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Laughter is the Best Medicine!
Don’t you love to hear laughter? It’s amazing how infectious and healing it can be. I am convinced that we don’t laugh near enough, especially during stressful times.
It would almost seem to be an oxymoron – laughing in the face of trials and challenges?
However, Readers Digest, which has been around for 100 years, has always included a section in their magazine called “Laughter, The Best Medicine”, and I would have to agree, (not forsaking prayer and a heart of gratitude of course.).
One year for Christmas when I was a kid Santa brought my youngest sister a laughing stuffed Disney character - Goofy. I remembered seeing Goofy at Toy Tropolis at the Bon Marche in downtown Seattle during our annual visit to see Santa. My dad thought Goofy was absolutely hilarious and didn’t put him down during our whole visit as we perused the toy aisles of the department store. To our delight my sisters and I found Goofy sitting under the tree that year on Christmas morning.
When you pressed Goofy’s voice-box he would began to laugh, quietly at first, then picked up momentum, and after a few seconds of listening to his insatiable laughter; you couldn’t help but smile, our smiles turned to giggles, and our giggles to full blown belly laughter.
Goofy wasn’t one of those annoying talking characters that you press their button in the store and then hope the character shuts down before anyone else comes down the aisle. To the contrary, when Goofy finished his round of laughing, someone would quickly hit the silver button on his back and start the rotation again. Goofy helped brighten our lives by bringing his special brand of laughter to our family.
Laughter is also good at breaking the tension. I am reminded of a road trip my husband and I took to the ocean several years ago where laughter was a welcome companion.
The usual 2 hour drive turned into 4 hours, when 10 minutes into the trip we sat in bumper to bumper traffic on I-5. My husband became very frustrated at everyone on the road. He was huffing and puffing and telling me how he could drive better inebriated than 95% of everyone else on the road when they are sober, etc…
Yikes! I feared our lovely weekend get-away was starting off on the wrong foot. So I thought I better come up with something to distract him. I Googled” jokes” on my iPhone, and for the next 3 1/2 hours I read my husband jokes and riddles, to his delight. We laughed the whole way and when we finally arrived at our destination we were both in great moods and the drive time had passed by quickly.
We enjoyed it so much; my husband had me read jokes to him all the way home from the ocean that weekend too!
Life is full of struggles and sometimes the storms last for days, weeks and even years. We all need to retreat from time to time and have a good laugh. There is something about laughter that cleanses the soul and clears the mind, (similar to what a good cry can do).
The Christmas season can be filled with a lot of stress and emotion. Besides the annual holiday to-do list, the many functions to attend, and the money to be spent; the world is in a very unsettled place. It is easy to get sucked into the negativity that social media and news programs dish out. I find it can make me very irritable and frustrated.
So what can I do about it?
I could complain and vent my frustration thereby making me the perfect candidate to play Scrooge.
I could shut myself up in my own little world and stay naïve to what is going on outside my four walls.
Or, I can resolve to stay centered, trusting my faith in God, remembering to be thankful, and to try and find a little humor in all situations.
Now I have never been a very good joke teller. My husband and our boys were always telling jokes but I was terrible at it. So one day I heard a joke at work that I thought was funny. I wanted to tell the family at dinner so I practiced and practiced. When I finally thought my delivery was perfected I got brave and decided to tell the family while we took turns talking about our day. So I said, "Hey I have a funny joke. Want to hear it?” “Sure mom”, they said. So I started in. I made my delivery and at the end of the “punch-line” I was laughing, but as I looked around no one else was. I thought, ”maybe they didn’t get it.” So I tried to explain it to them. Then all of a sudden they all started to laugh hysterically. I thought ,”Wow! That was a good joke”. I had finally pulled one off and won their approval by the sounds of their laughter. But when the laughter stopped they told me they were laughing because it was the worse joke they had ever heard and that they were laughing at me, not with me. They then proceeded to say what a “nerd” I was, a popular term in the 90’s for moms of teenage boys. (Good thing I don’t have low self-esteem. LOL)
Undaunted by snarky teenagers, I have continued to hone in on my humorous side, still believing that laughter is the best medicine. In fact, each night when my husband and I pray I always ask the Lord to help us to laugh more!
So as the days to Christmas decrease, and problems in our world increase, I challenge you – commit to making laughter part of the “medicine” to help heal your stressful life. The Bible says, “A merry heart does good like medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones. Proverbs 17:22
To that end… here are some Christmas quips to get you started. Warning: they are corny. But, who doesn’t like corny? You may even find one you can practice and tell during your family dinner…
How did Scrooge win the football game?
The Ghost of Christmas passed.
It was Christmas and the judge was in a merry mood as he asked the prisoner, "What are you charged with son?"
"Doing my Christmas shopping early," replied the defendant.
"That's no offence," said the judge.
"It is if you do it before the shops are open," countered the prosecutor.
Do you know what would have happened if there had been Three Wise Women instead of Three Wise Men? The women would have: asked directions, arrived on time, helped deliver the baby, cleaned the stable, made a casserole, and brought practical gifts (like diapers!)
