Sanitarium

The Health Food Company

More about our healthy steps programme

You know the end of that sentence, right? Yes, 'the best medicine'. But you may not have placed too much belief in the statement.

While scientific research is not big on the area of humour and wellness, we did find a few interesting comments, which are worth a thought:

• Laughter helps relieve the symptoms of stress because a good session of hearty laughter activates the release of endorphins from the brain – giving a nice boost to your mood.

• Adults laugh on average only 15 times per day while kids enjoy a giggle up to 400 times per day!

• "Laughter is the shortest distance between two people" V. Borge

• A professor from UCLA School of Medicine, Norman Cousins, calls laughter 'inner jogging'. That is because when we are engaged in a good, hearty laugh, every system in our body gets a workout.

None of us is perfect. Most of our situations are far from ideal. One of the most compassionate things we can do for ourselves is not to take those imperfections too seriously. When we can find some humour in our losses, in those things that we push away, and in those bent nails and splintered pieces, then we are, as clinical psychologist Walter O'Connell points out, "honouring our imperfections and chipped edges". When we can laugh through our tears, we are being given a powerful message. Things may be bad, but they cannot be all that bad.