If embarrassing yourself is inevitable, you might as well do it right. People won’t make fun of you if they can sense that you can retaliate with a humiliation missile against them efficiently.

7) Laughter momentarily gives you breathing space for your problems. Though it can’t erase the trouble altogether, at the least you are able to come up and breathe the free air of sanity.

8) Laughter offers facial exercise!

9) Humor keeps the equilibrium necessary to balance everyday pressures and expectations.

10) Laughing has always been much easier than putting your feelings to words. It’s a mask that outdoes the best Halloween has to offer.

Who knows? Laughter could come in colorful capsules placed in airtight bottles or maybe even canned and they are sold in the pharmacy one day. No doubt they will be pricey, too.


imagine this


In www.personal-development.com, it suggests start renting comedy classics from video shops, borrowing funny books, watching comedies, and exchanging jokes with family, friends and coworkers.

So, the next time your friend trips on the street, don’t just laugh at him. The trick is to make you laugh with him.

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