Many years ago, Norman Cousins was
diagnosed as “terminally ill”. He was given six months to live. His chance for
recovery was 1 in 500. He could see the worry, depression and anger in his life
contributed to, and perhaps helped cause, his disease. He wondered, “If illness
can be caused by negativity, can wellness be created by positivity?” He decided
to make an experiment of himself. Laughter was one of the most positive
activities he knew. He rented all the funny movies he could find – Keaton,
Chaplin, Fields, the Marx Brothers. (This was before VCRs, so he had to rent
the actual films.) He read funny stories. He asked his friends to call him
whenever they said, heard or did something funny. His pain was so great he
could not sleep. Laughing for 10 solid minutes, he found, relieved the pain for
several hours so he could sleep. He fully recovered from his illness and lived
another 20 happy, healthy and productive years. (His journey is detailed in his
book, Anatomy of an Illness.) He credits visualization, the love of his family
and friends, and laughter for his recovery. Some people think laughter is a
waste of time. It is a luxury, they say, a frivolity, something to indulge in
only every so often.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Laughter is
essential to our equilibrium, to our well-being, to our aliveness. If we’re not
well, laughter helps us get well; if we are well, laughter helps us stay that
way. Since Cousins’ ground-breaking subjective work, scientific studies have
shown that laughter has a curative effect on the body, the mind and the
emotions. So, if you like laughter, consider it sound medical advice to indulge
in it as often as you can. If you don’t like laughter, then take your medicine
– laugh anyway. Use whatever makes you laugh – movies, sitcoms, Monty Python,
records, books, New Yorker cartoons, jokes, friends. Give yourself permission
to laugh – long and loud and out loud – whenever anything strikes you as funny.
The people around you may think you’re strange, but sooner or later they’ll
join in even if they don’t know what you’re laughing about. Some diseases may
be contagious, but none is as contagious as the cure. . . laughter.
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