Laugh your way to peace?
Yes, say the believers. Laugh, they claim, and you may live longer. Laugh and you may boost your immune system.
And what if the whole world learned to lighten up?
"It may take 1,000 years, but we hope to see world peace through laughter," declares Steve Wilson, the country's leading "joyologist."
Officially, this means Wilson is a man who dedicates his life to the pursuit of joy. For the Ohio physician, laughter is the triumph in his bag of healing tools.
"Laughter prevents hardening of the attitudes, a vital step toward the goal of peace," he says.
In the United States, more than 500 laughter clubs exist, and in Seattle, 50 more laugh leaders received certification from Wilson last month, bringing the total to about 55. Locally, participants include students at Blanchet High and inmates at King County's North Rehabilitation Facility in Shoreline.
Many laugh-club members find themselves transformed into children again, and why not. The average preschooler laughs up to 400 times a day. The average adult? A sad seven to 15.
Observing a laugh club in India, Wilson sensed the potency of a gaggle of beaming adults coming together, making eye contact and laughing as an aerobic workout. Perhaps the most startling detail of the laugh club is the price. In this world of often-expensive New Age improvements, these chuckles come free.
Free of humor, too, which is subjective — and potentially offensive. Laughter clubs are fueled by unbridled chortles in a format as disciplined as a yoga classroom, but far more fun.
Laughing became a formal discipline in India, where family physician Dr. Madan Kataria invited five of his patients into a city park to experiment with the healing qualities of laughter. The effect on the patients' spirits and health was striking, and in 1995, Kataria founded laughter as a form of yoga.
As the story continues and McMurphy’s influence over the patients strengthens, the reader sees other occasions where the laughter is healing. With McMurphy’s big, boisterous laugh dominating the ward, the patients begin to laugh themselves. Their laughs sound awkward at first- forced, simulated- but nevertheless they are laughing and whether the patients, or Bromden realize it, this phony laugh does begin to heal them.
An old adage claims that laughter is the best medicine to cure human ailments. Although this treatment might sound somewhat unorthodox, its value as a remedy can be traced back to ancient times when Hypocrites, in his medical treatise, stressed the importance of “a gay and cheerful mood on the part of the physician and patient fighting disease” (Bakhtin 67). Aristotle viewed laughter as man’s quintessential privilege: “Of all living creatures only man is endowed with laughter” (Bakhtin 68). In the Middle Ages, laughter was an integral part of folk culture. “Carnival festivities and the comic spectacles and ritual connected with them had an important place in the life of medieval man” (Bakhtin 5). During the trauma and devastation of German bombing raids on London during World War II, the stubborn resilience of British humor emerged to sustain the spirit of the people and the courage of the nation. To laugh, even in the face of death, is a compelling force in the human condition. Humor, then, has a profound impact on the way human beings experience life. In Louise Erdrich’s novel Tracks, humor provides powerful medicine as the Chippewa tribe struggles for their physical, spiritual, and cultural survival at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Humor is a seemingly simple, enjoyable construct in life shared and valued by many. Traditionally, humor has been viewed as trivial and lacking substance from an academic and scholarly standpoint. However, humor can be objective in analyzing and answering the same questions philosophers ask, ones that question widely accepted everyday concepts and ideals. The Incongruity Theory reveals the affinity between philosophy and comedy and rebukes the argument that humor is “hostile and irresponsible” (Morreall) in academics.
Laughing is resorted to in times where we need to laugh. It’s an escape from reality, its comfort, its fear. Laughing subdues any emotion that is too high strung in our system. It lets it vapor out in a melancholy form that helps us cope with problems that no one else can really understand and help us with. In One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest it allowed emotional tension escape from the patients and made nurse Ratched lose her ward.
Sean O’Casey once said that, “Laughter is wine for the soul - laughter soft, or loud and deep, tinged through with seriousness - the hilarious declaration made by man that life is worth living.” Without laughing, man is not living fully. For the men in the novel, One Who Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey, they are in a mental institution and are repressed by their head nurse until a new patient, McMurphy, comes in laughing an changing the way everything is ran, turning the insane sane. In the novel, laughter is a symbol of sanity and it helps a person grow stronger, so when the men laugh they grow more confident and obtain the ability to overcome the Nurses’ power.
Recently, a horrendous gang rape and murder case in India has caused many people to speak out against sex crimes. A female medical student was beaten with metal rods, raped, and then thrown from a moving bus by four men. In response, many people have called for stricter laws dealing with sexual violence. This has also lead to some focus on the sex trafficking aspect of sexual violence. In an article by the Editorial Board of the New York Times, issues of enforcement were brought to light by explaining that sex trafficking is growing in India because of extreme poverty, “a gender imbalance resulting from sex-selective abortion practices,” and “India’s affluence.” The writers of “Sex Trafficking in India” adequately argue that in order to solve the issue of sex trafficking there needs to be stricter enforcement of existing laws that deal with sex crimes by appealing to their intended audience through statistics, expert testimonies, cause and effect, and descriptive language.
