Is Laughter Really Good Medicine?
By Kim Pitman
Have you ever considered that laughter is good for you? From reducing stress, helping you to relax, lifting your mood, and actually impacting your ability to fight illness, laughter seems to be an extremely beneficial therapy for your body. A happy countenance make you more approachable and will enhance your ability to help others because they will fill more comfortable coming to you. We must shine Jesus’ light to our dark world.
Laughter is contagious. It is next to impossible to be around someone who is laughing uproariously and not join in, even when you don’t even know the joke. Proverbs 17:22 tells us that “…a cheerful heart is good like medicine: but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” If that isn’t an incentive to be joyful. I don’t know what is. A cheerful heart full of God’s joy that we can share with those around us.
I recently went through a bout of clinical depression. My doctors’ prescribed pill after pill but nothing seemed to help for very long. One day she prescribed two fun activities to do each week. I hadn’t felt like doing fun things for so long it took me awhile to find something fun to do. Even then I approached those fun things with dread. When my counselor, Dennis, added laughing more often to the prescription I knew that I had to get going and find amusing activities and enjoyable people to laugh and be joyful about and with.
I finally found my most favorite fun thing though, going to see my beautiful granddaughter, Taylor. Just thinking about her brings a smile to my face. She modeled her Halloween costume for me the other night. She’s going to be Tinkerbell and she preened and walked on her toes and was so proud of herself.
She is beautiful! And she makes me laugh.
I’m still depressed and probably will be for a long yet. My doctors tell me since I didn’t get depressed over night I’m not going to get over being depressed quickly either. But learning to laugh again has helped lift my mood and heal my emotions. I’m able to laugh, make jokes, and just be silly with my friends, my children (who are totally embarrassed when I do that.), and I am finding it easier to smile at people that I meet in the grocery store, restaurant, drug store, and all the other places that I visit. They can see by my countenance that I am happy and joyful and when they ask why I give God all the glory because that is His due.
So, what do I prescribe for you, my friend? Do something pleasurable today. Tell a joke or do something silly that will bring smiles to the faces of those around you. Being able to laugh at ourselves makes life a little more bearable too. Not only will your laughter benefit those around you it will do you a favor as well. I don’t know about you but I want to live like the Psalmist who wrote,
“Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them.’” (Psalm 126:2
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Copyright © November 3,2005 – Kim Pitman. All rights reserved.
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