A geek tells his friend, “I am always busy with FB,Twitter,Orkut and my blog.” The friend asks, “Dude do you have a life?” “Oh no,” replies the geek. “Can you send me the link?” Author unknown
Some of you may smile at the joke while others may frown thinking it is not funny. There are different things that each of you find humorous and a lot depends on how you view the situation.
However, laughter is infectious and when shared, it increases happiness around you.
You will notice that some people laugh and smile more than others and these people are fun to be around with because they tend to lighten the situation.
Laughter makes you feel good. And the good feeling that you get when you laugh remains with you even after the laughter subsides. Humour helps you keep a positive, optimistic outlook through difficult situations, disappointments and through grief and loss.
You may know of people who belong to the Laughter yoga clubs. These clubs are held in parks and all the members just let go and laugh. They believe that if they start their day by laughing, their mood will be happy and it will be easier to face the daily hassles of life. There are other effects of laughter which benefit your physical, psychological and social well-being.
Physically it boosts your immune system and lowers the production of stress hormones.
Psychologically, it improves your mood, eases anxiety and adds joy to another boring day. Also, it helps you look at the same stressful situation from a completely different perspective without feeling overwhelmed by it.
Socially it helps you connect with people easily, relieves pressure on the group and strengthens bonding between team members.
You must find opportunities to laugh; be it watching a comedy show on television, watching a movie that is funny, being around people who have a good sense of humour, sharing a joke with your friends, finding something funny in a situation that otherwise seems difficult to cope with, playing with children/pets or doing something silly and unexpected without harming yourself or anybody else.
It is important though, not to laugh at other people or mock them because of their mistakes or weakness. This is because you need to be sensitive to other people’s feelings and should accept that person’s shortcomings.
Sometimes we take ourselves a bit too seriously but although some events are clearly sad and not occasions for laughter, most events in life don’t carry an overwhelming sense of either sadness or delight.
They fall into the gray zone of ordinary life — giving you the choice to laugh or not.
Share your embarrassing moments and look at the humour in a difficult situation to see the irony or absurdity of life.
It is important to keep things in perspective. Many things in life are beyond your control but feeling sorry for yourself, blaming yourself or being angry with others for putting you down only makes you more unhealthy, unproductive and isolated if you continue moaning about it for too long.
You must learn to integrate laughter into your life.
Humour can help you to view the world from a more relaxed, positive, creative, joyful, and balanced perspective.
So keep smiling and laughing whenever you can.