Terri Weeding

Wisdom Writing for Women

How Wild Laughter Exercises Can Kick Your Stress to the Curb

Dear Daughters,

Life can be extremely stressful.

Sometimes you might feel like you can’t remember NOT being stressed.

When exhausted, pissed-off, anxious, and binge-eating is your everyday normal.

When you can’t recall the last time you laughed your butt off because you’ve lost your sense of humor.

When your go-to stress relievers (wine, ice cream, Cheetos, Amazon, Netflix) don’t work anymore because you overindulged too often and now they are part of the problem.

When you fear one more day at home with the kids, one more shift at work risking your health, or another sleepless night worrying about people dying, money, politics, the planet, your future…will thrust you over the edge of that cliff. And you’re terrified you won’t find the strength or the will to drag yourself back up.

How do you stop the madness?

How do you regain some measure of control and calm?

Here’s what the females in our family have done for generations.

We laugh like wild women even when there’s nothing to laugh about!

We do it because we understand that the positive effects laughter generates will pull us back from the edge.

And if stress has stymied our natural ability to laugh?

We create laughter through playful, nonsensical activity.

Like Opera Day. When we sing everything we usually speak using really bad, really funny, fake vibratos. (Yeah, I know I said I would never tell but it so much fun! I’m sure others will want to try it!)

And when we can’t we can muster up even Opera Day, we fake it.

We fake it until we make it.

Consider this powerful statement.

We don’t laugh because we are happy, we are happy because we laugh. 

William James

I love this quote.

Because it means laughter is the action we take to create the state of mind we want.

It means we have the power to laugh when we need it.

That laughter is more than just a reaction to external stimuli.

And if we can only fake laugh, that’s okay. We are still creating a whole lot of good health effects because…

Dun, Dun, Dun…

Our bodies can’t distinguish the difference between real laughter and fake laughter.

So start laughing!

Six Health Benefits of Real or Fake Laughter

  1. Laughter releases endorphins — your feel good chemicals in the same way that the famed runner’s high, sex, and dark chocolate do. (Imagine what combining all of them could feel like?)
  2. Laughter reduces cortisol, your fight or flight stress hormone. Reducing cortisol reduces your blood pressure.
  3. Laughter relaxes your body. It’s like a mini-massage.
  4. Laughter boosts your immune system.
  5. Laughter burns calories and contracts your abs.
  6. Laughter increases oxygen circulation.

(These benefits have been cited in medical journals)

Impressive stuff, right?

Here’s a sad fact.

As children we laugh approximately 400 times a day, but then we grow up and our laughter frequency plummets. Studies have shown that adults laugh a meager 10-15 times a day.

Let’s raise that average! Try this routine to get started.

Terri’s Laughter Wellness Starter Routine

  • Start with a warm up. Repeat he, he, ha, ha, ha, while walking around clapping your hands.These movements will begin to energize you.
  • Raise your arms in a stretch to the sun and laugh your joy.
  • Practice an evil genius laughter. A witch’s cackle.
  • Practice a Santa laugh.
  • Howl. Yodel. Try a Tarzan call and beat your chest.
  • Practice a rocking chair laugh. Raise your arms, rock down and touch your toes, then rock back and wave your arms back and laugh. Do it five times in a row.
  • Crank up the drama like this: “I laugh at danger, ahahahaha!”
  • Laughter is contagious so share it. Make eye contact and fake laugh with another adult, child, your dog, or even yourself in the mirror or computer camera.
  • Add another movement element like dancing, singing, jazz hands, high knee stomping.
  • Focus on laughing from your belly.
  • Practice for 20 minutes a day.

TAKEAWAYS

Laughter is one of the best stress relievers ever.

You can create laughter whenever you want. (Go for broke. Make it wild, baby!)

If you are not feeling it then fake it.

When you fake laugh it almost always turns into the real thing.

You got the power to feel better in a natural, healthy way.

Just like you did when you were a kid.

Hooray!

All My Love.

Pretty sure this woman is laughing because she nabbed the last toilet paper roll during The Great TP Panic of 2020!

Read about happy tear inducing gifts from my daughters here.

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