Pyschoneuroimmunology

   When  Christine CliffordPresident, CEO of  The Cancer Club  and                    a  18 year Breast cancer survivor.  With a simple statement  from her            son  after her surgery.  Sparked laughter  and a passion  for drawing  cartoons about her experience.  Since her”Twilight Zone Experience”   finding  humor  and  feeling  better  about  herself  (she  also  learned           humor is a big part of  her treatment.)

    The next best thing to solving a problem is  finding some humor in          that experience. Even though old age is a  fact of  life.  The truth is,  we haven’t  learned to cope  with  the  thought of  aging.  Being  a  part  of             a  youth – obsessed  culture,  often  age  should  be  looked  upon  as  an  achievement. Elderly people can be interesting, jovial, lovable, active,     wise, witty and holy.

   If  only  we  could  cast  aside  the prejudice of  our culture  and  own  negative attitude toward casting the aging aside. What I have observed         is  those  that  live  a  fun –  filled  life of  laughter,  live longer than those whom don’t.  A  good belly –  filled  laugh  can  help  balance  the difficult   side of  the human condition.

   Robert W. Corrigan  points out:  “Comedy  tends  to be more concerned   with  the  fact  despite  all our individual defeats,  life does continue on its merry way. Consider the common laugh-the human race has been getting    a kick out of humor for a very long time. The Bibles notes in Proverb 17:22,    ‘A Cheerful heart is good medicine, but a down cast spirit drieth the bones.’

   Here in lies a central truth about humor: it is not an idle or random act      of  our  existence;   it  is  an  integral  part  of  us,  and  for  a  purpose.  Only humans truly laugh.  Humor  and its  first cousin comedy are good  for our health, physical and emotional. It might be why the soul gravitates toward the life  of the party type, everybody seemingly likes a good laugh.

   For the vast majority of us, a certain number of ailments a wait us down  the  road;  if  they  are not already at hand.  The  poet W.B. Yeats once said, “an old person is like a tattered coat upon a stick, unless he or she responds to aging with clapping and singing. Norman Cousins  used  humor  to  heal, in the 1960s he contracted a rare and painful joint disease.

    Instead of  giving in,  however, he went on a human binge, watching old movies, such as the Marx Brothers and the Candid Camera television series. He soon realized,  that ten minutes of  healing  laughter  would win him two pain  free  hours  of  relief.  In a matter of  a  few  months,  Cousins  regained  the  motion of  his  joints,  eventually  the  pain  disappeared  and  he made a complete recovery  from his supposed terminal illness.

   Within Norman Cousins Book:  Anatomy of  an  Illness,  which  created  a revolution.  The cornerstone of  his  theory of  humans  is the power of  mind and spirit to influence the rest of  the body.  Feelings are chemicals: they can kill or cure writes Dr. Bernie Siegel.  Our emotions are the motor that moves us.  Humor  is  a  shortcut  to  emotional  health,  if  we  are  able  to  laugh  at ourselves  when  we  are  being  poked  and prodded.  The  body will  pay less attention to the discomfort and begin to heal itself.

    The power of  humor to transform our heads  and hearts as we age is not accidental.  It does so… by putting our lives in perspectivelife is tantalizing while being mixed with tradegy and comedy; one playing off the other at the same  time.  Theologian  Soren  Kierkegaard  wrote, ”whenever  there  is  life there  is  contradiction  and  wherever  there  is contradiction  the comical is present.”

   There  is  indeed  room  in  old  age  for  fulfillment  and  contentment,  as Angela Macnamara notes:  “There is  no period in life  that  doesn’t  have  its own silver lining and the silver lining doesn’t happen automatically.”  But it helps to let our imaginations….  fly  to where the sun keeps shining.  Also as  Fred Astaire put it:  ‘Old Age is Like Everything Else,  to make a success of  it, you got to start young.’        by Michael J. Farrell        www.carenotes.com

This entry was posted in Thought Provoking. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Time limit is exhausted. Please reload the CAPTCHA.