A Simple Prescription: Laugh Until You Cry

In a world where we are overloaded with medication, therapy, and continuous advertising that will supposedly allow us to buy our happiness, we sometimes forget that the simplest things can change how we feel. If you have ever laughed until you started crying then you know what I’m talking about.

There are only a handful of people in my life who have been able to make me laugh to the point of crying. Some of them I only spent a limited amount of time with, but they will always have a positive association in my mind. Laughing to the point of crying is one of the best feelings in the world. The continual endorphin releases that occur cause a dramatic shift in your brain chemistry, physiology, and your emotions. In other words, it’s really good for you. Take a little bit of time to laugh each day for a month. Even it’s only 5 minutes I think you’ll find it is really good for you.

A few ways to start laughing:

1. Call an old friend: One of the greatest ways to get yourself laughing is to call an old friend. Anytime I call my friend who I mentioned in my Two Retards and Their Journey across Brazil post, we end up having a really good laugh. In fact, I always feel better after spending some time talking to him because we have shared so many moments of laughing until we cried.

2. Watch some standup comedy: If you can’t track down a friend. Get on youtube and search for a comedian. You’ll probably find a few thousand clips to various comedians.

3. Remember a funny story: Since the mind can’t distinguish between what’s real and what’s imagined, even remembering an old funny story will start to make you laugh. The trick is to imagine the most minute details such as the tone of somebody’s voice, the expressions on their face, and the sound of their laugh.