Well, you have just got to laugh!

I was working with someone this week who told me that we should do a podcast on humour…”for Gods sake why is everyone so miserable?”

There is a time in the madness of the world when I guess all that you can do is laugh. At this time it can be easy to feel that there is nothing good happening in the world. We have wars and rumours of wars, Brexit, the antics of Trump and the ego stretching of Putin, a collapsing NHS and a confidence vote on Theresa May and a potential Boris in number 10. The time to make a joke and have a laugh I think.

When did you last have a belly laugh?

Humour

This is a natural human emotion that is shared by all peoples in all parts of the world. Humour is often an emotional release typified by the fact that as a response to laughter our brain secretes happy hormones that will make us feel good. In many situations humour has a stress management function which allows for the release of tension. In some areas that are particularly stressful such as operating theatres, accident and emergency departments and ambulance or police response teams the humour may become very dark. If this humour is heard by people outside of the ‘group’, it may well be experienced as offensive, yet its function for those within the group is vital, it enables them to function.

Laughter as therapy

Laughter is therapeutic it can make the intolerable tolerable and it can defuse the unjustifiable. When we are mindful we live in the moment, in the present, not allowing ourselves to be distracted by the depressive past or the anxious future. When we laugh, we laugh in the moment not the past and not the future. To laugh is to be mindful and to laugh with others is joyful.

Laughter may be the best medicine

Laughter will reduce the levels of stress hormone in our body. It enhances and increases the immune cells and the immune response, developing powerful infection fighting antibodies. It improves our resistance to disease and stress related illness. Laughter also has a direst effect on the brain as it releases more endorphins that increase our sense of happiness and wellbeing. These endorphins can also have an effect on our experience of pain and lessen its effect. Laughter is a very powerful medicine.

Stress reduction

Sigmund Freud, the father of Psychoanalysis, described humour as a release of tension and psychic energy. This would suggest that we can laugh at, or find funny, what is going on in our head and not necessarily what is going on around us. We might see someone simply walking down the street and laughing at something going on in their head. When I worked in psychiatry I would often see a patient chuckling away in the corner and just letting it out, managing the stress.

Infectious laughter

Laughter workshops are weird. You arrive not feeling at all funny. You might even be feeling a bit miserable. You meet a group of people, complete strangers and the course leader begins to laugh. At first it seem ridiculous. Then you have a go. Just a little laugh. Suddenly you are off laughing so that the tears are rolling down your face. Not sure what you are laughing at or why you are laughing. Just to look into the eyes of a fellow participant who is laughing is enough to set you off again. Laughter is infectious.

The comedy club

It can be the same when you go to a comedy show. In research, if the blood of people entering the show is taken and the levels of stress hormone and happy hormone measured and recorded and then the same is done when they leave we find that after the show peoples stress hormone are decreased and the happy hormones have increased.

In her book ‘The Secret’ Rhonda Byrne describes a lady who was given a terminal diagnosis. She went home and watched every video she could that would make her laugh. She claims that she laughed her way back to full health. I am unsure or the veracity of this claim though I am sure it would of improved her chances of survival and recovery.

Humour in unexpected places

Some of the funniest times I have had have been in hospices, often with people who were dying. In these situations humour and laughter is a tremendous stress reliever. I have also been at a funeral when a relative became hysterical with laughter which was infectious to some but greatly offended others. She was simply relieving her stress in that situation. And humour in a disaster situation has often saved the day. Once we see that laughter and tears are both ways of dealing with stress it can make a bit more sense.

Finally, laughter is a good thing and we should do more of it. To be able to laugh, lovingly, at yourself and your fellow human beings is a gift. However in you humour be kind and mindful and try not to offend others.

Take care and be happy and keep laughing

Sean x

TSHP290: Laughter is Medicine

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What’s Coming This Episode?

Laughing comes easier to some than many. For kids it’s as natural as breathing, for us grown ups, with our mortgages and life insurance renewals, not so much. But what’s the science behind laughter? Should we put time aside each day for a good old chuckle?

Enjoy the show and take care, it’s The Self Help Podcast!

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TSHP289: How to make the most of Christmas

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What’s Coming This Episode?

Christmas brings us together like no other time of year but it’s not without its pressures. Pressure to spend money, pressure to rush around and see everyone and to make things just perfect. But does it have to be this way? Sean and Ed discuss how to have the best Christmas you can…

Enjoy the show and take care, it’s The Self Help Podcast!

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How to Make the Most of Christmas

What does Christmas mean to you?

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…

…or so the song says. Sadly this is not true for everyone.

Happy time

Is it that Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus for you? Is it that you recognise the winter solstice and acknowledge the end of the darkness and the change to shorter nights and longer day as the light increases. Is it that you simply see this as a time of sharing, perhaps with family and friends. A time of warmth and social connection. Or is it that you see this as a time when you get wonderful presents and maybe that you also give wonderful presents, a time of giving and receiving.

