Yeah, right. Here you are feeling down and I'm expecting you to have something to laugh about.
But, laughter has great benefits, both physical and emotional. I'm talking about real, genuine, spontaneous laugh out loud laughter, not fake laughs.
How?
Once upon a time, I realized it was February or early March and I not only hadn't used my Christmas presents from kind and generous family members, I didn't even know where they were, and had to give it some thought to remember what they were. It also dawned on me that I'd been spending an inordinate amount of time sitting in a certain wing back chair, reading long hours.
Hmmm, I thought, I feel unambitious, unmotivated, sort of sad and discouraged, could I be depressed? I found a book with the symptoms of depression in it and sure enough, I qualified for several (not enough to send me to a professional, but enough for me to decide to take some action to move out of the state I was in).
I thought it would be interesting and challenging to invent my own change technique for moving into a happier and less sit in the chair way of behaving. What to do? I reasoned that the opposite of sad and dejected was probably laughter so I went to the bookstore and bought books by my favorite humor writers. I bought Far Side cartoon books, and The Neighborhood cartoon books, one titled Do Not Disturb Any Further, located a copy of No Time For Sergeants, and may have checked out a copy of Let Me Count The Ways, by Peter DeVries. Somewhere in there, or later, I added Auntie Mame and Confederacy of Dunces.
My assignment for me was to sit in that same chair twice a day, morning and evening, and read something funny until I laughed out loud. That assignment, and my other invented technique, Add Pleasure, which you'll find in the tool section (lists of things I could do to give me pleasure, a list for each of the five senses) cured me of my winter blahs.
So, laugh, by whatever means you find that appeals to you. Besides the books above, I also recommend comedy films and tapes. Personally, I love the BBC comedy series, now on video and DVD, Father Ted. But, that's my taste. What has made you laugh? Do it again. And again.
