Laughter as Medicine

Dear Healthcare Colleague,

You likely have heard that laughter is the best medicine. We work in providing medicine and health to those who are hurting yet I doubt you have run into a patient at the pharmacy asking for a refill on "laughter". So how is it that by letting out a joyful chuckle can improve our wellbeing? Laughter is a potent endorphin releaser. This means our bodies were made to celebrate this joy with a lasting effect of euphoria. You can also create a sense of teamwork with others when you laugh together. It also exercises your brain because it activates connections between different brain regions. Finally, there has been research that has shown that it has an anti-inflammatory effect that protects blood vessels and heart muscles from the damaging effects of cardiovascular disease. 


Take time to laugh with the funny and bring joy with a good joke when you come to serve and see for yourself how laughter can be a great medicine.


Your Friend,


Luis Chanaga

Popular posts from this blog

Avoid the Potholes

Dear Healthcare Colleague, When I get a car, I like to drive the car until it reaches about 200,000 miles. Currently I am on pace to take my 4 th  car to this stretch goal. That just says how old I am and how much time I have spent on the road. The past week while driving through a familiar street I was surprised to find a pothole so deep that when I drove by it the first time, I thought I had left one of my front wheels behind. A few days later while later in the evening and some rain had filled in the gap, I had forgotten all about it until I found myself once again hitting the pothole and this time it seemed to want to crack my car in half with the loud "THUD". That was enough! I wasn't going to let this happen again because I care about my 10-year-old Honda and we have some miles to go before that 200K goal. The next day, I went slower, I looked carefully and then I maneuvered through it without hitting the pothole that I was certain was after my car. I have since bee...
Read more

Healthy Gratitude

Dear Healthcare Colleague, This time of year, right before Thanksgiving the weather begins to get cool and will dip to freezing once in a while as the cold fronts begin to find their way in. Before the weather gets too cold, I ventured out on a hike. The trail was blanketed with brown, red and orange hues from the leaves that had lost their grip of their branch. The crisp cool weather made the sun feel more like a picture than an actual heat source. As I walked through the arching fall colored trees, the sense that the fall season was in full display was evident. I have heard many times how seasons change so rapidly. It seems that summer had just started days ago or for that matter, spring and last winter too. Still, here we are right at the Thanksgiving time of year. What are you grateful for? Has someone shared with you that they are grateful for you or for the work that you are doing? We are part of an industry in which we spend our most valuable resources (skills and time) to hel...
Read more