The Health Benefits of Shared Laughter

  There is a blessing in the joy of shared laughter. Try it: get cartoons or jokes that pop up on your computer every day, share a joke you got via e-mail or talk to friends and co-workers about the funny scene in the latest hit movie. Laughter will lower your blood pressure, calm your pulse, and generally help you and your friends and family to release a lot of stress. Experts on healing now say that laughter and humor, hope, and happiness are essential for any healing process.

The benefits of laughter are numerous, and the existence of frequent, warm laughter in your relationships indicates that all is going well and gives you both confidence that problems can be overcome.

If something frustrating is happening, try easing the tension with humor to change stress to silliness. Don't poke fun at your mate, but use shared humor as a way to say, "I

know this is tough, but we'll get through it." Your mate will think of you as someone soothing and helpful to have around when problems happen because you represent fun and happiness to each other.

A lighthearted approach to serious matters often is the most productive one. Imagine what your days would be like if you focused on having fun and making yourself and your partner laugh. Joy is also good for your health: Telling your partner the cute thing your kid said (or your pet did) or watching a funny movie or TV show will lower your blood pressure, calm your pulse, and generally help you release a lot of stress. In addition, laughing with your partner is good for your heart, gives you a little bit of aerobic exercise, and reminds both of you about how good you are. Shared laughter also syncs up your emotional rhythms, which makes it easier for you and your partner to feel connected and intimate with each other.

Loving, shared laughter also enhances self-acceptance. The paradox seems to be that having permission for child-like play also allows for responsibility and self-accepting. When you don't make nasty jokes or cruel remarks about each other and your love and make silly ones instead, you can laugh with each other and feel good about it. It's also difficult to store up resentments against the person in your life who makes it most accessible for you to laugh.

Try it, and soon you'll find yourself looking for ways to make each other laugh. Try pushing your partner's "laugh buttons" and tickling their funny bone, and you'll see how much fun it is.

Instead of treasuring old grudges and hurts, learn to worship old jokes and funny lines. Shared laughter can evoke an overwhelming feeling of warmth and care for each other. The endorphins released by mutual humor flow through both of you and create joy. Humor is the secret in both keeping your love fresh and alive and in feeling confident that you will not lose your specialness to each other.

The less you struggle, the more you'll laugh and play. Struggle can become addictive and be used in relationships to structure time, but when you replace the drama of work with the delight of humor, you can create positive addiction; and a powerful solution for what to do with your time together. The point is, don't wait for external motivation so you can act in a respectful, worthy way. Motivate yourself to act with integrity while in solitude. Rise to your highest standards when no one is watching. Generate your self-love and self-respect internally. Once you do that, you won't need a partner to whisk away your insecurities for

You won't have them in the first place. You will be totally comfortable with who you are, and you won't externalize any needy, touchy feelings. And then - magic happens. You can suddenly attract a person who vibrates on your level of awareness: someone with high integrity, comfortable with themselves, someone who doesn't project their neediness and insecurities onto you. Now, how do you think your communication will go then? Would you need to pay for the couple's therapy? Would you argue much? Most likely, you will be on a totally different relationship planet, the one called 'Bliss and Ease.' And most importantly, you will have achieved this by working on yourself only, in solitude. Indeed, all you need to find love and relatedness is to find yourself first.