Do you remember the last time you laughed out aloud? Not wrote ’LOL’ in an SMS but actually had a hearty laugh over something silly or downright hilarious?
If the answer is ‘yes’, you are very lucky, but for most, laughing aloud has become quite an uphill task. what do you laugh at? What’s so funny, anyway? More often than not.
People think ‘who have the time for laugh?’ there are more important things to do.
But if you ask Jean Leggett, the Canadian founder of Joy Bootcamp, she’ll say “you do not have anything more important to do than to laugh”.
‘laughter is like vitamin D. include it in your daily diet plan and learn how to be stress- free. Enjoy the smallest things’ – Kapil Sharma, comedian.
IT REDUCES LONELINESS
When we are laughing with other people, we share a sense of connectedness. Which in turn reduces loneliness.
Says comedian Vir Das, “we all need to learn to laugh more. When 2000 people laugh at me during my performance, even if I’ve had a bad day, I feel good. Not everyone can learn to be a comedian, but we can definitely learn to be more joyful.”
Stand-up comedian-turned-life coach Anand Chullani, on the other hand, believes we all have the potential to be comedians.
He suggests, “be the comedian of your life. See the humour in dark situations. Ask yourself smile. Make your goals easy to win and enjoy the journey.”
American philosopher and psychologist William James had summed it up well when he said: “we don’t laugh because we’re happy, we are happy because we laugh.”
LAUGHTER VS HUMOUR
Recognizing the difference between laughter and humour is the key to understanding the healing power of playful laughter.
Humour is intellectual, a way of viewing the world.
There have been a lot of studies on humaour, but no agreement on what’s funny and I think other things are funny, because we have different senses of humour.
Laughter, on the other hand , is universal.
It’s a profound process that involves every major system in the body. It’s spiritual, physiological, and emotional. It’s not intellectual.
Think of the kind of laughter babies have. When we see a baby laughing, nobody says,
‘Doesn’t that baby have a wonderful sense of humour?’
Most people think our sense of humour is what causes us to laugh, but it’s really the other way around. We would have more opportunities to laugh if we didn’t think we have to agree on what’s funny.
Laughter doesn’t need a reason to be – in fact, laughter is unreasonable, illogical, and irrational. Laughter exists for its own sake.
-Annette Goodheart, author, laughter therapist
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