You zoom through your day, alternatively focused distractingly on your past or your future and also productively achieving your personal to-do list. You're good at this routine. Yet all around you is an untapped source of motivation so powerful, you'll feel like you just drank a Starbuck's double-espresso (with sugar).
This source of motivation is something I call the laughter symphony. And it is so beneficial to your health and success that I've created a new Fun Commandment: Conduct the Laughter Symphony.
What is the laughter symphony? Quite simply, it is the sounds of joy being abundantly produced all around you during every moment of your day. Don't restrict your imagination to thoughts of outright laughter (although you can hear that in abundance by visiting any park or playground). Joy and laughter can be heard in something as delicate as a cheerful inflection in someone's voice. And it can be seen in something as unobtrusive as a tiny grin on a beaming face.
Laughter is everywhere!
How do you conduct the laughter symphony? By listening and looking for it, everywhere and at all times. You'll hear and see so much laughter that you'll feel like the conductor of a symphony and you'll begin to notice that it does, quite often, sound like a classical composition.
Before you balk at the simplicity of my newest Fun Commandment, allow me to call attention to something which clearly illustrates the laughter symphony's immense value to you. The sitcom staple, the laugh track. Laugh tracks are usually annoying at best, but downright insulting at worst. So why do the studios continue to use them?
Because they work. They make us think the shows we're watching are funny.
Laugh tracks work because they tap into a preconditioned psychological trigger you share with all other humans - the trigger of taking behavior cues from the actions of others.
You're not stupid or simple-minded, but rest assured this trigger has a deep subconscious effect on you just like all of us. As humans, we are all susceptible and that's why television executives continue to insult our intelligence with laugh tracks.
But think about the ramifications of what I've just shared. You have a deep, subconscious trigger of following suite with the actions of those around you. You can use this trigger to your advantage any time you with. Like a finely tuned judo master, you will use the forces of nature in your favor.
What if you practiced my Fun Commandment, Conduct the Laughter Symphony? What if you trained your ear to hear, and your eye to see, the incredible variety of laughter surrounding you today? What if the laughter symphony becomes your personal laugh track?
I know what will happen to you because that's exactly what I've taught hundreds of my patients and clients to do.
You will smile 84% more often. You will laugh 63% more regularly. You will experience a 37% reduction in physical pain. And your energy level will rise by a whopping 58%! These are averages, mind you. You may do much better!
By the way, Red Barber says he got his famous term from a poker game. His opponent kept raising the bet and Red kept answering (even though he only had a pair of eights). When his opponent's winning hand was revealed, and Red lost the pot, the man said to Red, "Thanks for all those raises. From the start I was sitting in the catbird's seat."
Red Barber wrote, years later in The Saturday Review, "Inasmuch as I had paid for the expression, I began to use it."
Now you'll be in the catbird's seat as you conduct the laughter symphony this week. Please write me and tell my how your symphony performed!
Cliff Kuhn, M.D.
The Laugh Doctor
"it all starts with a SMILE"
The Natural Medicine of Humor
"Discover a unique, FREE, and incredibly powerful prescription created out of desperation by a (formerly) stressed-out Kentucky psychiatrist"
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