Go on, laugh like a kid again
Knock Knock. Who’s there? A little old lady. A little old lady who? All this time I didn’t know you could yodel.
When I was a kid, a dumb joke like that would slay me. I’d laugh so hard I’d be banished to the Siberia of classrooms, ripped from friends, even ejected once from a college lecture after seeing a stick figure of the teacher some guy passed. I couldn’t stop shaking, could barely hobble out of the room.
It was embarrassing, uncontrollable, juvenile. When I got to laughing it was so selfi-nfecting that at night I’d stuff a pillow over my face hoping to get it all out so I could go on with life in some respect able manner. I even feared I’d be hospitalized, so worried my parents were that I was incurable. Knock Knock. Who’s there? You. You who? Wow, you sure are excited to see me. Yes, back then I was a royal pain. Today, I’d leave that pillow on the bed where it belongs. When I find myself laughing so hard and so long that it nearly gets me bounced, I consider myself lucky not a loser.
Today I think this is sanity not stupidity, not mania but maturity.
If you’re one of those having a bit of a tough time now and again with life, with the state of the earth, with the perfect ripeness of avocados, maybe it’s time for a second childhood. Maybe a childhood that uses laughter intentionally to make us feel better, not just because we can’t help it. We go to the gym right? We’ve got to go where laughter happens too.
According to the people who know, it’s apparently not true that kids laugh more than adults, only that kids put themselves in more social situations where laughter happens. If you’re spending too much time alone, the laugh meter could bed own, and maybe you are too.
Feel frivolous for laughing? The best and the brightest would stick out their tonguesandsaynah-nah-nah-nah-nah. The truth is, if you really care, really really care about lightening up a crummy situation, you’d be wise to start searching for laughter wherever you go.
Look how the experts expound on the great gifts of giggling:
Stimulates the organs, relieves the stress response, relaxes the muscles, improves the immune system, cut spain, rev sup your mood, boosts your relationships, lowe rs blood pressure, raisesprotects the old heart, increases the chance people can stand being with you.
We know all this right? But have we forgotten?
Laughter is a calorie-busting, non-alcoholic, free, share able, fun, convenient, even fat-reducing way we can approach the chaos; a good belly laugh can stimulate digestion.
But it’s not enough to wait until it plain happens, because we’re not kids anymore, constantly flooded with group activity. But it can happen by design, by putting ourselves in situations where laughter is likely to become infectious, with no hospitalization required.
There are always the sitcoms, the rom-coms, the stand up specials, Jeff & Larry’s Comedy Roundup on Sirius, Saturday Night Live. But how about becoming a laugh ambassador yourself, spreading a bit of levity wherever you go?
Even if you’re not a good joke teller. Men either. But when all else fails, when you can’t think how to brighten the mood, we can score (a tiny bit) with a 100- year-old infantile Knock Knock joke that has stood the test of time.
Would an encounter go just a wee bit better if it started like this: Knock Knock. Who’s there? Heaven. Heaven who? Heaven seen you for a long time. Cornball, no doubt about it. Yet can’t help but laugh.
Donna Debs is a longtime freelance writer, a former KYW radio news reporter, and a certified Iyengar yoga teacher. She lives in Tredyffrin. She’d love to hear from you at ddebs@ comcast.net.a