Laugh your way to wellness - prescription: more slapstick
Darren Hagel of Missouri, WI, wants the world to know that he is sick of seeing or reading news items about the healing powers of humor and laughter.
"I've read them all," said Hagel, speaking from his one bedroom walk up apartment on the lower east side of this small mid-western town. "I know laughter has healing properties. I know humor can lead to laughter. I get it. The world gets it. And now, I'm sick of hearing about it."
According to Hagel, the straw that broke the camel's back in his case was a recent email he received. "I set up Google Alert to let me know about new humor stuff and in yesterday's alert, lo and behold, there's another link to an article about healing through laughter.
"You know," continued Hagel, "What's maybe even worse is that these articles rarely contain anything remotely humorous. I know, I've read them. A few throw in a joke by Don Rickles or perhaps a reference to something Bob Newhart did forty years ago and some may include a reference to a Seinfeld episode like the one where Newman hordes mail - that was funny," chuckled Hagel. "There, you see, I chuckled and now I feel better. It's not rocket science, for criminy's sake."
Hagel noted that Reader's Digest Magazine has had a section called "Laughter, The Best Medicine" for years; so these 'Johnny-come-lately's' to the humor-health connection are just that, in his words - 'coat-tail riders'.
"The one good thing," noted Hagel, "Is that now when my parents stop by and see me buried in my collection of MAD and Cracked Magazines, instead of going on about how I should get a job and learn to support myself, they know I'm not wasting time, but that I'm engaged in a process of healing through humor. They stopped getting on my case that I could be doing something more useful with my time. What's more useful than healing yourself?"
Exactly. And, for people like Darren Hagel, and others like him on the cutting edge of alternative healing and medicine, they are converts who converted long ago to laughing their way to a healthy lifestyle. And, from the deep guttural laughter coming from behind Hagel's apartment door, he must be the healthiest guy in Missouri, WI.