Not so good a time

Perhaps this is not such a good time. It might be the first Christmas without someone. Maybe it reminds you of bad times in the past or negative childhood memories. Some people just want to be on their own at Christmas and get accused of being miserable.

A really bad time

Someone who is homeless is unlikely to be reading this and maybe having the worst time of their lives. There are children in war zones, old people living alone, the poor, deprived and the needy. People who are terminally ill or coming to the end of their life Christmas may be a very difficult time. Some families will have children in hospital. And for some they may not have any money or very little.

For many people this is not the most wonderful time of the year

Getting the best

Whatever Christmas means for you and whatever your stating point, what is the very best that you can get from it?

All the evidence would point to the physiological and psychological benefits that come from the act of giving. Giving may be to those that are immediately around you. It may be that you are able to contribute in some way to those around you that have so much less. Who in your street or vicinity is living alone and may really appreciate a Christmas dinner, a visit or a little present. It may be too much for you to invite people into your home but you can contribute to the homeless and those that have nothing with food, money, presents or time. If people are coming to you or you have a family to cater for creating a loving and welcome ambiance is a real act of love at this time.

 What about you?

It is important when you look at the ideas of giving and loving this Christmas to look after yourself as well. What are you going to give yourself this Christmas? What are you doing for you this Christmas? The phrase ‘Charity begins at home’ starts with you. None of us can look after other people, whoever they are, if we do not look after ourselves first.

Time to consider what you want and what you need this Christmas as well as what everyone else wants and what everybody else needs.

Be happy, look after each other and enjoy it.

With love

Sean x

 

TSHP288: The Power of Music

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What’s Coming This Episode?

We all love music, right? RIGHT? Well you’d better. It makes us dance, laugh, cry… whatever you want, music can do it. But why? Where does this desire come from? Over to Sean and Ed…

Enjoy the show and take care, it’s The Self Help Podcast!

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Music as therapy

In the podcast this week Ed and I got talking about the power of music and amazing effect that it can have on us and on all other living beings including plants. That got me thinking about my own musical life and my own studies of guitar, cello and Sitar and the work that we did, back along, with healing and using the musical forms of Indian music known as the Ragas. That set me off into memories of meditations and chanting, mantras and prayers. So, here goes…

The whole of creation is a vibrating sea of energy. At times that energy forms into what we see as matter. Rather like the difference. between steam and ice, the same thing but vibrating at a different frequency. The molecules in ice vibrate very slowly. When we apply energy, in the form of heat, the rate of vibration increases and the ice becomes liquid. If we apply more energy the liquid becomes steam. If we continue to apply ever more energy the molecules split apart in their base component of hydrogen and oxygen – H2O – the formula of water.

In the beginning was vibration

The biblical gospel of St John starts with this phrase…

‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God.”

For me God, in this phrase, is all of creation and all universal energy.

The word ‘Word’ when translated from the Aramaic, the language of the Bible, and taken back to its roots in classical Sanskrit, we find that what we are saying is that,

in the beginning the word was the given vibration

And that the given vibration resonates with all universal energy

The given energy is all universal energy

The given vibration is Om or Aum that is used as a mantra in many religions. In Ayurveda and Yoga it is Om, in Buddhism it is Aum, In Christianity it is Amen. In other faiths you will hear the same word expressed as Amin and Ahmeen.

This is the symbol, or Sanskrit letter that denote Om. It is a pictogram that tells its own story. 

The top right are the symbols for the sun and the moon that we might describe as consciousness and unconsciousness. These may also be described as Yin and Yang or Purusa and Prakriti, and so on.

It is the interaction between consciousness and unconsciousness that gives rise to the phenomenal world of thinking feeling and doing. These are denoted by the three prongs of the Om letter facing to the left. This aspect of three is seen in all things there are no exception though sometimes we cannot, without a little work and research, find them.

In western psychology they are Cognition, Affection and Behaviour, In Yogic philosophy these are known as the Gunas (or strings) that create all things. They are termed Sattvia, Rajasia and Tamsia. In Ayurveda they are the three Doshas of Vatta, Pitta and Kalph. In body language they are the three body types of Ectomorph, Mesomorph and Endomorph. In colour they are the three primary colours of Red, Yellow and Blue. In electricity they are Volts, Ohms and Watts. In music if they are the three notes of the Major and Minor Tryads or the Tonic, Subdominant and Dominant of the scale. In Quantum physics as the Quarks Love, Strangeness and Charm. In Christianity it is Father, Son, Holy Ghost. In astrology they Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable. They are in all things.

When we listen to music we like it or dislike it. When we like music it is because it resonates with us and we are in harmony with it. When we dislike music it does not resonate with us and we are not in harmony with it. Because, well if the systems are the same we can use the same language to describe the interactions of energy.

In our relationships we like or dislike people. We might feel ‘in tune’ with someone or we may feel someone to be ‘out of tune, out of time or out of step’ with what is going on. When we are well our system is well tuned and when we are sick our system is disharmonious and out of tune.

