Laughing is one of the best known remedies of a lot of illnesses. People have been known to laugh themselves well from cancer or to stop anxiety attacks through learning how to laugh. It can also seriously lighten your mood and your outlook on life and reduce stress and anxiety.
Laughing is a lot more therapeutic than you may think. You can’t hold tension and anxiety in your body and laugh at the same time, it’s impossible (try it). And I don’t mean a little giggle I mean a huge big guffaw, boisterous laughter that is unstoppable and takes on its own momentum.
In society we have really lost the ability to laugh. City life is very serious and full of stress with everyone focused on their career and even mum’s in the burbs are so busy they don’t factor in time for laughing or relaxing. Also laughing really loudly attracts attention and a lot of people don’t want that attention so they stay quiet and blend in.
Today’s blog was inspired by my friend Annie and I don’t know what it is but when we get together we have these huge moments of cathartic laughter together. It all started last night shopping where we were very uninspired by the offerings in all the stores and frustrated that our list of wants were at a nil due to our inability to find anything decent (or really anything at all).
When people get frustrated or feel stress your body has to do something with that stress as it is uncomfortable to hold it. Some people exercise to reduce tension (and promote joy), some smoke or drink, some bottle it up, some become negative and whingy and some laugh. I appeal to you to choose the first and last ones as they are the best for you and the most fun.
You never heard anyone complain about going down a laughing spiral unable to get out and how bad it was (as opposed to going down a negative spiral).
Back to my story, after going into about 15 shops (and eating a huge plate of lobster pasta that we wished we didn’t) we ended up in David Jones close to closing time and subconsciously feeling the frustration and stress in our bodies we decided we’d start making fun of some of the clothes we were finding so at least our trip didn’t feel so wasted.
This led to an unexpected dancing session (in a corner of Collette Dinigan clothes) in which my friend comments on my dancing style “is that crimping”. I burst out laughing saying do you mean krumping and that was the beginning of our inability to control ourselves with laughter which continued for another 30 minutes in store and then another 10 minutes home. My friend was laughing so hard she couldn’t see from tears and we were doubled over in that sort of joyful pain from our stomachs convulsing from laughter.
By the time I got home I had no worries in the world and my body felt so relaxed and calm. In a way laughing is like having an orgasm, it’s a total release of stress and tension (but you can have it in the shops).
I love catching up with this friend of mine as we are guaranteed a session like this every time. And yes we attract attention but in the end we are having such a good time we don’t care and hopefully inspire others to relax and let go a bit. So what if someone looks at you laughing. Maybe they are jealous, maybe they wish they could let go like that or maybe they are judging you but in reality you will probably never see that person again so at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter. So next time you are feeling stressed and angry, try lightening up it will make a big difference!
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