The Laughter Prescription


Book Description




Chicken Soup for the Soul: Laughter is the Best Medicine


Book Description

Chicken Soup for the Soul’s first-ever humor collection, and the timing is perfect. This is storytelling at its funniest. If laughter is the best medicine, then this book is your prescription. Turn off the news and spend a few days not following current events. Instead, return to the basics—humanity’s ability to laugh at itself. Maybe you should even do a news cleanse for a few days! Hide under the covers and read these stories instead. Or read a chapter a day, or a story a day for 101 days. These pages contain the antidote to whatever is troubling you. They will definitely put you in a good mood. No one is safe from our writers— from spouses to parents to children to colleagues and friends. And of course the funniest of all are the stories they tell about their own mishaps and those “most embarrassing moments.” There’s no holding anything back in these pages, so prepare for lots of good, clean (and not so clean) fun.




Anatomy of an Illness As Perceived By the Patient


Book Description

The story of a recovery from a crippling disease and the physician patient partnership that beat the odds by using the patient's own capabilities.




Stand Up for Autism


Book Description

When we tell someone that our child is autistic, the most common response is a sad face and an apologetic look. I hate it when people say "I'm sorry to hear that". Parenting a child on the autistic spectrum can be tough at the best of times, but few books take the time to celebrate the love and laughter an autistic child can elicit in their parents and those around them. In this warm, honest and laugh-out-loud tale of bringing up Bobby, now ten, Georgina Derbyshire shares and rejoices in his 'slightly different' childhood. As she outlines momentous events in Bobby's life, from the day he decided he was a dog (continuing life as a canine for a year afterwards), to the time he catapulted an innocent shopper into a mountain of strawberries, Georgina repeatedly challenges the perception of autism as an affliction, maintaining that neurotypical people often make far less sense. Through her light-hearted and hilarious storytelling, she reveals how social codes and psychological games make the neurotypical world a very confusing place to live in, more so than ever if you happen to be a young boy with a passion for rocks, tape measures and trains. This book is a must for anybody involved in the upbringing of an autistic child, whether they are in search of a little comfort, companionship, light relief - or all three.




Why Is God Laughing?


Book Description

In this refreshing new take on spirituality, bestselling author Deepak Chopra uses a fictional tale of a comedian and his unlikely mentor to show us a path back to hope, joy, and even enlightenment—with a lot of laughter along the way. Meet Mickey Fellows. A successful L.A. comedian, he’s just a regular guy, with his fair share of fears, egocentricities, and addictions. After his father’s death, Mickey meets a mysterious stranger named Francisco, who changes his life forever. The two begin an ongoing discussion about the true nature of being. Reluctantly at first, Mickey accepts the stranger’s help and starts to explore his own life in an effort to answer the riddles Francisco poses. Mickey starts to look at those aspects of himself that he has hidden behind a wall of wisecracks all his life. Eventually Mickey realizes that authentic humor opens him up to the power of spirit—allowing him to finally make real connections with people. After taking the reader on a journey with Mickey, Chopra then spells out the lessons that Mickey’s story imparts to us: ten reasons to be optimistic, even in our challenging world. Chopra believes that the healthiest response to life is laughter from the heart, and even in the face of global turmoil, we can cultivate an internal sense of optimism. Rich with humor and practical advice, Why Is God Laughing? shows us without a doubt that there is always a reason to be grateful, that every possibility holds the promise of abundance, and that obstacles are simply opportunities in disguise. In the end, we really don’t need a reason to be happy. The power of happiness lies within each of us, just waiting to be unleashed. And Mickey Fellows’s journey shows us the way.




Prescription for Laughter


Book Description

You dont feel well, so you call your doctor and get put on hold. The first available appointment is in three weeks. They ask about insurance. You tell them, HMO. It is now four weeks. You quickly say, PPO. Its back to three weeks. You plead and then yell. They say next week, angrily. You are now afraid they will mark your file and give you expired drugs made for rabid cows. You mention lawsuit. Theyll squeeze you in tomorrow. You arrive fifteen minutes early, wait three hours, and see the doctor for two minutes. The prescription drug you get keeps you in the bathroom. Your insurance refuses to pay. Collectors call. You now have high blood pressure, so you call your doctor. Youre put on hold. The first available appointment is in three weeks. Hassles like these are inherent in the idiocy, incompetence, and illogical nature of Americas health-care system. Author Bruce Abrahams is not a doctor; instead, hes a person with so many medical conditions that his medical alert bracelet simply states, Never mind. As a perennial patient, Abrahams shares embarrassing anecdotes and provides valuable tips in dealing with health-care difficulties for both healthy and health-challenged individuals. While carefully dissecting common difficulties using humor, Abrahams explores how to take charge of your health care. Prescription for Laughter offers practical advice from a patients perspective that will keep you laughing as you successfully navigate a complicated health-care system.




