Laughter is truly the medicine for aches and pains and a good laugh has so many unbeilevablly positive effects according to research.
Besides being contagious and spreading good will - provided the laughter is not the result of mocking someone else- it is also proved to alleviate pain, reduce blood pressure, helps fight tumors, increases memory and creativity, among other benefits.
Who has not laughed to oneself sometimes recollecting funny incidences and happy times?
The happiness remains in the mind and the very memory brings back joy again.
For me one such incident is from my childhood, and even now while typing this I can feel my face blooming into a smile.
It was evening TV time at home and my brother and I were watching a rerun of the famous Lucy Show comedies. My mother was busy in the kitchen, while my grandmother was asleep on the couch beside the dining table. We were laughing at some impossibly tummy quivering absurdity by Lucy and group in TV.
My brother who was at the dining table with his dinner,laughed so much that he slipped off his chair onto the floor, toppling down his dinner plate.
The contents of the plate went rocketing in all directions and most of the rice and soup landed on my poor grandma. She sat up blinking with rice in her hair and drops of soup on her face.
We all rushed to help, but couldn't stop ourselves from the tears of further laughter as we witnessed poor perplexed grandma glaring at us from beneath the strands of hair and rice.
My brother was delivered a good scolding by my mom and she also switched off the TV in annoyance, but the belly aching laughter that happened that evening was worth it all.
Now my grandmother is no more with us and I am sure she is smiling along with me now at all that happened that day, just as she shrugged off with a sniff and later on with a chuckle the rather undignified picture she presented that day .
She had a wonderful sense of humor herself and she lived to the ripe old age of 95.
