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Amused
Laughing More
Get more laughter in your life: Keep books and videos on hand that make you giggle out loud. Assemble a folder fulled with funny clippings and cartoons today---don't wait until your feeling blue; you won't be motivated then.
Why did laughter evolve? Researchers believe it plays a part in social bonding, solidifying friendships, and pulling people into a group. Smiles are our first form of communication with another person---as a baby, and with strangers.
Play peek-a-boo with a baby. Get a puppy. Rediscover the silent movies. Try to see the world through the eyes of your favorite comic.
When you laugh, you become more relaxed. Even anticipating a funny event lowers stress. Laughter relieves an accumulation of nervous energy---think of it as a massage from the inside out.
It is said that blood pressure, heart rate, muscle tension, and stress hormone levels all drop when you laugh. Opinion is divided over whether laughter really
does promote physical healing. Perhaps it isn't so much laughing that heals but the beneficial effect of humor when used to confront life's challenges.
Laughing is a physical reflex, an automatic, convulsive spasm of the respiratory mechanism that occurs when we realize that there is more than one way to interpret the stimuli we are experiencing. We also laugh when we feel two contradictory emotions or when two frameworks of reference that
normally are separate are brought together in a way that seems to connect them. It's a startled response of the brain. We laugh when we're relieved and surprised, or when the unexpected happens.
Teachers know that laughter helps keep students interested. It makes us more receptive to new experiences, creates emotional intimacy, and encourages us to take ourselves less seriously.
Like yawning, laughter is contagious. You'll laugh more if you are with large groups os people who are in the mood to laugh, and if you are in a relaxed setting and feeling uninhibited. We laugh most often not in response to jokes, but when we're in happy relationships with friends.
Humor is one of the best and most psychologically mature and healhty
defenses. (In other words, it's a good way of controlling negative emotions.) Even when in great emotional pain, humor helps you detach from an event and maintain your dignity and a sense of self. When you make jokes about a bad situastion, you stil feel the bad feelings, but you can control them better.
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