Happiness and Health

Almost everyone can agree of the phrase “Laughter is the best medicine”. People use this phrase without thinking if it is true and when they do think about that idea they usually think it is silly. Many can agree that laughter is a natural source of being healthy. Some sources such as The Laughing Guru by Raffi Khatchadourian, How Your Mood Affect Your Health by Anastasia Stephens and The Positive Influence of Norman Cousins by Shari Roan of The Los Angeles Times are concrete examples that explain how this theory is true. This shows that by being happy and being a laughable person helps one to become a healthier person in body and mind.
Many have had experiences with feeling sad and once they are surround by happy people suddenly their moods change. Being unhappy after time begins to affect someone not only physically but emotionally, as well. When people have an argument with someone else, many can agree that at the moment of the conflict they feel their blood pressure rise. Even when they begin to think about the conflict later on they still feel their blood pressure rise. Studies show that frustration raises people’s blood pressure. These are theories explained in the article How Your Mood Affect Your Health by Anastasia Stephens. Stephens explains how by just having an argument with another for half an hour can result in slowly ones body’s abilities to heal from frustration by at least a day. These studies show that a person mood can affect ones health.
People that believe that laughing is the answer to their health tend to dedicate their life into that theory. By laughing it gives a trigger in one’s mind that there is a sign of happiness, and this gives out positive chemicals into one’s body. In the Article, The Laughing Guru by Raffi Khatchadourian, Dr. Madan Kataria published a book called “Laugh for No Reason” which simply argues how people should laugh more often and not only as a result of a joke but more freely and for no reason as the book says. The book stated “they should do so… by coming together and engaging in simple forms of play… built around faking laughter (78)”. People around the world gather together in an area and simply laugh together for a certain amount of time and talk, joke around then leave. Kataria calls this method “laughing yoga” and he stated to a “Senate committee during a hearing about health-care reform, that laughter yoga could help lower American health- care costs (78)” which means this method works.
Kataria’s method of changing ones health with laughter is agreeable because as stated in Khatchadourian article people described this laughter yoga “as a life-changing release” and these are people that suffer from as the article stated “…with emotional or physical difficulties-- depression, spiritual listlessness, chronic pain…(78)”. People can say that by using things like laughter yoga can bring out better senses of self. Everything in one’s life feels more positive and better when there mood is in that direction. These mood changes happen to affect people’s health as well, it is said by Khatchadourian In 2002, and Charles Schaefer noted that “adults who act happy… for a minute a day are likely to elevate their mood (81). This mood change is a good thing because with this happiness in one’s life it helps to stop depression.
By being unhappy, causes one to become depressed. Depression leads to problems at home or in ones life. This can also affect ones physical attributes such as work or even suicide. Being unhappy makes people stress and discouraged. By feeling depressed, people begin to think negatively and also offensive. This can lead to different scenarios such as getting fired from work and that can lead to depression, as well. Cases like this can affect anyone, for one case a young girl named Alex, she was a 23 year old women. She recently graduated college with a master in Business Administration. Starting her career she was excited in the beginning but as time pass by she became stressed and overwhelmed. With family problem, and work-related problem, it became hard for her to be happy. In time she never spoke about her problems and was stress for quite some time. As time pass by she started lacking on her work and eventually got fired. With her getting fired, and still having family problems, her body eventually wore out and she was sent to the hospital. While she was there the doctor told her that her stress was the cause of her having heart disease. During that experience, she decided not to take life so serious and to enjoy it. As a result, of feeing happy she took the time to relax and plan her next move. Now she always makes time out of her week to laugh and have a good time. She still is working at a hectic job but makes it her priority not to get overwhelmed.
In order cases, people have experience the opposite of the recent experience. Hence Norman Cousin, people say he is the guy who laughed his way to health. Cousin looks for a way to cope with a crippling that he was diagnosed with in 1964. Even though he was diagnosed with this illness it did not stop him from being the funny prankster he was. He watches funny TV shows and large amounts of Vitamin C as stated in the article from the Los Angeles Times, The Positive Influence of Norman Cousins talks about Norman Cousins illness and how it did not stop him from being happy, which eventually lead him to living and longer life. Cousins was so happy that he gotten better he wrote several books on this theory he had found that laughter does make people healthier. His death was the result of heart failure at the age of 75 in a hotel where he had gone to meet a friend for tea. This showed him that by being positive and laughing as a result of happiness can improve one’s health. Norman Cousins suffered from a critical illness and could have led him to become paralyzed. By always laughing and staying positive, Cousins overcame his illness and lived a very long good life.
Sources such as The Laughing Guru, How Your Mood Affect Your Health and The Positive Influence of Norman Cousins are valuable example on how by laughing can improve one’s health. Having conferences just to laugh and being positive and happy are important for one’s health because it bring out one’s chemicals that are good for one’s body. Its best to stay on the positive said because once people engage in the negative and unhappy side of things such as stress and depression it can lead to being unhealthy. It’s best to always even if it’s for no reason for the sake of one’s health.