LAUGHTER IS CHEAP MEDICINE

I know a couple who works in the pharmaceutical industry. He is a sales representative and she is a pharmacist. When asked what they do for a living, he is quick to reply, "She makes drugs and I sell them."

I believe it was Lord Byron who said, "Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine." And they're finding that to be true - quite literally.

A woman diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis wrote to me and talked about how painful the disease had become. Debra said that no drugs would touch the devastating pain. "At times I prayed to die because I did not think I could go on this way," she said. But in two and a half years she weaned herself from most of her medication, which had reached a high of 21 pills a day. This is how she did it.

"I began seeing a doctor who gave me the most important prescription that I ever could have received," she said. "He excused himself from the room. I watched him walking back and forth in the hall; he seemed to be in deep thought."

The doctor came back in with this prescription: he told Debra to get some funny movies and to begin laughing. If she didn't feel like laughing, then she should smile. If she didn't feel like smiling, she should smile anyway! He said that it would increase endorphins in her brain and help with her pain.

She did just as he suggested. She smiled constantly. Her children teased her about the fake smile, but she told them that it was going to get rid of her pain. And it did. Of course, not all of her pain is gone, but her newly acquired habit of laughing and smiling has made it manageable without all of the drugs.

Today, Debra is never seen without her smile. She says that she would not even feel normal without it.

Laughter really is cheap medicine. And it's a prescription you can fill right now.

-- Steve Goodier