August 6, 2025 • 41 mins
In this heartening episode of The HOPE Show, host Karen Jayne Marchione explores the healing power of humor in “Laughing Through the Storm.” With warmth and insight, she reveals how laughter can help us navigate pain, process trauma, and reconnect with joy—even in our darkest moments.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:45):
Hi, I'm Karen Marcioni from the Hope Show, inspired by
my book Hope How Other People Endure, which is about
everyday people overcoming life's challenges. Welcome and welcome to my
co host Marlany Cruz.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Hi, everybody, Thank you so much for having me one
more time.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yes, show, I'm so glad that you're here with us.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Pleasure.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
So today's show is about humor. It would be great
if you have any comments and want to put comments
or notes in the chat to respond. So some of
the things that we're talking about, so you might think
humor doesn't belong in the conversation about depression, trauma, or
(01:30):
panic attacks. Yet research and real people say otherwise. Today
we're going to show you that humor doesn't dismiss the
hard stuff. It helps us carry it. So in an
article in the Harvard Gazette by psychologist Natalie Dtillo, she
says that laughter has a lot going for it. It
(01:52):
makes us feel good, brings people closer together, and even
lightens up a workplace, and in her practice, it helps
those with depression manage their condition. So finding it as
a tool as finding a tool as simple as laughter
(02:13):
is really a great thing. You know, and it's free.
For the most part, there's no side effects, there's no contraindications.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
I like that one.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
It lowers stress, lifts the spirits, and makes us feel connected,
which is really great. So this article also mentions that
there was a study in twenty twenty and a group
of Brazilian and Canadian researchers conducted an analysis of twenty
one studies on impact of hospital clowns on more than
(02:48):
sixteen hundred children in adolescents who are suffering from an
array of symptoms including anxiety, pain, stress, and cancer related
fatigue and crying. The research found that children exposed to
those merry gestures found that they were significantly less anxious
(03:14):
during subsequent medical procedures, whether their parents were there or not,
and they experienced improved psychological well being.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Oh, I believe it.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yeah, it's it's really a great thing.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
In an article from the Mayo Clinic staff, it states
a good laugh has great short term effects. When you
start to laugh, it doesn't just lighten your mood mentally,
it affects It actually induces physical changes to your body.
So laughter can stimulate many organs by enhancing your intake
(03:55):
of oxygen rich air which stimulates the heart, the lungs,
and muscles, and increases the endorphins that are released in
your brain. It also activates and relieves your stress response.
A rollicking laugh fires up and then cools down your
(04:16):
stress responses, and it can increase and then decrease your
heart rate and blood pressure.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
That's really nice. I call it the pain interrupter.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
That's a good.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Word because it does that's exactly what it does. Interrupts
the pain patterns right.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Right, And because when you laugh, you don't really feel
the pain, which is what some of the people have said.
As I get to some of the later stories, it
also can soothe tension. Laughter can also stimulate circulation and
a muscle relaxation, both helping to reduce some of the
(04:59):
physical symptoms of stress. And it also has long term effects.
It can improve your immune system. Negative thoughts can manifest
chemical reactions that affect our body by bringing more stress
into our system and decreasing your immunity. But by contrast,
(05:19):
positive thoughts can actually increase those neuropeptides that help fight
stress and potentially more serious illnesses. As you said, it
relieves pain. Laughter may ease pain caused by the body
to produce its own natural killers. It increases personal satisfaction.
(05:44):
Laughter can also make it easier to cope with difficult situations.
It also helps you connect with people. It improves our mood.
Many people experience depression due to chronic illnesses, but laughter
can help lessen your stress, your stress, your depression, anxiety,
(06:08):
and may make you feel happier. And it also improves
your self esteem.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Absolutely one beautiful thing. There's some cultures that make laughter
a therapy and medicine and actual real medicine.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
There is a.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Place where they go and they go specifically to laugh,
to feel better and to heal. Yes, right, I've actually
been in one of the therapies and it's really interesting.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
I bet. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
People do it in different ways, but at the end
of the day, like you said earlier, it could be free.
You could just look online for a video that makes
you laugh, right or you know, invite a friend that's
funny and you have a good time right way.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
And even on you know, on a lot of the
TV shows. TV shows have a lot of humor, like
Seinfeld or there are some good clean comedians.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
On Netflix and clean humor.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Clean humor I think is even funnier than some of
the other types. In an article from Stanford which was
dated just a few weeks ago July fourteenth, twenty twenty five,
by Angel Claire, it was entitled Brain health Benefits of
laughter and she states that research shows that laughter can
(07:30):
improve memory. As we ate, the chronic release of the
stress hormone cortisol can damage the hippocampus, an area of
the brain responsible for learning and memory. So studies indicate
that laughter reduces the cortisol levels. I was, actually, particularly
at my age, very happy to hear about this.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I think, Karen, I think my hippocampus may be a
little damaged. So I need some laughter because my memory
needs to improve.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yes, there we go, so leading to a healthier hippocampus
and improve memory, which in turn enhances our quality of life.
So Stanford has a course on laughter and play for
well being. Gigi Altel Varro is a PhD Associate director
of Stanford Living Education and an instructor of the class,
(08:26):
and she says so many students walk around campus with
their head down, stressed out about deadlines and producing high
quality work that she states that after taking her course,
which includes laughter exercise, many students say that they are
more productive and are able to live with more presence, joy,
(08:48):
and intentions in their lives. So I've read two books
this week on the power of humor.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Of course you did, you are our avid reader.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
So the first book is called The Healing Power of
Humor by Alan Klein, and in this book he credits
his wife Ellen for teaching him many lessons. He begins
his prologue with this paragraph. His wife Ellen lay dying
in the hospital, a copy of Playgirl by her side.
(09:26):
Suddenly she opened to the male nude centerfold and insisted
it be put on the wall. He said, I think
it's a little too risquae for the hospital. She replied, nonsense.
Just take a leaf from the plan over there and
cover up the genitals. He did as she requested, and
(09:48):
it worked for three days. When the leaf started.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
To shrivel up and reveal more and more of what
they were trying to conceal, they laughed every time they
looked at the the plant or the shriveled up leaf.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
The levity of it may have only lasted for a
few seconds, but it brought them closer together and relieved them,
revived them, and steered them through their sea of darkness.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Wow, something that's simple, right exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Humor instantly took them away, even if it was only
for a few minutes, from their troubles, to make it
easier to bear. It was like a little mini vacation
that allowed them to regain their strength. They pulled their
resources together, and Ellen's long illness was not a fun time,
(10:42):
but they were. There were tens and tearful times, but
there were also periods of laughter.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Wow, that's beautiful actually, and it teaches us something because yes,
life could be very difficult sometimes right, it could be.