Laughter is a very complex process. We don’t ever think about it, but our bodies can use up to 80 muscles. Meanwhile, body structures and systems of the brain, such as the limbic system are hard at work also. Although it is a rather difficult method, whenever our body produces laughter, it helps us in more ways than just one. It can help us physically by releasing endorphins, lowering the chances of heart attacks, and even our immune system. It can help us both mentally and socially as well, building great relationships and by releasing stress. If the human race did not laugh, more and more people would die of things such as heart disease or even depression. Most people can agree, without laughter, our world would be a much darker place. It’d definitely be an unhealthy society.
Yoshino S., Fujimori J., Kohda M.. Effects of mirthful laughter on neuroendocrine and immune systems in patients with rheumatoid arthritis [letter]. J Rheumatol 23: 793-4 (1996).
With social and emotional skills, a high-quality learning environment that has high-quality classroom structure and rules, commitment to the academic success of all students and high performance expectations, student learning is optimized. Attitudes towards learning, behaviour in and out of the classroom and academic performance have shown improvement with development from quality social and emotional learning that is supported through parent involvement and integrated throughout the entire curriculum.
Side-splitting, muscles aching and tears running down cheeks all the while gasping for air; this is laughter. Everyone around the world experiences this sensation, it is one of the characteristics that makes us human. In order for laughter to occur, there must first be something humorous. If only it were that simple. Just like humans, humor is not that black and white. Laughter is a result of humor, but it may not be the only one. What else, besides laughter, can result from humor? In terms of superheroes, humor rescues humanity and brings out happiness. However, just as easily as it rescues, humor causes destruction.
In the world of modern medicine, there is a plethora of various therapies for patients, and a quick search on google can reveal them all to oneself. These therapies cover a broad spectrum of topics, from messing with our DNA in gene therapy to helping our mind in wilderness therapy, yet a type one doesn’t hear about very often is humor therapy, or laughter therapy as it may be called. It is a commonly well known phrase that laughter is the best medicine, yet people in the medical community aren’t treating it as such. Now there isn’t inherently anything wrong with this. If there is no science behind this phrase, and if laughter has been proven not to help patients why should the medical community invest in this type of therapy for patients.
There are many school-wide behavior expectations that will included in my future planning to establish a learning environment and decrease disruptions in the classroom. For this reason, I will teach social behavior to students during my lecture and provide opportunities so they can interact among each other. According to Flannery and Fenning (2014), teachers need to recognize and respond to the need to teach appropriate social behavior at the same time they are teaching the specific lesson (Flannery & Fenning, 2014). I chose these expectations mainly because it helps students meet their needs with a positive behavior and provide opportunities for students to develop social skills. Teachers need to provide opportunities for all students to practice and enhance their social skills (Banks & Obiakor, 2015). Another reason why I chose these expectations is because it enhances student’s positive behavior of culturally and linguistically diverse students. For instance, different resources will be assigned to students where they will be able to practice their skills and change their attitude to become better citizens. For this reason, schools must begin focusing on providing students the skills, attitudes, and knowledge they will need to be successful in the pluralistic and interdependent world in which students will live and work as adults (Diaz-Rico, 2014). Providing meaningful
Never forget to laugh. "If you can laugh at it, you can survive it" (Cosby). Life is difficult for everyone. It is how people deal with these strives and struggle is what matters. Sometimes, the best way to get a break from the hardships of life is to simply laugh with friends and family. It’s a Balance process. Some people can be caught up in life’s problems and forget to laugh. Laughter is the mental medicine for life. Laughter supports the health of the body. Laughter can break up the quietness in a room. Laughter can change the room from black and white to a rainbow of colors. Laughter is a result of looking at something in a positive light. Is the glass half empty or half full? Whatever the circumstance, never underestimate the power of a good giggle. Never forget to laugh.
Humor is the tendency to look at things from the mirthful or incongruous side. It is the quality that makes something laughable or amusing. Humor is the ability to perceive, enjoy, or express what is amusing or comical. It is the source of laughter and the catalyst of smiles. Humor is the spark that lights our eyes as well as the cause of tears that never grows old. Humor is a state of mind.
Today, Hinduism stands as India’s primary religion. In fact, India houses 90% of the world’s Hindi population and 79.8% of India’s population follows the Hindu religion, according to the 2011 census. It is thought by some to be the oldest religion in the world and the “eternal law” (Fowler). This culture is truly one as defined by Edward Taylor: “A complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, customs, and any other capability and habit acquired by man as a member of society.” In order to have somewhat of an understanding about what the Hindu religion entails, one must study the Hindu conception of God, its basic concepts and key beliefs, as well as symbolism.