Ha Ha Ha Your Way to Health, the Five Facets of Farcical Fitness

Today is the first Sunday of December, the holiday time, what can be a

stress-filled, crazy time.

As we begin today's service which is about the health-giving, life-affirming role of laughter, hear these words of wisdom from the character of Trudy, a homeless woman, portrayed by comedienne Lily Tomlin in the Broadway play, "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe." As the play opens, Trudy says:

-------------------------------------

Here we are standing on the corner of

Walk, Don't Walk.

I know what you're thinkin'; you're thinkin' i'm crazy...

It's my belief we ALL at one time or another

secretly ask ourselves the question, Am I crazy?

...You're thinkin' how does a person know if they're crazy

or not? Well, sometimes you don't know. Sometimes you

can go through life suspecting you are, but never really knowing for sure.

....I used to talk to plants all the time, then one day they started talking

back. They said, "Trudy, shut up!"

...I don't ever want to sound negative about going crazy.

I don't want to overromanticize it either, but frankly,

goin' crazy was the best thing ever happened to me...

Now, since I put reality on the back burner, my days are

jam-packed and fun-filled.

Like some days I go hang out around Seventh Avenue;

I love to do this old joke-- I wait for some music-loving tourist

from one of the hotels on Central Park to go up and ask someone

" How do I get to Carnegie Hall?"

Then I run up and yell:

"Practice!"

--- PAUSE ---

Thoughts for Today:

Hahaha your way to health: five facets of farcical fitness

It has been a wonderful treat this morning to have the special music provided

by Sata Rupa. When I first learned that we would have this opportunity, I

was a little concerned that doing a sermon about laughing juxtaposed with

"serious music" might give us all a kind of emotional whiplash. Then I

remembered what Olympic gold medal gymnast Mary Lou Retton said several years

ago... when someone asked her how she made herself do all the work it took to

excel in her skills and become a champion. She said "work is a serious kind

of fun."

Maybe our musicians have been having a serious kind of fun, too. And, I hope

when my talk is we will all have had a little serious fun.

As I look out at all of you, I am impressed by your serious

expressions...Since it is Sunday morning, and we're in church, I can only

assume you must be thinking about HOW TO BECOME ENLIGHTENED.

That reminds me of a cartoon with these three people sitting in lotus

position, wearing identical robes...meditating...all three looking VERY HOLY.

The first guy had of those little "thought balloons" above his head, and he

was thinking;

THERE MUST BE A WAY TO GET BEYOND THE HERE AND NOW.

The second one had a little balloon that said:

THERE MUST BE A WAY TO STAY IN THE HERE AND NOW.

The third, who looked the most like you or me, had a little balloon that said:

NACHOS...I THINK I LL HAVE NACHOS FOR LUNCH...

In the book "A Whack on the Side of the Head" , author Roger Von Oech says

"It s not so important to be serious as it is to be serious about the

important things." As an example, he says "the monkey wears an expression of

seriousness that would do credit to any great scholar, but the monkey is

serious because he itches."

So whether you re really thinking about enlightenment or nachos or how to

scratch yourself in a way that I won t notice from up here, I hope you re

ready to have a little serious fun.

First the serious part this is the whole point of everything I m going to

say today...and it s not exactly BIG NEWS:

laughing is good for you.

Laughing is so good for you, when you leave here today I want you to make a

commitment to bringing more laughter into your life, and I will give you five

GUARANTEED TO SUCCEED exercises you can use.

I don t expect you to take my word for it I've got proof.

Back in Medieval times, the word humor was considered a physiological term -

meaning: a fluid or JUICE of an animal or plant, specifically one of the four

fluids (Medievalists believed) entered into the constitution of the body,

determining by their relative proportions a person's HEALTH AND TEMPERAMENT.

Four or five centuries later, in the 1960's, a book called The Stress of Life

made a huge leap of thought. This book was among the first medically

accepted studies showing that adrenal exhaustion -- a physical condition --

could be caused by emotional tension such as frustration or suppressed rage.

The book detailed the negative effects of the negative emotions on body

chemistry.

So, if you put two and two together, the juice -- adrenalin -- which dumps

into our blood when we get frustrated or tense, can physically put us in an

ill humor.

Looking back, that book was the shot heard round the world in what was to

become the Holistic health movement -- the idea that there is a mind-body --

or mind-body-spirit connection that is a greater healing force than medicine

alone

A few years after Hans Selye s book was published, the editor of the Saturday

Review became gravely ill with a disease that attacked the connecting tissue

in his spine and produced excrutiating pain. His name was Norman Cousins. He

was an intelligent, educated, man and, when the pain was not being helped or

cured by standard medical treatment and he found himself fighting

debilitating side effects of medications, he looked for alternatives.