It could feel overbearing, and those times, those breaks, if
you will meani, vacations are very important, absolutely because they
help you get refreshed. They help you have the strength
(11:10):
to keep fighting, keep pushing.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Right exactly, they do. So. Ellen's death was an incalculable
loss for Alan, but once the pain subsided and Alan
started to accept it, his life changed dramatically. Material things
had less meaning for him, and he no longer wanted
to continue the work in the business that he had,
(11:34):
and he sold his shares in what he owned and
he waited. He knew something would come along, and one
day he received a catalog from Holistic Life University with
classes offered in death and dying, and he enrolled that
very same week. Two years later, he became the director
(11:58):
of their Life Death Transition program. He also became a
volunteer with Hospice of San Francisco and acquired a California
Home healthy license. What he observed while working with terminally
ill and the bereaved fascinated him. He saw that humor
(12:18):
played a big part in helping people take their minds
off their distress and ease their pain. The situations people
were in were not funny themselves, but there certainly were
laughs in the absurdity of some of the circumstances. One
(12:40):
cancer patient relate a story to him, and he said,
she started laughing hysterically when she realized that she had
spent the past months trying to decide who would get
her good stake knives, and you know, and I'm wondering
who got it at the end, they really don't say,
(13:04):
but she just you know, And when you think about it,
it's here's this woman dying, and it doesn't really matter
who gets your good state knives. So many little things
like that. So and what disturbed Alan about his findings
about humor was at the time. So this book was
(13:25):
written in the eighties, which was a long time ago.
I can't believe it was a long time ago, but
it was, and it and laughter was rarely acknowledged as
an important coping tool in work situations. Bosses often frowned
upon employees laughing. In hospitals they were Nurses were reprimanded
(13:49):
for laughing on the job. Family members feel guilty for
laughing around ill loved ones, and patients are accused of
disrupting the routine and if they're too boisterous. So mister
Klein felt the need to learn more about humor and
tell the world about its powerful potential in healing and
(14:11):
healing our wounds and to help us with difficulties by
giving us a new perspective to the situation.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
That let me hone in on that a little bit.
That's exactly what it does. It gives us the time
and the shift in perspective. Absolutely, it changes our frame
of mind how we're looking at a situation.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
And if we.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Notice, for example, if I may share when somebody is
doing stand up comedy, most of their jokes are real
life situations that actually happen, absolutely right, Yes, And I
want to share the irony of the situation. And it's
very ironic that those that go to this show go
(14:54):
to laugh and distress. But the actual comedians, most of
these people are very you know, serious serious, but they're
they they often are depressed, right, They often you know,
because laughter is a career path for them, right, So
they come to make other people laugh, but internally oftentimes
(15:16):
they are you know, they're they're they're depressed or something
like that. So that's the irony. Life has so many ironies.
But when you're receiving it, and even when you are
preparing to make somebody else laugh, it shifts and changes
your perspective and how you look at it.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Absolutely, that's the power of it. It really, it does
have power. And what this did for Alan is he
returned to school to get a master's degree in human
development and since then he's been writing, teaching and speaking
about laughter and which is our best coping tool. And
he does have some TED talks in case anybody wants
(15:56):
to look him up.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Nice is he's still doing that?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
I looked up there was one online, so yeah. Cool
things rarely run smoothly. So mister Klein suggests for the
rough spots to be ready with something to lighten the
mood or the situation. So he suggests maybe having a
joke ready. So here's one. You know, if you're in
(16:20):
a store and maybe the cashier is tired or something,
and you might say to her, how do you keep
an elephant from charging? And this kind of shifts the
focus from whatever she's doing to thinking about how an animal?
How do you stop an animal from an attack? But
here's the punchline. You take away his credit card? Okay,
(16:45):
I hope you're laughing.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Definitely, Yes, that's the way for humans too, not only
of its Yes.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Another idea was effective for a businusinesswoman whose boss had
rejected her budget proposal for the fifth time. So she
went to the copy machine and made a report the
size of a postage stamp and returned to her boss
with a reduced budget. I hope her boss had a
(17:18):
sense of humors, I hope.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
So, I hope she didn't get fired. Right, She may
have a sense of humor. Her boss may not.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Right exactly exactly. So. And one other thing is, if
you drive a car, most likely someday you will be
stopped by a police officer. Ye, are you ready for it?
When one person asked when when one person was asked
for their license and registration, she handed him her license
(17:50):
and registration along with the monopoly card that said get
out of jail free.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
That's a good one. That it's a good one. I
like that, right.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
I hope she just got away with a warning after that.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Actually, when typically you know, everybody's different, but when you
approach a police officer in a respectful way and with
a smile in your face, they will They will let
you go most of the time if it's not something
too serious.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yea, unless it's the end of the month, then they need.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
To meet their Wow. That too. That too.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
In his book, with the chapter finding the Advantage in
Your Disadvantage, mister Klein describes an elderly woman who had
been hard of hearing for years, and she had just
purchased a new hearing aid. When she came back to
the audiologist for a minor adjustment, he said, your friends
in relatives must be so pleased that you can hear
(18:52):
them so well. Now. The woman replied, Oh, I haven't
told them. I just sit around and listen, and you
know what, I've changed my will three times.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
I'm glad you're laughing that's funny, changed three times, so
she's taking it all in. Yah, be careful what you said.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Absolutely, they may be listening. At the end of each chapter,
Alan has learned to laugh exercises, which are helpful techniques
in learning to laugh and getting through the tough days.
The second book that I read is Laughter Therapy. That's
(19:41):
a real thing. Actually they even have laughter yoga. Yeah,
I have to look it up online. This book was
written by a net Goodheart and she was a PhD.
