The story is told of the man who, upon receiving the diagnosis of “terminal disease”, at once checked into a nice hotel and ordered his sons to bring him every funny movie or comedy video they could find.  The sons complied and the man literally spent weeks alternating between laughing, sleeping, eating.  Strangely, in just a few weeks, his disease symptoms were all gone.  Upon a “medical re-check”, no evidence of his disease could be found.


I don’t know if this story is true but I know that laughter does relieve stress and stress is well documented as a disease causing culprit.  I also know from experience that humor and laughter enhances healing.  Both leading up to my surgery and in recovery (as soon as my incision was a week old), I got all the uplifting comedy videos I could find and I found them extremely healing.  


The “Thou Shalt Laugh” comedy series consists of at least four different live events featuring several comedians in each.  Hosts include Tim Conway, Patricia Heaton (of “Everybody Loves Raymond”), John Tesh among others.  Another series is “Bananas” which is a live series also featuring a host (Chonda Pierce, Thor Ramsey, et al) and headlining a different comedian each event including Tim Hawkins, Thor Ramsey, and one of the funniest people God ever created, Taylor Mason (who also happens to be a good musician and a hilarious vantriloquist.)  Then there is a “It’s Time to Laugh” collection of classic Joyce Meyer  (www.joycemeyer.com) stories which is quite funny.  Brian Regan is another clean comedian who is really talented and funny.  Chonda Pierce is amazing–FUNNY and a great singer.  I believe Chonda has at least four videos available and all are filmed live.  Carl Hurley is great for folksy humor.   Brad Stine is very funny and his humor is clean.  


Humor changes us–distracts us, normalizes us, balances us, re-focuses us, and, again, relieves stress.    I posted this “Label” first because it is easy to forget.


Everyone loves to laugh and nothing is better medicine.  When we are ill, we need to “fast” from the news and, certainly,  high tension entertainment does not relieve stress.  Television requires considerable energy to “sift out the garbage”.  There are a few movies like “The Blindside” that I would recommend but movies that require a great deal of serious judgement are tough on a body.  


“Feel good” fare is “the prescription” that seems to help us not “become” our diagnosis/prognosis.


Keep laughing and stay “normal”…….it’s healthy!