His 1976 article (which later became a book) "Anatomy of an Illness" appeared

in the New England Journal of medicine, documenting the connection between

humor and physiology...between laughing and feeling good. Cousins had read

The Stress of Life about how stress can cause negative results, and he said,

in effect:

"well, duh --- What about the positive emotions? If negative emotions

produced negative chemical changes in the body, wouldn't the positive

emotions produce positive chemical changes? Is it possible that love, hope,

faith, laughter, confidence, and the will to live have therapeutic value?

Do chemical changes occur only on the downside?"

Cousins had been taking maximum doses of painkillers and anti-inflammatory

drugs which gave him severe hives and nausea and were not successful in

curing the illness...so he decided to use himself as the guinea pig in an

experiment, with his doctor's permission. He discontinued the drugs in

order to avoid any toxic effects they might be having, and decided to try to

improve his body chemistry by infusing himself with positive emotions. He

started by watching Marx Brothers movies and old Candid Camera reruns.

He discovered that ten minutes of hardy belly laughs produced two hours of

pain-free sleep. And, scientifically, he documented the basis for his

conclusion that laughter was affecting his body chemistry for the better by

taking sedimentation rate (or sed rate) readings before and after the

laughter episodes. Each time, there was a drop of at least five points in

the sed rate, which held and which was cumulative over several episodes. His

conclusion" there is a physiologic basis for the ancient theory that laughter

is good medicine."

Norman Cousins was radical in his time; of course, it seems less radical

today when we see places like Methodist Hospital in Des Moines adding

"complementary medicine" units with aromatherapy, acupuncture, and massage,

while nursing homes invite visitors to bring animals to give residents "pet

therapy", and social workers can take specialty degrees in art therapy or

music therapy. Today, we call it "holistic medicine" and widely accept the

idea that the human mind and body are an interdependent system of physical

chemistry and emotional/intellectual stimuli which must be considered

together by physicians to make maximum use of the self-healing strengths of

the total human being.

In the last year, several studies have confirmed that humor and laughter help

in fighting stress.

1> One study looked at using humor as a tool for alleviating stress among

nurses, who as a group are at a higher than average risk of job stress and

burnout. An article in Holistic Nursing Practices magazine, entitled

"Humor: an Antidote for Stress" sums up 20 years of world-wide clinical

studies on humor which have proved that laughter -- lowers serum cortisol

levels, strengthens your immune system responses, and improves mood. (the

opposite of: the negative impacts of stress -- high blood pressure, tense

muscles, lowered resistance to disease, and other chemical changes.)

2> A study at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg documented that

there is a unique pattern of brain wave activity when a person listens to a

joke. By using (electro encephalo grams) EEGs to record subjects reactions,

researchers found that during the set-up of the joke, the brain's left

hemisphere analytical function processes words. Then, activity moves to the

frontal lobe, the seat of emotions; and then to the right hemisphere where

the emotional and analytical information were synthesized to find the pattern

-- to get the joke. In another millisecond, activity moved to the occiptal

lobe where sensory images are processed, which triggered the physical

responses identified as laughter.

So, if you think about it, laughter integrates all aspects of a human being's

essence -- the intellectual, the emotional, the spiritual, and the physical

associated with the four lobes of the brain.

So, now that you have the evidence, what's stopping you from getting more

laughter in your life? It s FREEEEE! The public libary is full of joke books

and videos. The Internet is full of hysterical jokes flooding my email

inbox. Norman Cousins dosed himself with the Marx Brothers and Candid.

What s stopping you?

Research from the University of Wisconsin and others has shown that children

laugh an average of 400 times a day while adults laugh about 4 times a day.

What that tells us is

-- researchers have too much time on their hands...

-- Anyway, the point is, kids are having all the fun, and we old duffers had

better start getting our share of the laughs back into our lives if we want

good health over the long haul.

What s stopping you?

In the Wizard of Oz, the Tin Man, lamented that he didn t have a brain.

Well, you already have a brain, maybe all you need is to decide you want to

laugh and master a few simple tools. And you will leave here today with all

the tools you need.

Now, I admit, I do not have a Ph.D. in humor. No, I have something better.

I was born into a family of Irish storytellers who d rather laugh than cry or

sit around boring each other. And, a few years ago, I took a four-week

course in standup comedy when I was feeling stressed out, exhausted, and

grouchy. It saved my sanity.

In comedy school we were taught that LAUGHTER IS AN EMOTIONAL RELEASE OF

HUMOROUS TENSION, and usually depends on one of three elements:

- surprise

- superiority or

- potential embarassment.

