#spirulas

The time it important to be able to laugh is when it looks worst. Recessions can get pretty bleak when you're trying to stretch a fixed income or are watching hard-earned dollars wither as investments. But this is really the time to remember how to laugh. Humor can be extremely therapeutic. Before we go any farther, there is an important distinction to make as to the kind of humor I am advocating here. The only person you should be laughing at is yourself. On your weaknesses, your failures, your situation. It's all fodder for jokes if you are the person who made them. But laughing at others is not therapeutic. There is malignant. Although young and short of creative genius. All the great comedians know that, but you do not have to stand up to take advantage of that insight. Laugh with others. Laugh at yourself - even if you are looking at bankruptcy, foreclosure, or having to live with your hopelessly messy younger brother because of this pesky recession. Why? For laughter really is good medicine. Norman Cousins was facing an incurable disease spine when he chose this strategy. Instead of staying in the hospital, he moved to a hotel and dose after dose of humor to himself every day in the form of the classic film comedies. He wrote about his experiences of Anatomy of an illness, reports that he laughed for three hours in the morning, he was pain free the rest of the day. Laughter can be more effective with emotional pain. So find some way to laugh. Martha Beck devotes a whole chapter to laugh in Joy Diet - and her writing is definitely laugh therapy. As an alternative, she suggests stupidity. I'm so happy. I have a personal fan of the simplicity of my life, but it becomes a really bad rap. Stupidity of this culture is understood as flightiness, naivete, and lack of appreciation for the seriousness of the situation. What a waste of a good tool. Stupidity can do more to help you let go of the intense feelings than anything you can do maintenance. Stupidity requires you to waive your problem, at least temporarily, to the ridiculousness of the moment. That's why my brothers spent their time in the waiting room while my father was having quadruple bypass surgery invent a silly card game with rules impossible. That's why I cross my eyes when I could catch a friend's attention in the middle of a long-winded presentation. Silly, is not just for kids. It is your right and responsibility. Do something stupid today and make the world a better place. One way to be stupid when times are tight is the game that makes downsizing more fun. At a time when my then husband and I were ready with an economic gap, we started a contest on who could use their paper lunch bag several times. Right, the idea is to throw them away when finished with your lunch. But how fun is that? He won - I think he did it all the way to the fourth week, something like 21 consecutive lunches out of the bag. Mine developed a terminal toes on day 16. Dang. There are benefits beyond the fun of this kind of silliness. Have you noticed that "going green and saving money often involve the same behavior? "Use it. Wear it out. Recycle it. "Is good for both the environment and the wallet. And if you can find fun ways to do it, it is also good for your sense of well being. If you are willing to work at it, you can learn to laugh at nothing. Just "Ha ha have" for the therapeutic value it offers. There are clubs that meet to do so. Really. I have not come this far. Even when I try to just laugh, the end I think of something funny and laugh harder. You have your own style on this, for sure. But only if you put some effort into developing it. "Style" requires action. Refining and polishing your sense of humor is a great action step for a fall. Beck recommends at least thirty laugh one day and recommend a hundred. (Does that make you laugh?) When it looks awful, find a way to laugh. It can alter your mood in a heartbeat, only costs of energy it takes to do it, and has no adverse side effects. Maybe we should make it our first reading for all - even before a patch. Copyright (c) 2009 Mary Lloyd