To the Heart of the Matter
By: Barry Roberts
On the list of little known holidays, some are rather
important. During February, from the 10th to the 14th, we observe Cardiac
Rehabilitation Week. This annual event is dedicated to the cardiac
rehabilitation professionals and the patients they serve, to the goal of
reducing the devastating effects of heart disease. Indeed a worthy endeavor to
those of us who care about our health.
Not to take anything away from those professionals, and in
addition to what they do, there is so much we can do for and by ourselves,
through a daily regimen of laughter!
No joke here; from the Bible (“A merry heart doeth good
like a medicine.”) to Groucho Marx (“A clown is like an aspirin, except that it
works twice as fast.”) experts through the ages are clear about the value of
laughter as it relates to our heart and health.
Research studies have shown that laughter and a good sense
of humor can protect against heart disease. In other experiments researchers
have found that ten minutes of laughter can lower blood pressure and increase
circulation. Dr. Michael Miller of the University
of Maryland, home of these studies
says that, “Recommendations for a healthy heart may one day be exercise, eat
right and laugh a few times a day.”
Why wait until “one day”? Laughter, for its curative
powers, is a lot like chicken soup…are we sure it will help? It won’t hurt!
Here then, is my prescription for Cardiac Rehabilitation
Week and every day, to be taken as often as possible:
Practice the Five Minute Fun Fling Simply
put, the Five Minute Fun Flings are five-minute humor breaks that we allow
ourselves to take at any time we need or want.
During these five minutes of humor, some wonderful things happen to us.
First, we help ourselves overcome any stress we may have encountered
earlier in the day. Next, we put
ourselves in a better frame of mind to deal with any stresses we might encounter
later that day. Additionally,
practicing the Five Minute Fun Fling helps us to draw humor more easily from
those situations that normally cause us stress, anger and frustration.
The ease and frequency with which we participate in the
Five Minute Fun Fling, and the value of its benefits improves steadily with
practice, just as in practicing a musical instrument.
However, the Fun Flings are, well, more fun.
Visualization and Imagery.
Mr. or Ms. Stress is a person who most of you deal with each day at work.
Surely you know who she is; that person whose mere presence causes you to
feel stressed. This is most
certainly one of those times that you need your sense of humor. You can do that
with an approach called: “Visualization and Imagery.”
Suppose Ms. Stress walks in and has big huge floppy rabbit ears or a
duckbill where his mouth was? What
if Ms. Stress suddenly has the same hairdo as Marge Simpson or Ronald McDonald?
Mr. Stress might not look so intimidating and Ms. Stress may have lost
some of her edge looking that ridiculous.
Once you use your imagination to visualize him or her taking on some of
the physical characteristics of your favorite cartoon character or anything you
think is funny looking, then you can begin to see these individuals through your
sense of humor rather than from a sense of fear or intimidation.
This activity minimizes your stress and helps to maintain your confidence
and control and adds some laughter to your day.
Our “inner sense of humor.”
We can only experience one emotion at a time and so, we may as well
choose to feel happy. This emotion
is the one with which we always work at our best and most efficient, creative
manner. Stop and think before
losing control. Our feelings last
only a few seconds unless we fuel them with thoughts.
Thoughts are what drive our feelings.
Humorous thoughts can drive away negative feelings.
Therefore, to find some humor long enough to calm ourselves so we can
cope with and resolve the stress, we simply must Think!
This idea is the power of “inner sense of humor.”
Relative to our stress level is the amount of humor we need
to generate. If we are to minimize
and relieve our level of stress, which can be a detriment to our cardiac health,
we must enable ourselves to maximize our use of humor, making us more
productive, more creative and better able to maintain our heart health and well
being.
Stay well and HAVE FUN!
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