Laughter Yoga


Book Description

Could you use a good laugh? This definitive guide by the founder of the worldwide laughter yoga movement will show you how to giggle your way to good health! Bring laughter into your life at any time of day--no special equipment needed, no new wardrobe, no expensive classes, not even a sense of humor! Laughter yoga is all about voluntary laughter--how you can learn to laugh even in the absence of humorous stimuli, and reap the extraordinary, scientifically proven benefits, which include stress reduction, pain relief, weight loss, heightened immunity, and, especially, enhanced mood: If you act happy, you'll become happy--your body can't tell the difference! Children laugh more than 300 times a day, adults fewer than fifteen. But it's easy to start laughing again. The exercises in this book combine voluntary laughter with yogic breathing to give you a full body-mind workout. And it turns out that laughter is the fastest way to reduce stress and the best kind of cardio: Ten minutes of hearty laughter is equal to thirty minutes on the rowing machine. With Laughter Yoga, join the growing worldwide movement and discover how laughter really is the best medicine. A PENGUIN LIFE TITLE




Cases on Applied and Therapeutic Humor


Book Description

Recent evidence indicates that humor is an important aspect of a person's health, and studies have shown that increased levels of humor help with stress, pain tolerance, and overall patient health outcomes. Still, many healthcare providers are hesitant to use humor in their practice for fear of offense or failure. Understanding more of how and why humor works as well as some of the issues related to real-world examples is essential to help practitioners be more successful in their use and understanding of humor in medical care. Through case studies and real-world applications of therapeutic humor, the field can be better understood and advanced for best practices and uses of this type of therapy. With this growing area of interest, research on humor in a patient care setting must be discussed. Cases on Applied and Therapeutic Humor focuses on humor in medical care and will discuss issues in humor research, assessment of the effectiveness of humor in medical settings, and examples of medical care in specific health settings. The chapters will explore how propriety, effectiveness, perception, and cultural variables play a role in using humor as therapy and will also provide practical case studies from medical/healthcare professionals in which they personally employed humor in medical practice. This book is ideal for medical students, therapists, researchers interested in health, humor, and medical care; healthcare professionals; humor researchers; along with practitioners, academicians, and students looking for a deeper understanding of the role humor can play as well as guidance as to the effective and meaningful use of humor in medical/healthcare settings.




Reader's Digest Laughter is the Best Medicine: All Time Favorites


Book Description

A hilarious collection of the funniest family-friendly jokes, quotes, stories, cartoons, and anecdotes from the past 100 years of Reader’s Digest magazine. A little chuckle every day will keep the doctor away. Editors have mined the Reader’s Digest archives to bring you Laughter Is the Best Medicine, All-Time Favorites, a collection of the most hilarious jokes and anecdotes we’ve come across over the years. As you turn the pages of our newest collection, you’ll realize once again that laughter is always the best medicine. If evolution really works, how come mothers have only two hands? –Milton Berle The game card said: “Name three wars.” My teenage daughter’s response: “Civil War, Revolutionary War, and Star Wars.” Keep your temper. Nobody wants it. –Dearborn Independent Check out this billion-dollar idea. A smoke detector that shuts off when you yell, “I’m just cooking!” Anthropologists have discovered a 50-million-year-old human skull with three perfectly preserved teeth intact. They're not sure, but they think it may be the remains of the very first hockey player. –Jay Leno This collection of laugh-out-loud, clean jokes, one-liners, and other lighthearted glimpses of life—drawn from Reader’s Digest magazine’s most popular humor columns—is sure to tickle the funny bone. Packed with cartoons, quotes, quips, and stories contributed by professional comedians, joke writers, and readers of the magazine, this side-splitting compilation pokes fun at the facts and foibles of daily routines, illustrating that life is often funnier than fiction.




Laughter Is the Best Medicine


Book Description

Brevity is the soul and wit of this publication; however, the medical industry is the largest and most complex combination of human resources ever assembled, earning it a status well worth writing about. Certain epigrams are gentle and subtle, and others quite caustic, but all contain some form of social or scientific commentary. If the reader has a morbid sense of humor, this book will be especially enjoyed.