Every morning I get up between 5am-6am, make a cup of my Chinese herbal tea, meditate for 10-20 minutes, pray, and journal. This is my 30 minutes of peace that I give myself at the start of every day to calm my mind and connect with spirit. And as soon as I am done with my sacred routine I immediately turn on the radio to Elvis Duran and the Morning Show and begin to laugh my ass off.

That might seem like an odd jump in my routine. To go from zen and calm to listening to a show filled with phone pranks and fart jokes. But for me listening to that radio show is one of the healthiest things that I do all day. Why? Because it makes me laugh.

I virtually grew up listening to The Elvis Duran show and it never fails to put a smile on my face and get some chuckles out of me. When I’ve gone through some dark and difficult times in my life it was that show that got me up in the morning. It could make me laugh no matter how depressed I was. In fact there have been many times in my life that I feel like this show helped heal me.

If I had to pick one thing to help heal both physical and emotional “dis-ease” it would be laughter.

Laughter breaks up stagnant energy in the body, increases the immune system, lowers blood sugar, burns calories, and not to mention makes us happy.  And the best part is that it’s free!

Think of the times where everything has gone wrong in your life. The times where if one more thing happens you are going to lose it. Then that one more thing happens that pushes you over the edge, and what do you do? You laugh. You’ve gone from stressed, upset, and angry to slap happy. Because at that point you can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. Now are you laughing because the situation is really funny? No, your laughing because if you don’t you’ll fall into a deep dark depression or go crazy.  Sometimes laughter is what saves us from ourselves. 

Now with all these benefits why is it that we don’t exercise the healing of laughter more often? If we are living a healthy lifestyle we make sure that we eat well, exercise every day, take time for meditation, but laughing is never really on our to-do list. Yet considering all the amazing benefits that laughter brings to the table, I think it should be part of our daily routine.

Prioritize laughter. Make it part of your daily routine. Schedule it if you have to.

Thanks to Youtube we are never far from a good laugh. Feeling down? Watch a stupid cat video. Long day? Call your friend that always makes you laugh on the way home from work.  In physical discomfort? Put on a good 2 hour comedy to not only make you laugh, but help distract you from the pain.

If you can’t remember the last time you had a good laugh, then it’s been way too long! Decide today that you’ll make laughter apart of your every day life.

I bet if we all just lightened up more and made laughter a priority, the world would be a happier and healthier place. Just a theory, what do you think? Let me know in the comments below.