I say was. I looked her. I had to look
her up because I enjoyed this book so much. She
would have been ninety in today's age, but she did
(20:02):
pass in twenty eleven. But her book is called the
Laughter Therapy, how to laugh about everything in your life
that isn't really funny. And she taught classes in laughter
for ten years at Santa Barbara City College. She also
traveled all over the world giving lectures, leading workshops and
(20:25):
training therapists, counselors, and health professionals.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Good for her.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Wow powerhouse she was, she was, and she would train
these people, train corporate training employees how to use laughter
to enhance enjoyment and creativity in their work. Her childhood
was isolated and lonely. She remembers walking down the street
(20:51):
at age two knocking on doors of her neighbors neighbor
ladies homes, and they would invite her in and feed
her treats. Unfortunately, it was also during this time that
she was sexually abused or molested by two neighborhood boys.
She mentions this because as a laughter therapist, most people
(21:13):
assume that she had a happy childhood. However, the belief
system she operated with as a laughter therapist comes out
of pain, not that we laughed because we were happy.
She was an overeater most of her life and relates
that to her early experience of sexual abuse. Her life
(21:34):
as a teenager, she states, was pure hell. Yet in
high school she was a cartoonist for the school newspaper.
That tells me she had a sense of humor. She
would lurk in the dark recesses of the hallways to
see if people were actually laughing at her cartoons. She
(21:58):
had a wonderful time in college, but as a student
her grades were terrible. She was an art major and
flunked many required courses and had to take them again
and barely received her degree. But I'll tell you this,
and i'll tell you why a little bit later. She
was married in the mid fifties and had three children
in short order. Motherhood in marriage was serious business in
(22:23):
those days. The man she married became a full blown alcoholic.
She started teaching art classes at the local city college
as a student teacher. When the head of the department
fell ill. She jumped at the chance to teach his
art history classes, and she was determined to make them interesting,
(22:46):
since she flunked out of most of them. This was
the beginning of the end of seriousness. As a teacher.
She encouraged the students to call her by her first name,
and she used unconventional means to transmit the information about
art with great success. The classes were fun, and the
(23:09):
students and she both enjoyed them. She quit teaching when
she was told point blank that a man would be
filling her position and she could not apply for it
on a permanent basis. Then her marriage dissolved shortly after.
But in those days, you know, men really took the role. However,
(23:31):
we wouldn't have her laughter therapy if she stayed teaching,
So it was I think it was a good thing that,
you know, she couldn't continue teaching, and how she discovered
this therapy is through a friend, she became involved in
a peer counseling organization focused on catharsis. In the first
(23:53):
six weeks of her involvement with this group, she made
more progress and change in her life, more spectacle than
she had in three years of conventional therapy. Her first
year in catharsis was laughing. The second year she relearned
how to cry okay, and after eight years of practicing
(24:16):
therapy without a license, she decided to return to school,
this time for a master's degree in psychology, and doesn't
say when she went on for her PhD, but she
did so. While writing a paper about laughter and tears,
someone referred her to Norman Cousins. They had seen him
on TV describing how he laughed himself through a life
(24:39):
threatening illness. So that is when she contacted the University
of California and offered to do a laughter workshop. They laughed,
and then they signed her up. Her first workshop was
called Laugh Your Way to Health. Within a few month
(25:00):
months she was teaching a second course entitled Laughter for
a Living at the Santa Barbara City College Adult Education
and her courses became the most popular classes. As a therapist,
she had thousands of hours of experience working with people
suffering from minor ailments terminal illness, including cancer, AIDS, MS, and.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Arthritis.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
She had worked with anarexis, survivors of sexual abuse, and
the suicidally depressed. The good news is laughter is a
powerful tool. It's not a panacea, but it can be
a part of a program for healing physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Absolutely,
(25:50):
the goal of her book is to empower one to
bring more healing laughter into one's life and become laughter
in Dependent Doctor Goodhart has three myths about laughter. Myth
number one is you need a reason to laugh. It
is important to note that the reality that laughter is unreasonable, illogical,
(26:15):
and irrational. She proposes that we don't need a reason
to laugh when we look at a six month old baby.
We don't ask what's so funny, but we delight in
the response and often join in. Myth number two is
we laugh because we are happy. And there was a
(26:38):
quote in the book from Beverly Sills, who was an
opera singer, and it states, I'm a cheerful woman, not
a happy one. A happy woman has no cares. A
cheerful one has cares but has learned to laugh about that.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Oh, I like that. I'm a cheerful woman. Yeah, I
like that. That's a nice way to phrase it.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Actually it is.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Yeah. And according to doctor Goodheart, the reality is we're
happy because we laugh. Myth number three is a sense
of humor and laughter are one and the same. The
doctor suggests that even though the two terms are used interchangeably,
(27:26):
they are different processes. The reality is is you don't
need a sense of humor to laugh. A sense of
humor is learned, but laughter is innate. She also the
author also note that there is a dark side of laughter, jokes, teasing,
and tickling. Laughter can be beneficial to our well being
(27:49):
because it heals and connects. It offers a universal form
of communication that dissolves barriers of language, age, nationality, race, creed.
When people laugh together, they feel closer. However, laughter can
be used as a weapon. Some of the most common
vehicles used to stimulate laughter jokes, and teasing, and they
(28:14):
have tremendous power to injure others because they are based
on ridicule. Tickling, too, can be very destructive because it's
based on a person overpowering another person.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Oh wow, I've never seen it that way.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Right, I agree, wow.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Because you know how children like to be tickled and
things like that. But there is also an uncomfortable if
it's done too much or if it's an uncomfortable feeling.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
I've actually never seen it that.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Way, right, right, she says, it can be done, and
you know you put hands up so it's not done
too much and done in a more lighthearted way. But
jokes and gossip are a deadly duo. And she was
asked to present a workshop on laughing and crying to
the communications division of a police department in a major city.
(29:11):
Where are the people you get? You call if you're
getting assaulted, robbed, or murdered. Anytime they pick up the phone,
a crime can be in progress. The tension working that
close to life and death is tremendous. The captain told
his employees told her his employees' problems include absenteeism, stomach problems, colds, headaches,
(29:36):
alcohol and drug abuse, and high turnover, but believe that
the number one problem was internal gossip. The officers took
their teasing and telling jokes on each other, ethnic and
racist sexists and agent's jokes. It was an attempt to
relieve stress. However, they reverted to the most way of
(30:01):
obtaining laughter, ridicule, and unfortunately ridicule creates more stress. So
all the personnel were required to attend her workshop, and
she began by asking how many people would rather be
somewhere else? Nearly all hands went up. She picked out
(30:22):
one officer in front of the room and asked him
where would you rather be? And he declared at the beach,
and there was a chorus of laughter. And she asked
someone else, how about you, and this person responded at
home in bed. Again there were cheers of laughter. She
(30:44):
kept asking around the room, and each answer brought more
and more boisterous response and laughter. Everyone was laughing at
their common flight, laughing with each other instead of at
each other. Zom was in an uproar, and the feeling
of resentment was diffused. She told them she suspected difficult.
