The Healing Power Of Laughter

The Healing Power of Laughter is a podcast episode with Barry Ebert and special guests, Kay Johnson and Linda Rengel talking about the power of laughter to support health and well-being. This year, our programming at Mile Hi Church emphasizes health and well-being.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Mile High Church podcast.

Join us and some very special guests as we dive in together,

Open our hearts and get real to discuss what we've been thinking about.

Hey this is Barry,

We're back with what we're thinking about.

I got my friends Linda and Kay here with me.

Good morning.

Good morning.

And today we're talking about laughter,

Which is one of my favorite things,

How laughter affects our souls and how laughter affects ourselves.

And I think it's,

I think it's good.

There's been a lot of research done on this over the years.

I know that I call this the Groucho Marx School of Research.

You know that it's good for us to laugh and not take ourselves so seriously.

And I know a lot of times you're working with people who have serious stuff going on and you're trying to get them to lighten up.

So what's the basic idea of why laughter helps us?

Why is it?

There are so many answers to that question,

But I think that laughter helps us because it addresses the stress response.

And so what we see in the healing ministry is that about 80% of all illnesses have a connection to stress.

Yeah.

And I know you talk a lot about the stress that comes from work.

And I remember back in the day we would ask people,

How are you doing?

Fine.

And now you say to someone,

How are you doing?

Busy.

And that's their most frequent comeback that I hear.

And so people are stressed out,

Especially people with kids and schools and jobs and all of that.

So taking time for laughter,

And sometimes it has to be taking the time.

It has to involve a little bit of effort sometimes to get enough humor in your life.

But when you do that,

It benefits you on the cellular and the cellular level.

Cool.

It's like having a clenched fist and then you laugh and it releases.

And so what that does is flood your body with the good hormones of release,

Of letting tension go.

Your organs get a little bit of a workout from the physicality of laughing and it benefits you mind,

Body,

And spirit.

Okay.

And that's fun.

Great.

Great.

So how do you get your groups going?

How do you get your groups going and get them laughing?

Well,

Let me say one other thing that it does for your body that is really important and that is that it takes breath.

And so breath is really in some ways the first go-to if you want to support your own healing.

And so when you laugh,

You just have to take more breath.

And so it fills the body up with the breath and that is already the first thing that can happen that downplays the stress.

So yeah,

That's a good one.

Well,

Linda and I don't plan stuff like jokes or anything like that.

This particular support group,

Honestly,

They bring it in themselves and they kid each other and sometimes we have to say,

Okay,

Okay everybody,

We're gonna pray now.

And you know,

Calm down,

Okay,

I'm gonna mute you all.

That's really perfect.

It's one of the best things about Zoom.

Yeah.

When you're the leader,

You can put the mute button on.

Yeah.

I don't care what they're doing anymore now,

Like nobody can hear them.

That's a great feature.

So yeah,

So it works.

So really,

That part of it is organic.

However,

We did,

But neither Linda nor I are experts in this,

But we did bring somebody into the group a couple of weeks ago who actually does teach something they call Laughter Yoga.

Now,

Does that mean that they do yoga with laughter?

Yes,

It really does.

And so what this wonderful lady,

Alice,

Was teaching us was that you get all the benefits of yoga and all the benefits you get from laughing combined.

And so as in yoga,

We know there's a lot of proper breathing and practice of the breath.

And then she led us through nonsensical things like clapping and then laughing or expelling all your air and then laughing.

And it was infectious.

So pretty soon everyone in the group is laughing.

And that's one of the other key benefits is that laughter binds people together.

And it's a commonality of we all think that was funny.

And so again,

It addresses any sense of separation because in the oneness,

You're laughing together,

You're supporting each other,

You're sharing something.

It means you're having meaning and mattering,

You know,

To one another,

Which I find so important.

Yeah,

And I think too,

You know,

They're just groups that I've been in teaching classes and stuff.

If you can get people to laugh,

You can get them to go deeper too.

And I think that it just kind of opens up our whole framework that then we're willing to go deep because there's stuff going on with all of us.

And in a group it's a great opportunity to share,

But I think laughter really breaks the ice and humanizes us so that we have that opportunity to go deeper without being afraid of it.

Like it's this big darkness that we can't go to and I think I think laughter helps us with that.

Mm-hmm.

Now you're naturally funny.

Well,

It's a it's a condition,

You know,

And I deal with it.

I do,

But I go to a group,

You know.

It helps with that.

Yeah,

Yes,

Exactly.

