So, “laughter is the best medicine” THEY say. I’d like to put forth that medicine is, in fact, the best medicine… no matter what type of medicine you may be prescribed to get through your day. This is not a post that’s going to try to convince you that sitting down for a good laugh can obviate the need for your antidepressants… no more than it would suggest that laughter is a decent substitute for, say, insulin. It just isn’t. Laughter, however, is great… and it does have amazing therapeutic advantages in terms of dealing with *waves hands around generally* all of this. What “all of this” is for you may be a different combination of factors than what it is for me. The beauty is: that doesn’t really matter. Getting a good belly laugh going is well documented to help make things better (even if it can’t fix “all of this”… also, it doesn’t fix diabetes or clinical depression).
Here is what it does do:
- Your body draws in more oxygen and releases endorphins
- It drives up and then reduces heart rate and blood pressure, which creates a relaxed feeling.
- It stimulates circulation and muscle relaxation
For more detail, check out this link.
While library staff can’t take credit for these amazing positive impacts of laughter, we can take credit for creating this list of titles, and we hope at least one of them will tickle your funny bone. So: no matter what aspect of the world is getting you down… this list is for you. We all collaborated to come up with library materials that made us laugh out loud. Some of us found ourselves in tears with uncontrollable laughter in Starbucks while reading Hyperbole and a Half (that was me… I did that…I still feel embarrassed… it was over ten years abot), others fell out of bed laughing while reading “A Walk in the Woods” (our fearless director reading the bit about the bear), many of us mentioned beloved TV shows past and present, and there are children’s books in there, too! We hope you can find some respite from the world in the form of a book.
So check out one of these tried and true laugh riots. We hope it makes your day a little brighter, from all of us here at the library, to all of you.
https://catalog.jcls.org/MyAccount/MyList/14458
AND: if you do find yourself laughing to the point of tears in a public space, know that you aren’t alone and just bask in that endorphin glow. Because the world is messy right now, and so is everyone in it… we’ve got to find joy where we can. I hope you find some here.