(31:08):
It was difficult to be a police officer, to witness
human degradation without becoming hardened, to be caught between policy
and intuition, to be subjected to a review board for
discipline of the slightest mistake in judgment. She wanted them
to see and to appreciate the pleasures of their work.
(31:32):
There had to be or they would all be pursuing
other occupations, So she asked them to share what they
liked about working at the police department. Finally, one man
volunteered he liked the job security. Then another said he
(31:53):
liked the professionalism. Another said the early retirement, the pension,
the status, the feeling he gets when they put on
the uniform. I like the excitement, I like the responsibility.
It went on for a full hour until a sergeant
(32:14):
said that he had been in this division for eight
years and this was the first time he heard anybody
admit that they liked working here, and there was another
round of applause. Doctor Goodheart took the opportunity to explain
the difference between the good feelings they were sharing here
(32:37):
and the more destructive forms of interaction that went on
daily within the division, jokes and teasing. So a woman said,
when when it's time for a coffee break, she'll go
and have coffee with someone, but she might have a
lot on her mind. She may have broken up with
her boyfriend, or is feeling lousy that day. Is not
(33:00):
going to share it with that other person, because they
may use it as ammunition or as to make a
wisecrack and get some laughs. We all have to talk
about other people. They have to talk about is other
people you know? Gossip and Doctor Goodhart had two suggestions
(33:23):
for the group. They were to agree to one whole
day without gossip, and the second, she wanted them to
start sharing their embarrassing moments to aim their laughter not
at others, but at their misadventures. This workshop experience taught
(33:46):
that there is a connection between gossip and ridicule, and
that in a safe setting, people will gladly move from
ridicule to connecting laughter. In a chapter entitled grown Ups
Don't holler Ow, Doctor Goodheart discusses a woman named Dorothy.
(34:10):
She was an athletic woman in her thirties who volunteered
to work on her physical pain. At one of her workshops,
she had explained that she had fallen a few weeks
ago during a skiing trip and she felt like a cripple.
Doctor Goodheart asked her if she was angry at her
shoulder for hurting so long, and have you been sending
(34:32):
negative messages to your shoulder telling it what a bad
shoulder it was. Dorothy laughed and nodded in agreement. The
doctor explained that her negative thoughts about her shoulder caused
more physical tension, which resulted in more pain. She suggested
she touched her shoulder and send some tender messages. You're
(34:56):
such a good shoulder, You're a real nice shoulder. Of course,
that made her laugh all the more. But the doctor
wanted Dorothy to get in touch with her pain. She
suggested that she gently twist her shoulder until it hurt,
but not so much that it would re injure it,
and just move it around so she could feel the pain.
(35:19):
And she did it again, and then the doctor said,
I want you to yell at the top of your
lungs ow. Everyone laughed at this instruction, and then she
said louder, still ow, and again ow. Each time Dorothy
shouted in pain, she followed it with an embarrassed laugh.
(35:42):
The louder she yelled, the louder she laughed, until the
whole room was roaring. Everyone was laughing with the contagion
of grown ups who don't holler. Aw. That was the
point of the exercise, to get her to reach laugh,
to get her to laugh and release the tension that
(36:04):
was contributing to the pain. In order to release the pain,
you have to let yourself experience it. Dorothy replied that
it was amazing because she can't feel the pain when
she is laughing. Another story is about toys and hospital
(36:26):
needs toys too. Toys are very useful in a hospital
because of the serious nature of the events. And that's
what happened here. Years ago. The doctor's mother had a
stroke and on the way to the hospital, the doctor
stopped at the toy store and bought a cute battery
(36:47):
operated dog. And this little dog, when it was turned on,
would walk, would walk along, bark, sit down, bark, stand up,
and walk along again. She knew her mother would love
the dog because they always had dogs growing up, and
during the depression, her mother raised puppies as a way
(37:08):
to earn extra money. When she got to the hospital,
she put the batteries in the dog and turned it
on and put it on the floor for her mother
to see. But it malfunctioned and instead of going through
its expected psycho, it barked, sat down, and scooted. When
her mother saw this happen, she began to laugh, and
(37:30):
we all laughed with her. A nurse ran in to
see what the commotion was about, and she saw the
little dog and began laughing. She took the dog out
into the hallway and let it loose. This, in turn,
brought patients out of their rooms to join in the fun.
Laughter itself is a delightful form of whole body relaxation.
(37:55):
It gives our diaphragm a much needed exercise that contributes
to our inner well being, and it creates massive massaging
action for our inners, which leave our organs invigorated, juicy,
pumped up, and alert. The cardiovascular system also improves. Initially
(38:16):
when we laugh, our heart rate and blood pressure sore,
but when we stop laughing, they drop below normal rates.
The doctor describes how she had a broken rib from
a motorcycle accident right before she was about to teach
her first laughter class. She was nervous about teaching her
(38:38):
first class, and knowing she had to laugh, she wanted
to set the proper example. She also knew if she
told the class about her rib, her broken rib, it
would focus on that pain and not the laughter. So
she bound her rib up with a base bandage and
went to class with great trepidation as she started laughing.
(39:02):
It was extremely painful, but after fifteen minutes of laughing,
the pain subsided. The analgesic effect of the bata endorphins
she had produced lasted a full two hours. The broken
rib is painful even when breathing, and much less laughing,
(39:24):
but this experience was an excellent example of pain killing
properties of laughter. And there are more stories in her
book and at the end of each. At the end
of her book, she has twenty five ways to help
yourself laugh. When was the last time you laughed until
(39:45):
you cried? As we come to a close today, perhaps
you will add more playfulness into your day and laugh.
Thank you for joining me today on the Hope Show. Remember,
every story yours included has the power to expire, heal,
(40:06):
and bring light into the world. If this story of
perseverance resilience has touched your heart, please consider making a
donation by clicking on my profile. Together we can keep
sharing these messages of hope and healing. For a copy
of my book Hope How Other People Endure, you can
(40:29):
go to my website at Wwwkarenmarscioni dot com. I'm Karen Marcioni.
