Cuore-Vita Magazine N.10 – June 2014

30 January 2014

Alaugh a day … Maybe not enough to keep the doctor away but surely good for your health. It is no secret that laughter therapy (gelotology) is practised on a consolidated basis, as a new modern science. Is it not the volunteer clown-doctors, in white coats and red clown nose, that make sick children smile? Well, laughing is good for you. Laughter, say the scholars behind this new therapy, may be the best of drugs; the important thing is that it really comes ‘from the heart’. Laughter unleashes endorphins, it reactivates the body’s energy and helps us to endure pain. Above all it wakes up the brain to the body for the benefit of our mental and physical wellbeing. In short, a good laugh is a great antidote to stress when we accumulate excess, which in our busy everyday life is one of the sworn enemies of our heart. Even in difficult times there’s a pretext for liberating laughter; a joke, a satire on the telly, an evening with friends. It’s an easy way to pull the plug without necessarily resorting to a doctor or pharmacist; laughter is simply a personal way of handling stress. Not surprisingly, the World Health Organization itself defines health not as the absence of disease, but as a state of perfect mental and physical wellbeing and social development. Why shouldn’t a laugh be one of the right ingredients of this simple ‘recipe’? A day without a smile, is a day lost, said Chaplin, who lived until he was 88 years old.

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