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Laughter really is the best medicine. A good laugh causes changes in the deepest parts of the brain releasing naturally occurring chemicals which have widespread effects on the body. These effects include relaxing muscles and releasing tension, boosting the pleasure centres, releasing more chemicals which make us feel really really good and directly stimulating the cells of the immune system to work more effectively at killing viruses and other harmful micro organisms. It is interesting that laughter and feeling good do not increase the numbers of the cells of the immune system, but the cells work more efficiently.
Conversely when we feel depressed, the cells of the immune system are depressed as well. They do not function as well as they should, but the numbers of immune cells remain unchanged.
So smile, or laugh, and be healthier.
The following stories are not jokes. They are true life stories.
It can be a funny world.
Open wide.
Sometimes communication is not as simple as it seems.
A patient came to see me with a sore throat. I got the torch, switched it on, pointed the light at her mouth and said “open wide”.
Nothing happened.
I said “open wide” again.
Still nothing happened.
I said “is that as much as you can do?”
She replied “I’m opening them as wide as I can.”.
Then I realised that she was opening her eyes as wide as she could.
In the dark
I must be missing a vital link between the eyes and the respiratory system.
Recently a young man saw me and said “I’ve got a cold, a sore throat and my nose is so blocked up I feel like I’m blind.”.
Quit smoking
I was once sympathetically counselling a patient about how difficult it could be to quit smoking when he said to me “oh, quitting smoking’s easy! I’ve done it hundreds of times.”.
Armoured van ATM
An enterprising thief was walking along a busy street in Edinburgh, Scotland when he noticed an armoured van parked next to a bank. The armoured guards came out of the bank one at a time and knocked hard twice on the side of the van with their fists. A metal door in the side of the van lifted u and revealed 2 large bags of money. The guard picked them up and carried them into the bank. The thief decided to try his luck and when the guard got into the bank he walked up to the van and knocked hard twice. He couldn’t believe his luck when the door lifted up and revealed two big bags of money. He grabbed them and ran off as fast as he could.
Unfortunately for him and fortunately for the guards, an off duty police officer saw everything, gave chase, and arrested him, otherwise the guards would have had a difficult time explaining what had happened to the money.
Performance downer
When I was playing competitive water polo we reached the final of the British Deep Water Championships. We had never won that particular competition and we had a good team and had been playing well. In particular, we played very well in the semi final.
For some reason we played badly in the final. We never really got going properly and things just didn’t go well. We were easily beaten and after the game we were very disappointed. As we were leaving the poolside it was announced that four players from each team would have their urine tested for performance enhancing drugs.
I was one of the players and we were all ushered to changing room where we had to provide a urine sample. We were all a little dehydrated and nobody could comply with the request. It was bad enough that we were stuck there with members of the winning team but the rest of our team mates had gone off to drown their sorrows while we were stuck until we performed for the officials.
Finally, after yet another unsuccessful attempt to fill the provided jar, my friend exploded with anger and frustration at the presiding official “what are you testing us for anyway? Did you not see us play?”.
Child Prodigy
My older two children were aged 4 yrs and 3 yrs when my 3rd child was born. They saw the baby when she was born but stayed at home with their grandmother on day 2 when I visited the hospital.
When I returned they rushed at me excitedly shouting “How’s the baby?”.
“she’s very well” I replied.
“can she play football yet?”
Beer Diet
The optimism of male dieters never fails to amaze me. They seem to eat like horses and be genuinely surprised that they are not losing any weight. One man came to me regularly when I ran a diet clinic and was consistently losing weight. Over about 7 weeks he lost about 1 kg per week. Then he started putting it all back on again. Every week I asked him what had changed, what was he doing differently.
“Nothing Doctor I can’t understand it.”
Then after about 4 or 5 weeks he said “the beer drinking competition finishes at the pub this weekend, maybe that will make a difference.”.
“What?” was all I could muster as a reply.
“There’s been a competition at the pub. The more beer you drink, the more tickets you get in the draw. I’ve been trying to win a car.”.
Short Sighted Scuba Diver
I still find it amazing how closed we all can be to new possibilities.
When I was younger I went scuba diving in Malta. The water is a beautiful clear blue and the visibility is so good it is like you can see for miles underwater. On one trip when we surfaced and we were back on deck of the boat a group of us were enthusiastically chatting about all of the undersea sights.
“Did you see those big big groper?”
“And the schools of fish turning and twisting?
“And the sea horses?”
Two of the group looked really puzzled. “we didn’t see any of that. Where did you see all that?”
“It was everywhere. What did you see?”
“Nothing much really”.
We couldn’t believe that they had been in the same ocean as us and had seen nothing much.
Finally we worked out what had happened.
These two divers were used to diving in The English Channel where the visibility is almost always terrible. They dived on shipwrecks and had to follow the anchor chain down to the wreck where they would crawl around with their faces as close to the seabed as possible so that they could see.
Their point of focus was about 6 inches in front of their eyes.
They were so used to this that when they dived in Malta, they had focused on the seabed and anything that was very close to them and missed everything else.
I am glad to say that the next day they were able to see the bigger picture.
Weakling
When I first arrived in Australia I went on a water polo trip and we stopped in a pub which was pretty rough. I asked for a stubby (or small bottle) of beer and the petite barmaid passed it over the bar to me. The lid was on and I was used to having to use a bottle opener to open bottles of beer. I tried unsuccessfully to work out how to open it without drawing too much attention to myself. I seriously wondered if I was supposed to open the bottle with my teeth but I chickened out and called the barmaid over. “Excuse me. Could you open this for me please?”
She gave me a look which implied that I was a pathetic spineless weakling and simply twisted the top off the bottle with her hand. I was mortified. I had never seen a twist top bottle of beer before.
The whole pub seemed to go quiet as everyone turned to look with scorn at the sap who couldn’t open a stubby of beer.
Fishing for birds
I was fly fishing for trout in Scotland once not long after I had finally mastered the ability to cast the fly (or hook). An old man, who I had recognised as a local trout fishing legend, had been walking past and stopped to watch me fishing. I got a bit nervous and thought to myself that I had better cast it properly with the great man checking my technique. I cast out, and to get more line out with a cast you can false cast or pull the rod back while the line is unfolding in front of you but before it lands on the water. This lets you get a longer cast. I did this a couple of times. Then the line hit the water a bit too hard so I cast again. I let the line drift a little then I cast again. I was really casting well by now. Old Jock must be impressed with this. After a few more minutes, the old man started walking away. I couldn’t resist asking him for his opinion so I put the rod down and as politely as I could I explained that I had just learned to cast and would he give me his opinion about my fishing.
“Well son” he said scratching his chin thoughtfully, if you’re trying to catch fish and not birds you’d be better letting your flees (flies) get into the watter (water) once in a blue moon.”
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