A LIVELY BOOST THIS THANKSGIVING

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels

“You think you have a handle on God, the Universe, and the Great White Light until you go home for Thanksgiving. In an hour, you realize how far you’ve got to go and who is the real turkey.” —Shirley MacLaine

SPICE UP THANKSGIVING WITH LAUGHTER   

Whether we are preparing special foods, connecting with family and friends, or maintaining cherished traditions, our skills for cooking, hosting, and cordiality become especially useful at Thanksgiving.

Although holiday activities are typically enjoyable, the hectic pace, loss of sleep, and other demands of the season may challenge our ability to notice many of the pleasures in our midst. But like adding cinnamon and nutmeg to enrich the pumpkin in our pies, we can add laughter to our days and nights to amplify the enjoyment that surrounds us.

Laughter promotes cheerfulness, relaxation, and optimism. Laughing builds energy, and best of all, it’s contagious. While we don’t usually think of laughter as a skill, it can be skillfully used to sustain pleasure and increase composure at holiday time as well as throughout the year.

One of the fastest and most effective ways to improve our moods and the moods of others is through laughter. We can always find things to laugh about, or we can adopt a laughter-yoga principle and laugh about nothing. “I saw firsthand how quickly a fake chuckle can spiral into an uncontrollable belly laugh,” wrote Jen Glanz, after completing a laughter-yoga class.

In addition to its many qualities, laughing is fun, and with as little as two minutes of laughing, a hectic experience can be transformed into a happy one. As we can see in the short laughter-yoga video below, spicing up our Thanksgiving holiday with more laughter is easy, low cost, low calorie, and gluten free. As spices go, this one would be hard to overdo.

Watch it now and watch it later for a lively boost this Thanksgiving or any time of the year.

TAKE 2 MINUTES TO LAUGH

“I’m struck by how laughter connects you with people. It’s almost impossible to maintain any kind of distance or any sense of social hierarchy when you’re just howling with laughter.” —John Cleese

Best wishes for an enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday.

Sincerely,

Your colleagues at Advanced Wellness Systems