What's the best medicine?

The best medicine?  Laughter! It’s like a massage inside the body that stimulates and soothes. 

When you laugh you strengthen your immune system, improve your blood circulation and heart rate, and send new oxygen to the brain. You also increase the production of endorphins, the body’s natural pain killers, and you make your muscles relax.   What more could you want?

When told he was critically ill, Norman Cousins, took matters into his own hands. Cousins was the political journalist, author, professor, and world peace advocate.  He rounded up lots of things to make him laugh, made sure he was surrounded by love, faith, hope, and stocked up on lots of vitamins. 

Amazingly, he discovered that ten minutes of genuine laughter watching old Marx Bros. movies gave him at least two hours of pain-free sleep.

We can learn from him.  What are some of the things that make you and those you are for laugh?  Reruns of old TV shows?  There are one or two episodes of “I Love Lucy” which make me laugh no matter how many times I watch them.  Who can resist the urge when Lucy starts popping chocolates into her mouth to keep up with the assembly line?  Or when she’s in the vat stomping the grapes? Or it an old comedic movie, or a song, or pictures of a vacation long ago?

I always go to bed watching a comedy since  I can use as many endorphins as I can get.  It used to be Seinfeld negotiating his way around New York.  Now it’s Doc Martin rolling in far-away Cornwall.

There’s no real scientific proof about the benefits of laughter.  In fact, one scientist, Dr. Robert Provine, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Maryland who wrote the book,  Laughter: A Scientific Investigation, has studied laughter and says we don’t know if screaming might work just as well.  Actually, I’m all for a good scream now and then but that’s another story.

Anyway, until science says laughter is harmful, you and those you care for can be happy every chance you get just laughing away the aches and pains.  

And if you need more help finding things to laugh at, ‘Laughter is the Best Medicine’ even has its own page on Facebook!  Check it out.

                                                            Norma Nixon Schofield

                                                            nschofield@abc-seniors.com

As always, Always Best Care is here to help, offering a ‘bigger picture’ philosophy.  ABC’s reputation is built on providing one of the highest levels of individualized and customized care in today’s market. Besides regular in-home care, we are able to supplement the temporary needs of people wherever they find themselves needing help.   For the full story visit our site at www.alwaysbestcarewesternct.com or call us at (203) 262 6170.