It would almost seem to be an oxymoron – laughing in the face of trials and challenges?
However, Readers Digest, which has been around for 100 years, has always included a section in their magazine called “Laughter, The Best Medicine”, and I would have to agree, (not forsaking prayer and a heart of gratitude of course.).
One year for Christmas when I was a kid Santa brought my youngest sister a laughing stuffed Disney character - Goofy. I remembered seeing Goofy at Toy Tropolis at the Bon Marche in downtown Seattle during our annual visit to see Santa. My dad thought Goofy was absolutely hilarious and didn’t put him down during our whole visit as we perused the toy aisles of the department store. To our delight my sisters and I found Goofy sitting under the tree that year on Christmas morning.
When you pressed Goofy’s voice-box he would began to laugh, quietly at first, then picked up momentum, and after a few seconds of listening to his insatiable laughter; you couldn’t help but smile, our smiles turned to giggles, and our giggles to full blown belly laughter.
Goofy wasn’t one of those annoying talking characters that you press their button in the store and then hope the character shuts down before anyone else comes down the aisle. To the contrary, when Goofy finished his round of laughing, someone would quickly hit the silver button on his back and start the rotation again. Goofy helped brighten our lives by bringing his special brand of laughter to our family.
Laughter is also good at breaking the tension. I am reminded of a road trip my husband and I took to the ocean several years ago where laughter was a welcome companion.
The usual 2 hour drive turned into 4 hours, when 10 minutes into the trip we sat in bumper to bumper traffic on I-5. My husband became very frustrated at everyone on the road. He was huffing and puffing and telling me how he could drive better inebriated than 95% of everyone else on the road when they are sober, etc…
Yikes! I feared our lovely weekend get-away was starting off on the wrong foot. So I thought I better come up with something to distract him. I Googled” jokes” on my iPhone, and for the next 3 1/2 hours I read my husband jokes and riddles, to his delight. We laughed the whole way and when we finally arrived at our destination we were both in great moods and the drive time had passed by quickly.
We enjoyed it so much; my husband had me read jokes to him all the way home from the ocean that weekend too!
Life is full of struggles and sometimes the storms last for days, weeks and even years. We all need to retreat from time to time and have a good laugh. There is something about laughter that cleanses the soul and clears the mind, (similar to what a good cry can do).
The Christmas season can be filled with a lot of stress and emotion. Besides the annual holiday to-do list, the many functions to attend, and the money to be spent; the world is in a very unsettled place. It is easy to get sucked into the negativity that social media and news programs dish out. I find it can make me very irritable and frustrated.
So what can I do about it?
I could complain and vent my frustration thereby making me the perfect candidate to play Scrooge.
I could shut myself up in my own little world and stay naïve to what is going on outside my four walls.
Or, I can resolve to stay centered, trusting my faith in God, remembering to be thankful, and to try and find a little humor in all situations.
Now I have never been a very good joke teller. My husband and our boys were always telling jokes but I was terrible at it. So one day I heard a joke at work that I thought was funny. I wanted to tell the family at dinner so I practiced and practiced. When I finally thought my delivery was perfected I got brave and decided to tell the family while we took turns talking about our day. So I said, "Hey I have a funny joke. Want to hear it?” “Sure mom”, they said. So I started in. I made my delivery and at the end of the “punch-line” I was laughing, but as I looked around no one else was. I thought, ”maybe they didn’t get it.” So I tried to explain it to them. Then all of a sudden they all started to laugh hysterically. I thought ,”Wow! That was a good joke”. I had finally pulled one off and won their approval by the sounds of their laughter. But when the laughter stopped they told me they were laughing because it was the worse joke they had ever heard and that they were laughing at me, not with me. They then proceeded to say what a “nerd” I was, a popular term in the 90’s for moms of teenage boys. (Good thing I don’t have low self-esteem. LOL)
Undaunted by snarky teenagers, I have continued to hone in on my humorous side, still believing that laughter is the best medicine. In fact, each night when my husband and I pray I always ask the Lord to help us to laugh more!
So as the days to Christmas decrease, and problems in our world increase, I challenge you – commit to making laughter part of the “medicine” to help heal your stressful life. The Bible says, “A merry heart does good like medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones. Proverbs 17:22
To that end… here are some Christmas quips to get you started. Warning: they are corny. But, who doesn’t like corny? You may even find one you can practice and tell during your family dinner…
How did Scrooge win the football game?
The Ghost of Christmas passed.
It was Christmas and the judge was in a merry mood as he asked the prisoner, "What are you charged with son?"
"Doing my Christmas shopping early," replied the defendant.
"That's no offence," said the judge.
"It is if you do it before the shops are open," countered the prosecutor.
Do you know what would have happened if there had been Three Wise Women instead of Three Wise Men? The women would have: asked directions, arrived on time, helped deliver the baby, cleaned the stable, made a casserole, and brought practical gifts (like diapers!)
“Dashing through the snow, in a one-horse open sleigh, or the fields we go, laughing all the way, ha,ha,ha…”
