People have always found my reluctance to take modern medicine a bit odd. Even my mom, who knows plenty of homeopathic remedies and agrees with a holistic approach to medicine, still suggests I take ibuprofen when anything is bothering me, and rolls her eyes in frustration when I say I'd rather deal with it.
Well, turns out, there's a reason I never trusted that stuff.
Research now shows that ibuprofen, acetaminophen, and other over the counter pain relievers, affect more than just our physical pain, they also dull our emotional pain. "Oh, well that sounds like a great side effect, right?" Wrong.
When you dull your ability to be hurt or upset, you also diminish your ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes. You are deadening your empathy for the people around you, which in turn, effectively makes you stop caring about them. When we stop being empathetic and lose our ability to see someone else's perspective, and why they may be hurting, we make it easy to do the hurting ourselves, because we no longer relate to our victim. By killing our pain, we become just a little less human.
Our search for the fast answer to physical comfort is aiding, and perhaps even encouraging, our disconnect from one another. When it becomes harder to hurt our feelings, to feel excluded, or to react with any number of pain induced emotions, we stop standing up for fairness or equality for others, because we stop recognizing it, or how it affects us. A sense of fair play is a key component in any healthy, well adjusted society.
The United States alone wrote 300 million prescriptions for opioid painkillers in 2015. That's nearly one for every man, woman, and child, and totals 80% of the world's opioid supply. Let that sink in...the USA consumes 80% of the opioid pain killers for the entire globe. They are deadening our brains...emotions...empathy...desire to do right. So next time you go to pop a pill for your mild headache, tight neck, or sore back, maybe take a second to think if you actually need it to get through your day, or if maybe something else could easily be the answer, and you could save and rebuild some pieces of your humanity, pieces you may not have even realized you were missing.
Try drinking a glass of water, doing some stretching, or taking a walk in the sunshine to relieve your symptoms first, before reaching for a pill. Let's take a step toward caring about each other again! Yeah, sometimes feelings hurt, but you know what? We need to hurt sometimes to make good changes come to life. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is that good men should do nothing." Don't let evil win. Put down the pill.
Okay, okay, I know. You're all probably like, "We get it, quit nagging. How am I supposed to deal with my daily pain then??"
Well I have great news for you! Ready? You're gonna love it...
LAUGH MORE!
No, really...laughing is serious business, y'all. ;)
In the 1980's there was already enough evidence supporting that perhaps laughter actually was the best medicine, that a number of hospitals around the US participated in experiments in which they installed Laughing Rooms as part of their facilities. They would stock it with funny books and magazines, play comedy movies, and hire comedic performers regularly to come and perform for the patients. And guess what they found?
It was a glowing success!
(Now why we don't have these in every hospital by now is a totally different angry rant about fucked up, greedy, disgusting members of our society, but I'm not going there today.)
The hospitals with laugh rooms found a dramatic increase in patient health, a decrease in the number of painkillers requested and required by those in pain, an improvement in attitude, making difficult patients easier to deal with, and shorter average hospitalization time for each patient.
Henri Ruebenstein, a neurologist, found that one minute of solid laughter can provide up to 45 minutes of subsequent relaxation. Get a good laugh in once an hour and pretty soon you won't need those painkillers, anyway!
Beyond relaxing, it was reported by William Fry, a professor at Stanford University, that 100 laughs will give your body an aerobic workout equal to 10 minutes on a rowing machine. So if you were looking for a reason to skip the gym today... it might be okay to watch some stand up instead. ;)
Now maybe some of you still aren't convinced... "Sounds pretty weird, you know, wanting people to stop taking medicine that everybody takes or that doctors prescribed...why would we listen to you?"
Well, you don't need to listen to me at all, or even finish reading this, but my end goal is to get people back to caring for each other, and to get healthy through laughter. I want you to be happy! And the pharmacies end goal is to get all your money, and the governments end goal is to keep us stupid and separate so we think we're powerless even though they are entirely outnumbered. Huh. Weird. But anyway, do whatever you want. Really. :)
If the hospital findings with the laughing room weren't enough to convince you of the healing power of laughter, let's talk about Norman Cousins. Because what an extraordinary man he was, and what an extraordinary case.
In 1964 Norman Cousins was diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis, a rare disease of the connective tissues. Doctors told him there was nothing they could do except try to alleviate his pain, and that he would die within a few months.
Cousins said, "Fuck that."
Okay, not really, but still...
Cousins checked himself out of the hospital and into a hotel. He got his hands on a projector - not an easy feat in the 60's - and all the funny films he could find, as well as hired a nurse to read him humorous books. He spent six months in that hotel forcing himself to laugh, loudly and for long stints, claiming he would do it until his body literally hurt from laughter. He found that 10 minutes of solid laughter would afford him two hours of pain-free sleep, and when he would eventually wake from the discomfort, he would put a film back on and laugh himself back into a peaceful rest. After six months, his disease was gone.
Norman Cousins died in 1990, at 75 years old.
26 years after being told he had only a few months to live.
HE LAUGHED HIMSELF BACK TO HEALTH.
(Oh, and took vitamin c intravenously. Take your vitamin c, kids.)
If you can't see the magic and the power in this story, then I'm not sure what else to say...
Long story, short... if you care about your friends, family, and loved ones, stop deadening your empathy and emotions for temporary relief. Pain is not a cause, it's a symptom. Find the true problems you're experiencing. And LAUGH MORE! Loudly and for long stints of time. Lose control. Get a good belly laugh going. You'll feel better! And you know...even if it doesn't actually work...we're all dying anyway. Isn't it better to have some joy in your life before you go? ;)
Much Love, Light, and Laughs! All the laughs.
Back to our regularly scheduled travel tales now ;) It's all just one big (mis)adventure anyway.