Musical notes clash, colours clash, and people clash. In all of creation, in this sea of vibrating energy, we can be in tune or out of tune with life and experience. However there are ways that we, as individuals, can tune in, it is called Mindfulness. When we become mindful and sensitive to the vibrations within and around us we can chose how we associate, who we associate with and what we do with our own source of energy that is our life.

Living in harmony is happiness. Living in disharmony is miserable.

Be happy and be in tune.

Take care

Sean x

 

 

 

 

TSHP287: The Benefits of Volunteering

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What’s Coming This Episode?

What have you volunteered for lately? Making a cup of tea for your spouse? Manning the phones at your local church hall? Doing a free website for your Auntie Margaret? Volunteers are honoured by the UN on December 5th and, this week, Sean and Ed discuss the ins and outs of doing something for (seemingly) nothing…

Enjoy the show and take care, it’s The Self Help Podcast!

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Volunteering

How often do we do things for other people for nothing? Giving our time doesn’t cost anything and yet we can find it so easy to avoid getting involved, getting our hands dirty or having an effect on the problems that exist all around us.

In times gone by, in the founding of the British Empire, men were forced or ‘pressed’ into the navy though they often didn’t want to, they had no choice. The cunning way that ‘they’ did it was to go in to a Tavern where the local men were drinking. While the man wasn’t looking they would drop a shilling piece (five pence in our money) into his tankard. If he then drank the beer it was assumed under the law that he had accepted the contract to join a ship. The shilling was the sailors wage. It was known as ‘taking the King’s shilling’. The tankards were made of a metal called pewter so that the drinker could not see they shilling until they had finished the drink. This led any taverns to use glass bottomed tankards so that the shilling might be seen before the beer was drunk.

As you can imagine a man who had been pressed in this way was not a very enthusiastic sailor and did not perform very well. A phrase appeared in the language of the navy,

“One volunteer is worth ten pressed men”.

When we volunteer to do something we are positively engaged and committed to whatever it is, we want to do it. When we are forced to do things that we do not want to do we do not do them well and we just become resentful and disengaged and not very productive.

Ed and I were moved to do this weeks podcast on volunteering because today on December 5th is the international day for volunteers. That got us talking about the idea of giving our time, and maybe money, to help others.

Devolved responsibility

I am struck by the idea that we have, as a society, devolved our responsibility for looking after each other to councils, charities, the government and even businesses. When we lived in extended families, villages and communities we naturally looked after each other. At some point during urbanisation, perhaps because everyone was working so hard and for so many hours during industrialisation we lost the ability to care for one another and passed the responsibility to the official bodies such as the councils.

Them and us

Once we give away a part of what we do we no longer own it. The responsibility is no longer ‘ours’ it has become ‘theirs’. They have become the mythical ‘they’. “They will sort it out”, “They wouldn’t let that happen”. Along with our responsibility we gave away our power as both individuals and as communities.

So that now when the house next door catches fire we do not all run and get a bucket or a hose pipe and put the fire out, we dial 999 and then sit back complaining about how long the fire service is taking to attend, as we watch the house burn down.

We allow our town and villages to fill with litter waiting for ‘them’ (the council) to come and clean them. We allow children to run riot waiting for ‘them’ (the teachers) to discipline them and teach them some manners. And, now it would seem that we are prepared to stand back and watch a policeman or woman being kicked unconscious rather than intervene.

We often hear about ‘the nanny state’ that is taking over all the decision making from us individuals, well the reality is that it is here. The more responsibility we give to ‘them’ the less we have for ourselves and the more helpless we become.

We are at a point where we have given away so much of our responsibility for who we are, what we are and for what we do that we have become progressively more helpless. It is so easy for us to become the victims of bullies, thugs, criminals, politicians, business people, religious leaders, terrorists, the list is endless. They are all the mythical ‘them’.

Guess what? The ‘them’ is actually ‘us’.

When we finally take responsibility for the world that we live in it will change. Until that point we will remain victims. Rather than complaining about the world and the state that it is in, about pollution, waste, food, greenhouse gases and so on we could get off our butts and do something about it.

I note that the French have just taken to the streets to protest about the introduction of certain laws and, guess what?, the laws have been rescinded. It appended here when Thatcher tried to impose the ‘Poll Tax’ and the British people took to the streets and guess what? it was rescinded. The same would be true of the crazy Brexit situation that we are in. We do not have to do it.

Volunteering is taking back power

When we volunteer we are taking back the power that we have devolved to ‘them’ and using it ourselves. When we volunteer and simply get things done while others are in council chambers or parliament talking about it, we have reclaimed our power.

If we all gave as little as one hour a week in volunteering to help, whatever the cause, we could transform the world that we live in. We could have clean streets, food for the homeless all the lonely visited, the list is also endless. We could clean up polluted sites and improve our general environment. Alternatively we could sit back, do nothing and moan about ‘them’ and how ‘they’ are not getting it done.

We are all them.

Take care, be happy and look after each other.

Sean x