Some people are not naturally funny and we will hear this feedback from time to time that people say,

Well,

I I am more somber or I have a more serious personality,

But I would like to lighten up.

So what would you suggest for people who want to lighten up?

Well,

I think you got to look at what what are the things that you find funny,

You know,

What what makes you laugh,

What are things that you make that that it kind of loosen you up and make you laugh and do more of that,

You know.

There's a lot of things that we do because we because we have so much media and entertainment that people watch things that are funny,

But life itself is funny and I think that that's the thing about the group.

If we can laugh at each other and laugh at ourselves,

I think that's the best part of it,

Right,

That we don't have to be entertained from the outside.

That we're funny folks,

We are,

Life is funny.

And in the spiritual context we always say that,

You know,

God has a sense of humor,

She does,

And it's and it's obvious with just the way that we were created that God has a sense of humor.

And so I think that when you get into a group just having the opportunity for people to to loosen up I think is great because we carry the the anxiety,

The tension of our diagnoses or what's wrong with us.

We have a tendency to focus on what's wrong with us and go in that direction.

So yeah.

Mm-hmm.

There's a podcast called Cancer is No Laughing Matter.

Mm-hmm.

And it's hilarious and I think that,

You know,

Flies in the face of most people thinking well that's a life sentence when you have the cancer word applied to you.

Yeah.

No it's not.

I mean even within that serious of a situation there can be moments of great upliftedness and great hilarity.

I remember I was done with chemo but I wasn't much past it and my grandson went to Sunday school here and afterwards he came out and he said,

Gran,

Did you know this?

People are just God with skin on.

I'm still laughing.

It's years later.

But I just think it is everywhere if we're willing to see it.

And so what Kay and I sometimes do for people who say well I'm a serious person we say well don't be.

Find things that you think are funny which is to your point and there are a lot online.

I mean I ask Alexa for joke of the day.

Don't you guys?

Mm-hmm.

I mean it's usually a knock-knock kid joke but it's still funny.

I watch America's Funniest Home Videos because it cracks me up and I I know that there are short-term benefits to laughter in the moment I'm oxygenating my cells like Kay said but even 45 minutes later I know scientifically there's a benefit from laughter because I'm still circulating endorphins.

So it's good short-term and long-term.

Well I remember when Bernie Siegel came here and he came here with his wife and he wrote that book What to Do Between Office Visits and he talked a lot about cancer and recovery and all that and before he gave his talk his wife would get up and do 15 minutes to just stand up with these old-time jokes you know and at first feel like oh my god but then you know everybody just starts laughing right and she just keeps she just keeps rolling she just keeps rolling and the whole place is laughing and we're and everybody's in there has a serious diagnosis yeah then he gets up and talks right and it's like okay now we can talk about that yeah and I thought that I thought that was great because it just let's not take ourselves so seriously you guys are really taking the charge off of those words and off those diagnosis so people can have the opportunity to breathe and heal.

Mm-hmm.

Kay do you remember the time we were having a healing class in the little sanctuary and people were laughing about something and a church employee opened the door because he heard the laughter and he said I thought this was the group for the sick people and then he closed the door and walked away it was Greg Moss but it was hilarious he couldn't believe we were in there cracking up yeah we were because it's helpful yeah yeah you know there's a couple things that I want to share one is a personal example of just a craziness that I did when I was going through my cancer thing I have a friend who actually collects puns collects jokes sometimes they're just awful and but she is not afraid to bring it out no matter any time or place she'll have something to say she told me one I could use in this podcast and I read it over and I thought I don't think I can use this one this is not a good one but anyway she gave me a whole series of books Stephanie Plum murder murder mystery thingamajigs the woman is a bail bail bondsman in New Jersey I mean you just imagine it's just a crazy her she has her roommate is a hamster named Rex who mostly lives in a soup can I mean okay so what when I had to go through radiation which is every morning for like six weeks every five days six days a week so I go over to the hospital I'm sitting in this room the the table is filled with books about how to knit little caps for your head when you lose all your hair or how to deal with this and that it was all about cancer and radiation and I had my book and I would laugh I would sit there and laugh as I was waiting to go in to have the radiation treatment every day I mean I looked forward to going and I and occasionally there was somebody else there usually not quite so many people but I just read them anyway and and and I it was one of the most frankly it was one of the most lovely gifts that I got during that period of time but I never forgot it I thought it was a choice yeah it was a choice you know I'm not gonna sit there and think you know what this hurts this is getting redder and redder and more beaten up by this rate I just wasn't I just you know just made a choice I'm not gonna do that so speaking of old-fashioned jokes I love this one and it's very relevant to our healing discussion today so just pretend that this is kind of a joke from you know the 70s so man and woman go into a service station he was a CEO of fortune 500 company so of course he was dressed in a suit and so forth and she was dressed to reflect his status while he's in the gas station she's outside talking to the gas station attendant and they were giggling and carrying on and talking quite intimately so then pretty soon the husband notices that he comes out he gets in the car he drives away and pretty soon he can't stand anymore and he said you were talking to that that station attendant did you know him and she said oh yeah actually I do know him as a matter of fact we went to high school together and really truth to tell he was the first person I ever kissed and the husband thought huh stuck out his chest and said well aren't you glad you married me if you'd married him you'd be married to his service station attendant and she said oh no honey if I were married to him he'd be the CEO and you'd be the station attendant now I not only love this joke but I got to tell you the circumstances in which it was told this was told by a religious science minister dr.

