A Child Can Teach You How to Laugh
Have you ever watched children at play? If you have, you have seen them laugh heartily and it was easy for them to do. Studies show that adults are amused about 15 times in a day while kids laugh and estimated 300-400 times. If we were to visit a refuge camp we would probably have seen sad and hopeless expressions on the faces of even the young people. As the much-needed aid was passed out the children were the first to begin to laugh and play. Perhaps we older folk take ourselves too seriously.
Maybe we don't need to laugh 400 times a day, but most of us could do better than we do. Most of us have seen young children delight and amuse themselves with the most ordinary things. Have you watched them take a gift out of a box and play with the box instead of the actual gift? The key to good laughter is having other people around us. We need to interact with people to bring out our best laughter. When they spoke on the phone they had plenty to laugh about and it showed in their telephone conversations.
When we are alone almost all of our social stimulation is removed, if we do not watch television, listen to the radio, go to the movies, and enjoy reading a good book, laughter almost totally disappears. Even when we are happy, we hardly ever laugh when we are alone. Young children are no exception; they show us by this study that all ages need to share laughter. Another laughter study was working with hundreds of children to determine what makes kids laugh. This study was used on children who were undergoing painful procedures or who were suffering from pain expectation anxiety.
They were divided into 2 groups and ask to hold their arms in cold water as long as they could. The effect of the laughter overshadowed the feeling of cold; isn't the affect amazing? The positive outcome from this test was that laughter allows a person to "forget" about aches and pains and even see pain as less intense. There have been studies performed to measure the impact of the imagination on our ability to diminish the effects of pain. If we can imagine funny images, and visualize the resulting comedy, we are less likely to feel pain.
How many adults would or could use their imagination to cut down on pain. We can learn a lot from children. Have you watched young children playing in the yard or park? No matter what they are doing you are just about assured of giggles and laughs. It is just amazing to watch the happy little faces when you blow bubbles and they try to catch them. Who could keep from laughing while listening to them giggle and laugh? Then there is the swing set and the slide. This creates more laughter and just listening you would think it was the most fun they had ever had. Have you ever played the game, "which hand is the penny in" with little ones? If you have you have experienced all the little squeals or laughter when they picked the right hand.
It does not take money or expensive toys for a child to laugh and have fun. They can chase a butterfly and laugh dozens of times or they can pretend and laugh even more. By observing children or just being around them adults could learn the art of laughter. The age old saying "innocence of a child" lets them enjoy being young and carefree sharing their laughter with everyone and anyone who will spend their time with them. There is better than the laughter of a child. It will bring out the inner child in all of us if we would just let it.
There are many lessons to be learned from our children. When we see our children laughing and playing it is like they don’t have a care in the world. We really could learn a valuable lesson here. So, the next time your child wants you to play with them take a few minutes out of your busy day. You will gain so much. Whatever you were going to do, will still be there, remember our children grow up fast. Let’s enjoy them while we can.
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