Be well, stay hopeful, and until next week at three
o'clock on SOS radio dot Live
Hi, I'm Karen Marcioni from the Hope Show, inspired by
my book Hope How Other People Endure, which is about
everyday people overcoming life's challenges. Welcome and welcome to my
co host Marlany Cruz.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Hi, everybody, Thank you so much for having me one
more time.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yes, show, I'm so glad that you're here with us.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Pleasure.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
So today's show is about humor. It would be great
if you have any comments and want to put comments
or notes in the chat to respond. So some of
the things that we're talking about, so you might think
humor doesn't belong in the conversation about depression, trauma, or
(01:30):
panic attacks. Yet research and real people say otherwise. Today
we're going to show you that humor doesn't dismiss the
hard stuff. It helps us carry it. So in an
article in the Harvard Gazette by psychologist Natalie Dtillo, she
says that laughter has a lot going for it. It
(01:52):
makes us feel good, brings people closer together, and even
lightens up a workplace, and in her practice, it helps
those with depression manage their condition. So finding it as
a tool as finding a tool as simple as laughter
(02:13):
is really a great thing. You know, and it's free.
For the most part, there's no side effects, there's no contraindications.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
I like that one.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
It lowers stress, lifts the spirits, and makes us feel connected,
which is really great. So this article also mentions that
there was a study in twenty twenty and a group
of Brazilian and Canadian researchers conducted an analysis of twenty
one studies on impact of hospital clowns on more than
(02:48):
sixteen hundred children in adolescents who are suffering from an
array of symptoms including anxiety, pain, stress, and cancer related
fatigue and crying. The research found that children exposed to
those merry gestures found that they were significantly less anxious
(03:14):
during subsequent medical procedures, whether their parents were there or not,
and they experienced improved psychological well being.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Oh, I believe it.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yeah, it's it's really a great thing.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
In an article from the Mayo Clinic staff, it states
a good laugh has great short term effects. When you
start to laugh, it doesn't just lighten your mood mentally,
it affects It actually induces physical changes to your body.
So laughter can stimulate many organs by enhancing your intake
(03:55):
of oxygen rich air which stimulates the heart, the lungs,
and muscles, and increases the endorphins that are released in
your brain. It also activates and relieves your stress response.
A rollicking laugh fires up and then cools down your
(04:16):
stress responses, and it can increase and then decrease your
heart rate and blood pressure.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
That's really nice. I call it the pain interrupter.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
That's a good.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Word because it does that's exactly what it does. Interrupts
the pain patterns right.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Right, And because when you laugh, you don't really feel
the pain, which is what some of the people have said.
As I get to some of the later stories, it
also can soothe tension. Laughter can also stimulate circulation and
a muscle relaxation, both helping to reduce some of the
(04:59):
physical symptoms of stress. And it also has long term effects.
It can improve your immune system. Negative thoughts can manifest
chemical reactions that affect our body by bringing more stress
into our system and decreasing your immunity. But by contrast,
(05:19):
positive thoughts can actually increase those neuropeptides that help fight
stress and potentially more serious illnesses. As you said, it
relieves pain. Laughter may ease pain caused by the body
to produce its own natural killers. It increases personal satisfaction.
(05:44):
Laughter can also make it easier to cope with difficult situations.
It also helps you connect with people. It improves our mood.
Many people experience depression due to chronic illnesses, but laughter
can help lessen your stress, your stress, your depression, anxiety,
(06:08):
and may make you feel happier. And it also improves
your self esteem.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Absolutely one beautiful thing. There's some cultures that make laughter
a therapy and medicine and actual real medicine.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
There is a.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Place where they go and they go specifically to laugh,
to feel better and to heal. Yes, right, I've actually
been in one of the therapies and it's really interesting.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
I bet. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
People do it in different ways, but at the end
of the day, like you said earlier, it could be free.
You could just look online for a video that makes
you laugh, right or you know, invite a friend that's
funny and you have a good time right way.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
And even on you know, on a lot of the
TV shows. TV shows have a lot of humor, like
Seinfeld or there are some good clean comedians.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
On Netflix and clean humor.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Clean humor I think is even funnier than some of
the other types. In an article from Stanford which was
dated just a few weeks ago July fourteenth, twenty twenty five,
by Angel Claire, it was entitled Brain health Benefits of
laughter and she states that research shows that laughter can
(07:30):
improve memory. As we ate, the chronic release of the
stress hormone cortisol can damage the hippocampus, an area of
the brain responsible for learning and memory. So studies indicate
that laughter reduces the cortisol levels. I was, actually, particularly
at my age, very happy to hear about this.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I think, Karen, I think my hippocampus may be a
little damaged. So I need some laughter because my memory
needs to improve.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yes, there we go, so leading to a healthier hippocampus
and improve memory, which in turn enhances our quality of life.
So Stanford has a course on laughter and play for
well being. Gigi Altel Varro is a PhD Associate director
of Stanford Living Education and an instructor of the class,
(08:26):
and she says so many students walk around campus with
their head down, stressed out about deadlines and producing high
quality work that she states that after taking her course,
which includes laughter exercise, many students say that they are
more productive and are able to live with more presence, joy,
(08:48):
and intentions in their lives. So I've read two books
this week on the power of humor.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Of course you did, you are our avid reader.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
So the first book is called The Healing Power of
Humor by Alan Klein, and in this book he credits
his wife Ellen for teaching him many lessons. He begins
his prologue with this paragraph. His wife Ellen lay dying
in the hospital, a copy of Playgirl by her side.
(09:26):
Suddenly she opened to the male nude centerfold and insisted
it be put on the wall. He said, I think
it's a little too risquae for the hospital. She replied, nonsense.
Just take a leaf from the plan over there and
cover up the genitals. He did as she requested, and
(09:48):
it worked for three days. When the leaf started.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
To shrivel up and reveal more and more of what
they were trying to conceal, they laughed every time they
looked at the the plant or the shriveled up leaf.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
The levity of it may have only lasted for a
few seconds, but it brought them closer together and relieved them,
revived them, and steered them through their sea of darkness.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Wow, something that's simple, right exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Humor instantly took them away, even if it was only
for a few minutes, from their troubles, to make it
easier to bear. It was like a little mini vacation
that allowed them to regain their strength. They pulled their
resources together, and Ellen's long illness was not a fun time,
(10:42):
but they were. There were tens and tearful times, but
there were also periods of laughter.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Wow, that's beautiful actually, and it teaches us something because yes,
life could be very difficult sometimes right, it could be.