Peggy Bassett it was her last talk with her beloved congregation which was a huge congregation nearly as big as Mile High and the reason that she used this joke and many other funny things in her talk was because and the reason it was her last talk with her audience with her congregation was because she had been diagnosed with ALS Lou Gehrig's disease and so why did she do this well she told the joke and used whom your humor throughout her talk because it reduced the stress of everybody in the room was feeling including her she was also in stress my last time I'm you know etc people were sad they were angry they were afraid laughter reduced that stress and then in the face of one of the cruelest diseases she wanted to model that she could choose to laugh and give them permission to be able to do the same so we're really challenged you know can we do that can we do that facing really difficult circumstances can we choose to have laughter well one of the things you're big on is the science of it you know I love that we're science people but measuring things that seem immeasurable like jokes you know I think it does the science does show that it's good for ourselves right truly it does and it can be measured in terms of oxygenation in the blood I mean try to laugh with your mouth closed mm-hmm it just isn't the same as really laughing and so that's filling up your lungs your lungs then feed your blood your cells are more oxygenated oxygenated and the physical act of laughter moves your diaphragm up and down gives all your little organs kind of a massage which sort of rings them out then if you're hydrating you get more good stuff in there you should always laugh and then drink water what I better clarify that exactly but those paired together do very well but then yes laughter is a pain reliever because of the endorphins that are naturally released when you laugh cool yeah it's really good for us I like it yeah even if you have to seek it out I think that's the point for people who don't think life is funny or that they're very funny you can just know that there are plenty of places to go where you can get laughter and one more plug for you know the life we get to lead here in the beautiful Mile High community other studies have shown how good spirituality is for your health mental health and I believe it's a few factors at play there you're feeling like you're connected to something greater and that's been shown to reduce addictive behaviors by 60% because that that gap in your life you might be trying to fill with self-medicating gets filled with something much healthier and then the incidence of depression when one is leading a spiritual life is cut by a whopping 80% I mean that's amazing and I think it's again because we come together we do laugh together we have the upliftment of music together and the funny songs you get a double whammy there if you're listening to those and some of yours are hilarious by the way so those are some of the things that that leading a spiritual life promotes in our physical health they just go hand in hand the physical the emotional the mental and the spiritual for an overall better sense of health and well-being so I invite people to come and laugh with us all right any final thoughts well one more story that I know a lot of people have heard which is the story of Norman Cousins back in the 60s when and he also wrote the book laughter is good medicine he was highly stressed he was doing government work in Russia there were trucks going by and there was no air-conditioning and they were breathing in terrible stuff and he came down with a horrible disease ankylosing spondylitis and it's rare they didn't have any cure they didn't really have anything for him except pain pills so he went to his hotel room he was back in the States got all the funny movies and think of all we have so many more choices for what can make us laugh now he had to go and rent movies to watch you know Laurel and Hardy and so forth and here's what he said when I could do 10 minutes of belly-ripping laughter I could get two hours of sleep pain-free when nothing else not even morphine could help and that that's act it's a pain reducer it really is it really is a reduces pain so it's um it's so much fun to study and talk about yeah and thing I like about it too is us taking personal responsibility for our own health rather than medicating it you know that you know ourselves do want to laugh and we want we want to feel connected with that with that humor because life's funny mm-hmm life's hilarious all right so thank you both for being here today and for laughing along okay we will see you again soon and what we're thinking about

Reviews

Beautiful sharing👍💝💯agree! Thinking of the adage that laughter is the best medicine ...I remember years ago as a young child visiting my sick grandmother and always enjoying sharing something funny to see her smile! 😘😇✨