Friday, March 27, 2020

Insight: Laughter is STILL the best medicine

By Lorraine Glowczak

“We’re feeling stir crazy,” a friend of mine said in an email recently. “My son had a meltdown on Monday because he wants to go back to ‘real school’. Then I had a meltdown because I want him to go back to ‘real school’, too!”

I don’t know if it’s because I’m on the verge of insanity myself, but her note produced in me my customary “throwback head” laughter. After my belly chuckle subsided, I realized it was the first time I laughed like that in two weeks.

Surely I’m not the only one who could use a little reprieve from this highly unusual anxiety ridden time. As the saying goes, “Laughter is the best medicine,” but is laughter appropriate in circumstances such as this?

In an Online Forbes Magazine article, entitled “Laugh Away the Apocalypse with these 15 Coronavirus Memes,” staff writer, Abram Brown quoted Adam Padilla who is known for his creative work with funny memes. Padilla expressed his thoughts about joking in the midst of this horrible pandemic.

“Humor is helping us get through this. It’s about keying in on the common threads that all we have in our new lives.”

Hara Estroff Marano, Editor of Psychology Today, states that laughter reduces pain, increases job performance, connects people emotionally, and improves the flow of oxygen to the heart and brain. She also said that laughter reduces pain and allows us to tolerate discomfort.

I think it is safe to say there is a lot of emotional pain and discomfort happening these days.

As far as I’m concerned, a dose of laughter every day will, if anything, heal our spirits and lighten our thoughts so we can live life as normally as possible, whatever normal is now.

One new normal that has popped up overnight since the coronavirus has halted our lives is the current memes that you see on social media.

Online dictionaries state that memes are a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc., that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by Internet users.

The following are a few examples of memes as they relate to the current COVID-19 virus.





Stay safe, exercise often and be sure to get your daily dose of hilarity. After all, laughter is STILL the best medicine – especially in today’s circumstances.

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