It could feel overbearing, and those times, those breaks, if
you will meani, vacations are very important, absolutely because they
help you get refreshed. They help you have the strength
(11:10):
to keep fighting, keep pushing.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Right exactly, they do. So. Ellen's death was an incalculable
loss for Alan, but once the pain subsided and Alan
started to accept it, his life changed dramatically. Material things
had less meaning for him, and he no longer wanted
to continue the work in the business that he had,
(11:34):
and he sold his shares in what he owned and
he waited. He knew something would come along, and one
day he received a catalog from Holistic Life University with
classes offered in death and dying, and he enrolled that
very same week. Two years later, he became the director
(11:58):
of their Life Death Transition program. He also became a
volunteer with Hospice of San Francisco and acquired a California
Home healthy license. What he observed while working with terminally
ill and the bereaved fascinated him. He saw that humor
(12:18):
played a big part in helping people take their minds
off their distress and ease their pain. The situations people
were in were not funny themselves, but there certainly were
laughs in the absurdity of some of the circumstances. One
(12:40):
cancer patient relate a story to him, and he said,
she started laughing hysterically when she realized that she had
spent the past months trying to decide who would get
her good stake knives, and you know, and I'm wondering
who got it at the end, they really don't say,
(13:04):
but she just you know, And when you think about it,
it's here's this woman dying, and it doesn't really matter
who gets your good state knives. So many little things
like that. So and what disturbed Alan about his findings
about humor was at the time. So this book was
(13:25):
written in the eighties, which was a long time ago.
I can't believe it was a long time ago, but
it was, and it and laughter was rarely acknowledged as
an important coping tool in work situations. Bosses often frowned
upon employees laughing. In hospitals they were Nurses were reprimanded
(13:49):
for laughing on the job. Family members feel guilty for
laughing around ill loved ones, and patients are accused of
disrupting the routine and if they're too boisterous. So mister
Klein felt the need to learn more about humor and
tell the world about its powerful potential in healing and
(14:11):
healing our wounds and to help us with difficulties by
giving us a new perspective to the situation.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
That let me hone in on that a little bit.
That's exactly what it does. It gives us the time
and the shift in perspective. Absolutely, it changes our frame
of mind how we're looking at a situation.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
And if we.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Notice, for example, if I may share when somebody is
doing stand up comedy, most of their jokes are real
life situations that actually happen, absolutely right, Yes, And I
want to share the irony of the situation. And it's
very ironic that those that go to this show go
(14:54):
to laugh and distress. But the actual comedians, most of
these people are very you know, serious serious, but they're
they they often are depressed, right, They often you know,
because laughter is a career path for them, right, So
they come to make other people laugh, but internally oftentimes
(15:16):
they are you know, they're they're they're depressed or something
like that. So that's the irony. Life has so many ironies.
But when you're receiving it, and even when you are
preparing to make somebody else laugh, it shifts and changes
your perspective and how you look at it.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Absolutely, that's the power of it. It really, it does
have power. And what this did for Alan is he
returned to school to get a master's degree in human
development and since then he's been writing, teaching and speaking
about laughter and which is our best coping tool. And
he does have some TED talks in case anybody wants
(15:56):
to look him up.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Nice is he's still doing that?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
I looked up there was one online, so yeah. Cool
things rarely run smoothly. So mister Klein suggests for the
rough spots to be ready with something to lighten the
mood or the situation. So he suggests maybe having a
joke ready. So here's one. You know, if you're in
(16:20):
a store and maybe the cashier is tired or something,
and you might say to her, how do you keep
an elephant from charging? And this kind of shifts the
focus from whatever she's doing to thinking about how an animal?
How do you stop an animal from an attack? But
here's the punchline. You take away his credit card? Okay,
(16:45):
I hope you're laughing.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Definitely, Yes, that's the way for humans too, not only
of its Yes.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Another idea was effective for a businusinesswoman whose boss had
rejected her budget proposal for the fifth time. So she
went to the copy machine and made a report the
size of a postage stamp and returned to her boss
with a reduced budget. I hope her boss had a
(17:18):
sense of humors, I hope.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
So, I hope she didn't get fired. Right, She may
have a sense of humor. Her boss may not.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Right exactly exactly. So. And one other thing is, if
you drive a car, most likely someday you will be
stopped by a police officer. Ye, are you ready for it?
When one person asked when when one person was asked
for their license and registration, she handed him her license
(17:50):
and registration along with the monopoly card that said get
out of jail free.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
That's a good one. That it's a good one. I
like that, right.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
I hope she just got away with a warning after that.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Actually, when typically you know, everybody's different, but when you
approach a police officer in a respectful way and with
a smile in your face, they will They will let
you go most of the time if it's not something
too serious.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yea, unless it's the end of the month, then they need.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
To meet their Wow. That too. That too.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
In his book, with the chapter finding the Advantage in
Your Disadvantage, mister Klein describes an elderly woman who had
been hard of hearing for years, and she had just
purchased a new hearing aid. When she came back to
the audiologist for a minor adjustment, he said, your friends
in relatives must be so pleased that you can hear
(18:52):
them so well. Now. The woman replied, Oh, I haven't
told them. I just sit around and listen, and you
know what, I've changed my will three times.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
I'm glad you're laughing that's funny, changed three times, so
she's taking it all in. Yah, be careful what you said.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Absolutely, they may be listening. At the end of each chapter,
Alan has learned to laugh exercises, which are helpful techniques
in learning to laugh and getting through the tough days.
The second book that I read is Laughter Therapy. That's
(19:41):
a real thing. Actually they even have laughter yoga. Yeah,
I have to look it up online. This book was
written by a net Goodheart and she was a PhD.
I say was. I looked her. I had to look
her up because I enjoyed this book so much. She
would have been ninety in today's age, but she did
(20:02):
pass in twenty eleven. But her book is called the
Laughter Therapy, how to laugh about everything in your life
that isn't really funny. And she taught classes in laughter
for ten years at Santa Barbara City College. She also
traveled all over the world giving lectures, leading workshops and
(20:25):
training therapists, counselors, and health professionals.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Good for her.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Wow powerhouse she was, she was, and she would train
these people, train corporate training employees how to use laughter
to enhance enjoyment and creativity in their work. Her childhood
was isolated and lonely. She remembers walking down the street
(20:51):
at age two knocking on doors of her neighbors neighbor
ladies homes, and they would invite her in and feed
her treats. Unfortunately, it was also during this time that
she was sexually abused or molested by two neighborhood boys.
