Faking it until it Works!

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I personally believe that those who live in chronic pain and disability need to be sure and not let depression overcome them.  I know I’ve had some pretty awful lows in my life due to chronic pain, especially when I’m not sleeping well because of

the aching hips and legs and not able to do normal things like walk across a room.

One  thing that I know helps me, is to find things to laugh about, a story, a movie, some incident I notice, even YouTube.  One night at my vacation home, I couldn’t sleep because of my aching hips and restless legs, so I got out my iPad and started watching YouTube videos.  Soon I was laughing out loud,  I watched videos for about 40 minutes laughing and chuckling all by myself and soon I was able to fall asleep.

Laughter Can be Healing

Laughter is a proven stress reliever as endorphins are released when you laugh.  I remember when my grandpa died, I experienced this for sure.  He was quite a man, our hero who gave out candy and told outrageous stories.   Everything was so big for him, if he caught one fish it was “thousands” of fish.  He had been a stock car racer and told of all the “millions” of races he won in his car before he wrecked and had to have a metal plate put in his head – which ended his racing  career.  He was a telephone lineman and made the local news front page because for years he watched all the high school football games from outside the stadium, perched high on a crosstie on a telephone pole so he would not  have to pay.

So when he died and my two sisters and I attended his funeral, it was a very sad event and he had lots of friends mourning his death.  We three sisters were riding together in the funeral home limo crying and sniffling of course.  We reached the driveway to the cemetery and saw the long line of cars behind us and my younger sister commented

“I bet pap-pa is looking down from heaven right now telling God that
“millions” of people were coming to his funeral.” 

Well all of us  lost it right there in the limo, and when we had finished laughing, the tears were gone.

I’ve even read that “forced” or “fake” smiles can be a great stress reliever.  So when you are feeling down and the pain and depression start to get to you – remember fake it – A SMILE THAT IS!

 

Comments

Thanks for looking at my site and coming to this page.  I would love for you to leave any questions or comments below.

– Shirley