If you think about every joke you've ever heard, or anything you've ever

laughed at, there is probably one of these three elements that applies....For

example:

Surprise...

What do John the Baptist and Winnie the Pooh have in common?

They both have the same middle name.

Superiority...

- What do you get when you cross The Godfather with a lawyer?

- An offer you can't understand.

Of course, in this age of political correctness, most of us do not laugh at

jokes based on superiority -- Ethnic jokes or dumb blonde jokes or gender put

downs or, if we do laugh, we are at least so morally well developed we feel

guilty for laughing.

Embarassment...

-- encompasses the whole class of comedy that includes slapstick, and pies in

the face, and pratt falls, and bodily functions, and the noises that human

bodies make -- all of which have the tension of potential or actual

embarassment as the trigger for laughter. I grew up with Lucille Ball and the

I Love Lucy series and I still have visual memories of Lucy getting into and

out of the most embarassing situations.

According to Gavin Jerome, my comedy teacher, humor is a MUSCLE that has to

be used to be developed. The more we use it, the stronger it gets.

However, unless you were born into the hyena family as I was, you DO have to

DECIDE you want to laugh and actively work on YOUR FARCICAL FITNESS.

Here are FIVE FACETS OF FARCICAL FITNESS, THINGS YOU CAN DO TO GET TUNED UP

FOR GOOD HUMOR AND GOOD HEALTH.

None of these is rocket science, and maybe none is even new, but they do

work. And, like drinking lots of water, and drinking lots of milk, and

exercising aerobically at least three times a week, these five behaviors can

contribute to keeping you healthy and happy.

Number one. Be willing to laugh at yourself.

I know it's hard. We all spend our first 40 years or so building a

professional reputation in order to prevent other people from laughing AT

us...and now I'm telling you to give that up and actively start laughing at

yourself. I don't mean you have to make yourself the object of ridicule, or

become pathetic. There's a better way. Simply find something that is true

about you, and emphasize its absurdity.

Here's an example. Karen Swanson, is a local comic who is also a 35-year-old

gorgeous blonde single mother. She describes herself as "an adult survivor

of High School Cheerleading. "

Number two. Empathize with the average person.

We've all probably read something by Dave Barry or the late Erma Bombeck, two

comic writers who have made millions by empathizing with others, just being

someone you or I can identify with. The queen of sarcasm Phyllis Diller got a

lot of mileage out of her relationship with her husband FANG.

When I do standup comedy routine, I often start out by asking "anyone here

married?" Show of hands anyone here?

Okay, married people:

-- Have you ever noticed how after you've been married awhile you start

thinking like an oyster? You know there's got to be a pearl in there

somewhere if you can just put up with the irritation.

-- I don't want you to get the wrong impression. I think marriage is a fine

institution. I just wish I had known before I got married that I was being

institutionalized.

Number three. Decide not to be easily offended.

What's that mean? If you aren't sure whether something is politically correct

or not, laugh anyway. You'll still reap the present benefits of

physiological well being. You can feel guilty about it later, which will

also release endorphins because you will feel morally superior for having

repented.

The Search For Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe was a huge hit and

won a tony award for Lily Tomlin. It dared to do a politically incorrect

thing: making a mentally ill bag lady the central character and the butt of

many self-directed jokes. The trick was, though, Trudy had a lot more self

awareness than most of us, and she turned the tables with her observations

about us so-called normal people..If you listen to Trudy, you realize she may

be crazy, but she's not stupid... late in the play, she says ...

LYNN OR BARB:

the human mind is kind of like...

a pinata. When it breaks open

there's a lot of surprises inside.

Once you get the pinata perspective,

you see that losing your mind can be a peak experience....

Number four. Hang around with funny people who make you laugh.

Both of you get to laugh, so both of you will be healthier. It's at least

twice as good for the world as laughing alone. Heck, maybe you could get

someone to fund a study to learn whether it is only twice as good as laughing

alone or if it is exponentially better.

Number five. Hang around with kids.

If it's been a long time since you were one, you are probably laughing less

than once a day and that's not good for you. Hanging around with kids will

jumpstart your sense of humor over and over, when you least expect it.

That's it.

1. Be willing to laugh at yourself.

2. Empathize with the average person.

3. Decide not to be easily offended.

4. Hang around with funny people who make you laugh.

5. Hang around with kids.

Well, that's not quite it... if you came here this morning looking for

enlightenment, I don t want to disappoint you. I firmly believe that there

is one, and only one, way to become enlightened. On the count of three,

everybody...help me count -- one....two...three: "LIGHTEN UP."