She mentions this because as a laughter therapist, most people
(21:13):
assume that she had a happy childhood. However, the belief
system she operated with as a laughter therapist comes out
of pain, not that we laughed because we were happy.
She was an overeater most of her life and relates
that to her early experience of sexual abuse. Her life
(21:34):
as a teenager, she states, was pure hell. Yet in
high school she was a cartoonist for the school newspaper.
That tells me she had a sense of humor. She
would lurk in the dark recesses of the hallways to
see if people were actually laughing at her cartoons. She
(21:58):
had a wonderful time in college, but as a student
her grades were terrible. She was an art major and
flunked many required courses and had to take them again
and barely received her degree. But I'll tell you this,
and i'll tell you why a little bit later. She
was married in the mid fifties and had three children
in short order. Motherhood in marriage was serious business in
(22:23):
those days. The man she married became a full blown alcoholic.
She started teaching art classes at the local city college
as a student teacher. When the head of the department
fell ill. She jumped at the chance to teach his
art history classes, and she was determined to make them interesting,
(22:46):
since she flunked out of most of them. This was
the beginning of the end of seriousness. As a teacher.
She encouraged the students to call her by her first name,
and she used unconventional means to transmit the information about
art with great success. The classes were fun, and the
(23:09):
students and she both enjoyed them. She quit teaching when
she was told point blank that a man would be
filling her position and she could not apply for it
on a permanent basis. Then her marriage dissolved shortly after.
But in those days, you know, men really took the role. However,
(23:31):
we wouldn't have her laughter therapy if she stayed teaching,
So it was I think it was a good thing that,
you know, she couldn't continue teaching, and how she discovered
this therapy is through a friend, she became involved in
a peer counseling organization focused on catharsis. In the first
(23:53):
six weeks of her involvement with this group, she made
more progress and change in her life, more spectacle than
she had in three years of conventional therapy. Her first
year in catharsis was laughing. The second year she relearned
how to cry okay, and after eight years of practicing
(24:16):
therapy without a license, she decided to return to school,
this time for a master's degree in psychology, and doesn't
say when she went on for her PhD, but she
did so. While writing a paper about laughter and tears,
someone referred her to Norman Cousins. They had seen him
on TV describing how he laughed himself through a life
(24:39):
threatening illness. So that is when she contacted the University
of California and offered to do a laughter workshop. They laughed,
and then they signed her up. Her first workshop was
called Laugh Your Way to Health. Within a few month
(25:00):
months she was teaching a second course entitled Laughter for
a Living at the Santa Barbara City College Adult Education
and her courses became the most popular classes. As a therapist,
she had thousands of hours of experience working with people
suffering from minor ailments terminal illness, including cancer, AIDS, MS, and.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Arthritis.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
She had worked with anarexis, survivors of sexual abuse, and
the suicidally depressed. The good news is laughter is a
powerful tool. It's not a panacea, but it can be
a part of a program for healing physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Absolutely,
(25:50):
the goal of her book is to empower one to
bring more healing laughter into one's life and become laughter
in Dependent Doctor Goodhart has three myths about laughter. Myth
number one is you need a reason to laugh. It
is important to note that the reality that laughter is unreasonable, illogical,
(26:15):
and irrational. She proposes that we don't need a reason
to laugh when we look at a six month old baby.
We don't ask what's so funny, but we delight in
the response and often join in. Myth number two is
we laugh because we are happy. And there was a
(26:38):
quote in the book from Beverly Sills, who was an
opera singer, and it states, I'm a cheerful woman, not
a happy one. A happy woman has no cares. A
cheerful one has cares but has learned to laugh about that.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Oh, I like that. I'm a cheerful woman. Yeah, I
like that. That's a nice way to phrase it.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Actually it is.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Yeah. And according to doctor Goodheart, the reality is we're
happy because we laugh. Myth number three is a sense
of humor and laughter are one and the same. The
doctor suggests that even though the two terms are used interchangeably,
(27:26):
they are different processes. The reality is is you don't
need a sense of humor to laugh. A sense of
humor is learned, but laughter is innate. She also the
author also note that there is a dark side of laughter, jokes, teasing,
and tickling. Laughter can be beneficial to our well being
(27:49):
because it heals and connects. It offers a universal form
of communication that dissolves barriers of language, age, nationality, race, creed.
When people laugh together, they feel closer. However, laughter can
be used as a weapon. Some of the most common
vehicles used to stimulate laughter jokes, and teasing, and they
(28:14):
have tremendous power to injure others because they are based
on ridicule. Tickling, too, can be very destructive because it's
based on a person overpowering another person.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Oh wow, I've never seen it that way.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Right, I agree, wow.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Because you know how children like to be tickled and
things like that. But there is also an uncomfortable if
it's done too much or if it's an uncomfortable feeling.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
I've actually never seen it that.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Way, right, right, she says, it can be done, and
you know you put hands up so it's not done
too much and done in a more lighthearted way. But
jokes and gossip are a deadly duo. And she was
asked to present a workshop on laughing and crying to
the communications division of a police department in a major city.
(29:11):
Where are the people you get? You call if you're
getting assaulted, robbed, or murdered. Anytime they pick up the phone,
a crime can be in progress. The tension working that
close to life and death is tremendous. The captain told
his employees told her his employees' problems include absenteeism, stomach problems, colds, headaches,
(29:36):
alcohol and drug abuse, and high turnover, but believe that
the number one problem was internal gossip. The officers took
their teasing and telling jokes on each other, ethnic and
racist sexists and agent's jokes. It was an attempt to
relieve stress. However, they reverted to the most way of
(30:01):
obtaining laughter, ridicule, and unfortunately ridicule creates more stress. So
all the personnel were required to attend her workshop, and
she began by asking how many people would rather be
somewhere else? Nearly all hands went up. She picked out
(30:22):
one officer in front of the room and asked him
where would you rather be? And he declared at the beach,
and there was a chorus of laughter. And she asked
someone else, how about you, and this person responded at
home in bed. Again there were cheers of laughter. She
(30:44):
kept asking around the room, and each answer brought more
and more boisterous response and laughter. Everyone was laughing at
their common flight, laughing with each other instead of at
each other. Zom was in an uproar, and the feeling
of resentment was diffused. She told them she suspected difficult.