Thanks for reading, y'all!
Well, turns out, there's a reason I never trusted that stuff.
Research now shows that ibuprofen, acetaminophen, and other over the counter pain relievers, affect more than just our physical pain, they also dull our emotional pain. "Oh, well that sounds like a great side effect, right?" Wrong.
When you dull your ability to be hurt or upset, you also diminish your ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes. You are deadening your empathy for the people around you, which in turn, effectively makes you stop caring about them. When we stop being empathetic and lose our ability to see someone else's perspective, and why they may be hurting, we make it easy to do the hurting ourselves, because we no longer relate to our victim. By killing our pain, we become just a little less human.
Our search for the fast answer to physical comfort is aiding, and perhaps even encouraging, our disconnect from one another. When it becomes harder to hurt our feelings, to feel excluded, or to react with any number of pain induced emotions, we stop standing up for fairness or equality for others, because we stop recognizing it, or how it affects us. A sense of fair play is a key component in any healthy, well adjusted society.
The United States alone wrote 300 million prescriptions for opioid painkillers in 2015. That's nearly one for every man, woman, and child, and totals 80% of the world's opioid supply. Let that sink in...the USA consumes 80% of the opioid pain killers for the entire globe. They are deadening our brains...emotions...empathy...desire to do right. So next time you go to pop a pill for your mild headache, tight neck, or sore back, maybe take a second to think if you actually need it to get through your day, or if maybe something else could easily be the answer, and you could save and rebuild some pieces of your humanity, pieces you may not have even realized you were missing.
Try drinking a glass of water, doing some stretching, or taking a walk in the sunshine to relieve your symptoms first, before reaching for a pill. Let's take a step toward caring about each other again! Yeah, sometimes feelings hurt, but you know what? We need to hurt sometimes to make good changes come to life. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is that good men should do nothing." Don't let evil win. Put down the pill.
Okay, okay, I know. You're all probably like, "We get it, quit nagging. How am I supposed to deal with my daily pain then??"
Well I have great news for you! Ready? You're gonna love it...
LAUGH MORE!
No, really...laughing is serious business, y'all. ;)
In the 1980's there was already enough evidence supporting that perhaps laughter actually was the best medicine, that a number of hospitals around the US participated in experiments in which they installed Laughing Rooms as part of their facilities. They would stock it with funny books and magazines, play comedy movies, and hire comedic performers regularly to come and perform for the patients. And guess what they found?
It was a glowing success!
(Now why we don't have these in every hospital by now is a totally different angry rant about fucked up, greedy, disgusting members of our society, but I'm not going there today.)
The hospitals with laugh rooms found a dramatic increase in patient health, a decrease in the number of painkillers requested and required by those in pain, an improvement in attitude, making difficult patients easier to deal with, and shorter average hospitalization time for each patient.
Henri Ruebenstein, a neurologist, found that one minute of solid laughter can provide up to 45 minutes of subsequent relaxation. Get a good laugh in once an hour and pretty soon you won't need those painkillers, anyway!
Beyond relaxing, it was reported by William Fry, a professor at Stanford University, that 100 laughs will give your body an aerobic workout equal to 10 minutes on a rowing machine. So if you were looking for a reason to skip the gym today... it might be okay to watch some stand up instead. ;)
Now maybe some of you still aren't convinced... "Sounds pretty weird, you know, wanting people to stop taking medicine that everybody takes or that doctors prescribed...why would we listen to you?"
Well, you don't need to listen to me at all, or even finish reading this, but my end goal is to get people back to caring for each other, and to get healthy through laughter. I want you to be happy! And the pharmacies end goal is to get all your money, and the governments end goal is to keep us stupid and separate so we think we're powerless even though they are entirely outnumbered. Huh. Weird. But anyway, do whatever you want. Really. :)
If the hospital findings with the laughing room weren't enough to convince you of the healing power of laughter, let's talk about Norman Cousins. Because what an extraordinary man he was, and what an extraordinary case.
In 1964 Norman Cousins was diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis, a rare disease of the connective tissues. Doctors told him there was nothing they could do except try to alleviate his pain, and that he would die within a few months.
Cousins said, "Fuck that."
Okay, not really, but still...
Cousins checked himself out of the hospital and into a hotel. He got his hands on a projector - not an easy feat in the 60's - and all the funny films he could find, as well as hired a nurse to read him humorous books. He spent six months in that hotel forcing himself to laugh, loudly and for long stints, claiming he would do it until his body literally hurt from laughter. He found that 10 minutes of solid laughter would afford him two hours of pain-free sleep, and when he would eventually wake from the discomfort, he would put a film back on and laugh himself back into a peaceful rest. After six months, his disease was gone.
Norman Cousins died in 1990, at 75 years old.
26 years after being told he had only a few months to live.
HE LAUGHED HIMSELF BACK TO HEALTH.
(Oh, and took vitamin c intravenously. Take your vitamin c, kids.)
If you can't see the magic and the power in this story, then I'm not sure what else to say...
Long story, short... if you care about your friends, family, and loved ones, stop deadening your empathy and emotions for temporary relief. Pain is not a cause, it's a symptom. Find the true problems you're experiencing. And LAUGH MORE! Loudly and for long stints of time. Lose control. Get a good belly laugh going. You'll feel better! And you know...even if it doesn't actually work...we're all dying anyway. Isn't it better to have some joy in your life before you go? ;)
Much Love, Light, and Laughs! All the laughs.
Back to our regularly scheduled travel tales now ;) It's all just one big (mis)adventure anyway.
Thanks for reading, y'all!
May your day be filled with laughter and love 😋
ReplyDeleteThanks, dad, that's the hope! Yours too ^_^
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