The Brain and a Good Laugh

When was the last time you laughed? I mean really let hardy laughter rip from the depth of your being? Experts say laughter is good medicine. It’s a powerful antidote to stress, pain, and conflict. Nothing works faster to bring your mind and body back into balance. Humor lightens your burden, inspires hope, connects you to others, and keeps you grounded, focused, alert. With the power to heal and renew, laughter is a tremendous resource and supports both physical and emotional health. Let’s discover the precious gift of laughter:

1)     Ways to help yourself see the lighter side of life:

§         Laugh at yourself: Share your embarrassing moments. Come on! You’re only human!

§         Attempt to laugh at situations rather than bemoan them. Look for the humor, the irony and the absurdity of life.  

§         Surround yourself with reminders to lighten up: Keep a toy on your desk or in your car. Put up a funny poster in your office. Choose a screensaver that makes you laugh. Frame photos of you and your family or friends having fun.  

§         Keep things in perspective: Many things in life are beyond our control—particularly the behavior of other people. While you might think taking the weight of the world on your shoulders is admirable, in the long run it’s unrealistic, unproductive, unhealthy, and even egotistical.

§         Deal with your stress: Stress is a major impediment to humor and laughter.

§         Pay attention to children and emulate them: They are experts on taking life lightly and at play.

“Dogs laugh, but they laugh with their tails.” --- Max Eastman

Bring more humor and laughter into your life:

§         Smile: Smiling is the beginning of laughter. The act displays positive body language and sends messages to your brain that happiness is within your reach. Conversely a grimace displays negative body language and sends unhappy signals to your brain. So! Have you smiled today?

§         Count your blessings. By considering the good things in your life, you’ll create a distance from negative thoughts. When in a state of sadness, we have farther to travel to get to humor and laughter...and how sad is that?

§         When you hear laughter, move toward it, and ask, “What’s funny?”

§         Spend time with fun, playful people. Search for those who laugh easily–both at themselves and at life’s absurdities. This playful point of view is contagious.

Remember humor shifts perspective and allows you to see situations in a more realistic, less threatening light. So take a break and laugh!

“Carry laughter with you wherever you go.” --- Hugh Sidey

The Brain and Burnout

Going like 90—working long hours, burning the candle at both ends, setting the world on fire—all comes with a price. Unfortunately, burnout sneaks up on us and we don’t realize we’re toast until smoke gets in our eyes. Burnout is a condition caused by unbalance: charging forward in the fast lane, a workaholic, a perfectionist, stretching ourselves too far, losing our sense of “center.” What does burnout look like: exhaustion, illness, toxic emotions, anxieties, depression, utterly overwhelmed, when everything under the sun becomes too much effort. It’s burnout when you can’t believe under any circumstances, that you’ll want to have fun again, or you find yourself cranky all the time, going into a rage at the slightest provocation. It’s burnout when you feel trapped and hopeless, or when you don’t have a clue as to what’s wrong or how to fix it; because everything is wrong. How do we stop our world long enough to take a breath, to find a detour?

Pace Yourself: Speeding trains slow down at intersections. Even God rested when He created the world. We, all the more, need to rest, to pace ourselves. Our bodies weren’t designed to go full speed all of the time. Consider taking mini-breaks throughout the day, i.e. a short walk, sit outside, or if you can’t get away, then close your eyes, escort yourself to a hushed place in your mind.

Edna St. Vincent Millay: My candle burns at both ends; it will not last the night.

Listen to Your Body: Your body will send clear signals when it’s tired, used up, burned out. It’s tough to recognize these signs when we’re living in the fast lane. But think for a moment: How does your body try to attract your attention? Through insomnia? headaches? stomachaches? loss of appetite? If we refuse to listen to these warnings, a bout of the flu—that you can’t seem to shake—could plague you. Or chronic fatigue may haunt you. Do yourself a favor. Turn up the volume. Listen to your body.

Stay Alert: Know when your passion turns to poison. The unanticipated outcome of working/performing at high levels is that you set a standard for your accomplishment, for your day-to-day productivity. High performance becomes an expectation. It becomes the norm, the standard. Burnout isn’t about raising the bar. Stay alert to the entrapment of burnout, and shift gears to a lifestyle of balance.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: This time like all times is a very good one if we but know what to do with it.

Your Favorite Things: Whatever brings you joy shall also give you hope, exhilaration. Make a list of your favorite things. Take a moment to ponder them, to enjoy, to dream. When was the last time you thought about your favorite things? A long time, huh? Today, do something good for yourself—do one of those things. Return to what can energize you.

Thomas Kincade: When I filter the sunshine in my life, I bask in the light of a transforming and inspiring reality.