(31:08):
It was difficult to be a police officer, to witness
human degradation without becoming hardened, to be caught between policy
and intuition, to be subjected to a review board for
discipline of the slightest mistake in judgment. She wanted them
to see and to appreciate the pleasures of their work.
(31:32):
There had to be or they would all be pursuing
other occupations, So she asked them to share what they
liked about working at the police department. Finally, one man
volunteered he liked the job security. Then another said he
(31:53):
liked the professionalism. Another said the early retirement, the pension,
the status, the feeling he gets when they put on
the uniform. I like the excitement, I like the responsibility.
It went on for a full hour until a sergeant
(32:14):
said that he had been in this division for eight
years and this was the first time he heard anybody
admit that they liked working here, and there was another
round of applause. Doctor Goodheart took the opportunity to explain
the difference between the good feelings they were sharing here
(32:37):
and the more destructive forms of interaction that went on
daily within the division, jokes and teasing. So a woman said,
when when it's time for a coffee break, she'll go
and have coffee with someone, but she might have a
lot on her mind. She may have broken up with
her boyfriend, or is feeling lousy that day. Is not
(33:00):
going to share it with that other person, because they
may use it as ammunition or as to make a
wisecrack and get some laughs. We all have to talk
about other people. They have to talk about is other
people you know? Gossip and Doctor Goodhart had two suggestions
(33:23):
for the group. They were to agree to one whole
day without gossip, and the second, she wanted them to
start sharing their embarrassing moments to aim their laughter not
at others, but at their misadventures. This workshop experience taught
(33:46):
that there is a connection between gossip and ridicule, and
that in a safe setting, people will gladly move from
ridicule to connecting laughter. In a chapter entitled grown Ups
Don't holler Ow, Doctor Goodheart discusses a woman named Dorothy.
(34:10):
She was an athletic woman in her thirties who volunteered
to work on her physical pain. At one of her workshops,
she had explained that she had fallen a few weeks
ago during a skiing trip and she felt like a cripple.
Doctor Goodheart asked her if she was angry at her
shoulder for hurting so long, and have you been sending
(34:32):
negative messages to your shoulder telling it what a bad
shoulder it was. Dorothy laughed and nodded in agreement. The
doctor explained that her negative thoughts about her shoulder caused
more physical tension, which resulted in more pain. She suggested
she touched her shoulder and send some tender messages. You're
(34:56):
such a good shoulder, You're a real nice shoulder. Of course,
that made her laugh all the more. But the doctor
wanted Dorothy to get in touch with her pain. She
suggested that she gently twist her shoulder until it hurt,
but not so much that it would re injure it,
and just move it around so she could feel the pain.
(35:19):
And she did it again, and then the doctor said,
I want you to yell at the top of your
lungs ow. Everyone laughed at this instruction, and then she
said louder, still ow, and again ow. Each time Dorothy
shouted in pain, she followed it with an embarrassed laugh.
(35:42):
The louder she yelled, the louder she laughed, until the
whole room was roaring. Everyone was laughing with the contagion
of grown ups who don't holler. Aw. That was the
point of the exercise, to get her to reach laugh,
to get her to laugh and release the tension that
(36:04):
was contributing to the pain. In order to release the pain,
you have to let yourself experience it. Dorothy replied that
it was amazing because she can't feel the pain when
she is laughing. Another story is about toys and hospital
(36:26):
needs toys too. Toys are very useful in a hospital
because of the serious nature of the events. And that's
what happened here. Years ago. The doctor's mother had a
stroke and on the way to the hospital, the doctor
stopped at the toy store and bought a cute battery
(36:47):
operated dog. And this little dog, when it was turned on,
would walk, would walk along, bark, sit down, bark, stand up,
and walk along again. She knew her mother would love
the dog because they always had dogs growing up, and
during the depression, her mother raised puppies as a way
(37:08):
to earn extra money. When she got to the hospital,
she put the batteries in the dog and turned it
on and put it on the floor for her mother
to see. But it malfunctioned and instead of going through
its expected psycho, it barked, sat down, and scooted. When
her mother saw this happen, she began to laugh, and
(37:30):
we all laughed with her. A nurse ran in to
see what the commotion was about, and she saw the
little dog and began laughing. She took the dog out
into the hallway and let it loose. This, in turn,
brought patients out of their rooms to join in the fun.
Laughter itself is a delightful form of whole body relaxation.
(37:55):
It gives our diaphragm a much needed exercise that contributes
to our inner well being, and it creates massive massaging
action for our inners, which leave our organs invigorated, juicy,
pumped up, and alert. The cardiovascular system also improves. Initially
(38:16):
when we laugh, our heart rate and blood pressure sore,
but when we stop laughing, they drop below normal rates.
The doctor describes how she had a broken rib from
a motorcycle accident right before she was about to teach
her first laughter class. She was nervous about teaching her
(38:38):
first class, and knowing she had to laugh, she wanted
to set the proper example. She also knew if she
told the class about her rib, her broken rib, it
would focus on that pain and not the laughter. So
she bound her rib up with a base bandage and
went to class with great trepidation as she started laughing.
(39:02):
It was extremely painful, but after fifteen minutes of laughing,
the pain subsided. The analgesic effect of the bata endorphins
she had produced lasted a full two hours. The broken
rib is painful even when breathing, and much less laughing,
(39:24):
but this experience was an excellent example of pain killing
properties of laughter. And there are more stories in her
book and at the end of each. At the end
of her book, she has twenty five ways to help
yourself laugh. When was the last time you laughed until
(39:45):
you cried? As we come to a close today, perhaps
you will add more playfulness into your day and laugh.
Thank you for joining me today on the Hope Show. Remember,
every story yours included has the power to expire, heal,
(40:06):
and bring light into the world. If this story of
perseverance resilience has touched your heart, please consider making a
donation by clicking on my profile. Together we can keep
sharing these messages of hope and healing. For a copy
of my book Hope How Other People Endure, you can
(40:29):
go to my website at Wwwkarenmarscioni dot com. I'm Karen Marcioni.
Be well, stay hopeful, and until next week at three
o'clock on SOS radio dot Live
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