Like the oxygen mask… the power of laughter

Remember how, in the safety instructions in airplanes, they always say to “Put on your own oxygen mask BEFORE you help anyone else”. This is such a good metaphor for a fundamental truth about life; we have to help ourselves before we can really help others. Our first duty is to take care of ourselves SO THAT we can care for others, fulfil our potential and contribute to the world.

It is said that the highest forms of healing are those which we do for ourselves. We are blessed in this age, to have so many tools to help us. It so happens that yoga, yoga therapy and hypnotherapy have been the main ones I have found to work well for me and that I use with my clients and students, but there are of course many others.

The basics are pretty obvious. A form of exercise we enjoy and are motivated to do regularly. A diet, which makes us actually feel good, rather than just gratifying an addiction, and is also pleasurable to eat. Noticing what we think about and cultivating thought habits, which generate positive emotions. The causes of dis-ease are from within and well as from outside, emotions affect our biochemistry and thus our health. No matter how bad a day has been it is always possible to find something to feel grateful for and to fall asleep with ‘an attitude of gratitude’.

And finally humour. This may be our saving grace. Laughter, we are told, is the best medicine. When we can laugh, it lifts us out of the situation and ourselves, it gives us perspective and punctures excessive self importance. There is even laughter yoga. In a group you start laughing with the ‘fake it ’til you make it’ intention, then it gets more and more real, because laughter is so infectious and can eventually become uncontrollable.

Click on the image and enjoy what happens as you watch and listen….