A taste of what is to come in 2022… and whilst I will be cutting back on blogging in general, there will always be room for laughter, not quite as essential as air, water and sustenance, but up there with the top health giving elements in our lives.

I will be posting a Laughter is the best Medicine once or twice a week and will be sharing humour from the archives, the internet and also from special guests including your favourites Debby Gies, Danny Kemp and Martin Allen.

The Health Benefits of Laughter

It is very important that as well as feeding the brain nutrients and supplying healthy fats, oxygen and fluids, you provide it with stimulation.

One of the causes of dementia is lack of stimulation. Visual, aural, verbal. For elderly people the world begins to shrink back until they are restricted in movement within a small space, with perhaps just the television or radio for company. Even with the television you will find that eventually there will only be one or two channels watched; the news, soap operas and more than likely Midsummer murders!

This is why any social interaction is so important as we get older. For most, not all, our natural instinct is to recede to a safe zone but those who do stay in the world and continue to laugh, enjoy new music, movies, plays and group activities, stay mentally and physically healthier.

About 12 years ago my friend and radio producer Kelli Brett and I put together a couple of programmes on the subject of laughter as one of our regular health segments. We called it the Laugh Academy and it went down a storm. It was intended to show how laughter is one of the most beneficial exercises you can participate in without spending a fortune or damaging a muscle – well I believe that there were one or two cases where someone laughed themselves into a heart attack but it was nothing to do with our show – honest.

Laughter is universal – every culture will have its particular funny bone that others would not see the point of, but put most of us in a room with other nationalities and eventually someone will start us off. It might be a stand-up comedian in front of a packed theatre – or it might be round the dinner table after a couple of glasses of good wine.

I think we have all been in the room when for no reason someone we are with starts laughing and can’t stop and we have felt embarrassed… at first.. and then we begin to laugh and soon everyone around you is laughing too… Here is a great example from two laughter experts…Laurel and Hardy Tom Scruffy Cammarata

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