SelfhelpMagazine

People love humorous stress relief. It provides contrast that tickles our funny bones and helps us see stressful situations from a broader perspective. Laughter feels as wonderful as rain in the desert or sunshine after a storm.

The mind invents unnecessary stress

An enormous amount of our stress comes from how we think about the events in our lives, rather than the events themselves.

So what if the glass of milk got spilled? We could just clean up the milk and move on with our day.

But what if we keep thinking about that spilled milk? Then we are creating our own stress!

If we keep "stewing" on the spilled milk:

    * what it cost,
    * the mess it made,
    * how long it took to clean up,
    * how careless we were,
    * how it "should not have happened,"
    * "if only” things had been different,"
    * "if only the other person hadn’t distracted us," etc,

then we are taking the situation and magnifying the stress.
(I speak here with years of personal experience.)

Better to dispel negative emotions and indulge in humorous stress relief.

Stress relief humor often helps us:

    * see our situation from a larger perspective,
    * look at things in a different light or from a different angle, and
    * let go of our emotional baggage, our suitcases full of resentment, worry, blame, fear, etc.

In addition, laughter feels good.

Laughter helps to quickly break up the repetitive pattern of stressful thinking and relieves us of that burden. It shifts our biochemistry and strengthens our immune systems.

For an experience of instant stress relief,

try a few minutes of simple

ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

Then try a few more.

ha, ha, ha, ha, ha

Do it out loud!

Even if it seems boring,

keep laughing

ha, ha, ha, ha, ha

Laughter has a healing influence even when the situation seems serious

I don’t know why it works, but it does. Even when the situation you are facing seems serious, or tragic, or unfair, find the courage to laugh anyway. It’s a great survival tool.

Many years ago I discovered a lump in my breast. I felt anxiety and fear. For the next week I practiced what I called "wiggle giggle". For 30 minutes a day I walked and laughed. Even when the best I could do was a mechanical ha, ha, ha, I laughed anyway. By the end of the week I looked for the lump and could not find it. It was gone!

Make laughter and stress relief humor a "serious" hobby

    * Collect good jokes.
    * Watch funny movies.
    * Read funny books.
    * Share a good laugh with a friend or family member and the joy multiplies!

Humorous stress relief can bring joy to almost any situation.

Laughter is a healing influence which helps us see the world and ourselves in a different light.

Source: http://www.gentle-stress-relief.com/humorous-stress-relief.html

“If you search the world for happiness, you may find it in the end, for the world is round and will lead you back to your door ” ~Robert Brault,

How many of us are in the pursuit of happiness? I would say nearly everyone I have ever met. But how do we find happiness and what actually is happiness? So I started to question what is happiness to me.  Not having any problems I suppose?  I know that when I have problems I am wound up and agitated by having them and I certainly can’t say it makes me happy.  But then you ask yourself what do you define as a problem?  Is it only a problem if you think it is?  Does it become a problem when we feel a little intimidated by it, the fact that we can’t handle it, control it, it becomes an effort, we haven’t got enough time to deal with it, it wasn’t planned, its too expensive? When do we decide to make it a problem?
Or do we decide to blame everyone else for the problems, the politicians,the economy, the weather. They did it to us instead! We decide they take our happiness away!!           
                                                  
The difficulty seems to arise when we react negatively towards certain situations in life that  make up the so called problems.  So we could say that the so called problems are not problems at all, they are just opportunities to take a different perspective on them. We must learn to develop our own understanding of how it could be different using the expansion of our minds to create the outcome we desire and thus happiness can prevail.

We are very much caught up in the “problems mentality”, unless we have problems we can’t seem to relate to each other.  How often is it that when we meet people we are drawn into conversation by sharing our problems, illness, the economy or the weather. We can relate to each other, we have a connection – our problems. What else would we talk about? The connection made us feel good but the problems remain, in fact they are even bigger.

When we meet somebody that shines with happiness for no reason we actually question their mentality, we think there must be something wrong with them.  We have been totally conditioned to stay in this entrapment of doom and gloom.  And even when we are aware of it we still continue to do it through habit.

We Believe Money Can buy Happiness How many of us believe money can buy happiness.  When we get rich, or we get the new house, car, then we will be happier.  There is nothing wrong with having desires and these desires do create a purpose for life but what tends to happen is we strive so hard to get them that we miss out on the day to day living, which is life.  We put all our hopes of happiness on the one outcome and forget about the rest. We are so busy getting stressed and wound up about how hard it is to get there we lose our essence of life itself, our own inner happiness. Then when we do get the cash, the house the car its nice for a while until we want something else. Then we work hard and strive again for the next thing and again miss out on the in between times.  And we wonder why we are not happy?

We are not enjoying the journey, we only want the destination. Money can certainly give us the opportunity to be able to do more,have more experiences which could make us happy.

However, what happens when there is no more money to keep the things and experiences flowing? More stress! We rely too much on the money making us happy. What happens then? Where can we get our happiness from?

How many times do we say to each other I can’t wait to go on holiday, then I can relax? Why do we think we can get happiness from only acquiring more things, more money?

What happened to the Inner happiness? What happened to being happy because of who we are?  Do we really know ourselves?  Don’t you find that when you are yourself and natural, happiness just follows?   Do you notice that when you are yourself you give more easily?  You feel free and alive? So what stops you from being yourself?

So many people are afraid to be themselves in case they don’t fit in, get laughed at, fail you name it, we have become too worried about what other people will think of us.  But at the end of the day we are all the same.  Why do we believe that others may be in anyway different?   We all want to be loved, thats the bottom line so why can’t we all just be ourselves? Why do we hold ourselves back, hold our own inner happiness back?  I think the reason we do this is because we are so frightened of being hurt.  We are on the defensive all the time and if anyone does say anything to hurt our feelings we instantly create a wall around ourselves and cut ourselves off. Thus shutting off the happiness which is already inside us, ready to come out. Then we get ready for the next time and off we go living our lives based on what everyone else thinks of us.  We have to be strong enough in ourselves to believe that we are worthy no matter what. The reason why anyone else is acting in this way towards us is because they also have been hurt and this is their defence. They are frightened about what we think of them.

We all walk around touching each others wounds and we all become more defensive and hurt, it becomes to be a vicious cycle.  We have to be the brave ones and take back our power and let go of this victim mentality.  Haven’t you noticed that when you are yourself it seems to give other people the permission to be themselves too. To some people who really don’t know and trust themselves this may feel quite uncomfortable to see in another.

We seem to put ourselves in cages around other people because we can’t stand to be seen as anything but perfect, or so called perfect, whatever that may be.  But really think to yourself, even if you have a judgement about somebody else, and yes we all do have them, how long do you have it for and does it ruin your day?  No it doesn’t so why bother getting upset the next time someone may have a judgement towards you.  We all perceive things, and people, differently, thats what makes us all unique but it doesn’t by any means mean we are less than anyone else and vice versa. Why would you let your perception of someone else rob you of your own happiness. Crazy isn’t it when you think of it like that.

How many of us are caught up in our roles?  What I mean by that is how each of us acts differently to say our parents, children, friends .  Are we ourselves to every one we meet or do we act differently when we are with certain people? Have you noticed that you show more happiness to some people than others? Why not take the chains off that you attach to yourself when you are around certain people. Do you think you have to be someone else, for their approval?  Why do we allow ourselves to become cut off? Why not show everyone who we really are?  Everyone you meet has a gift for you and you have a gift for them and the greatest gift to give is yourself as you really are.  Because when you are your true self you can share your happiness, and if they don’t want to share their own happiness with you, you might just show them that its ok to be your true self.

Source: stressfreethinking.com