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4 Ways to Laugh Yourself Healthy

I’m sure you’ve heard the old adage, “Laughter is the best medicine,” but it’s actually truer than you might think! Laughter is literally healing. Just like energy medicine, laughter has benefits for your physical, emotional, and mental health. And more than any other medicine, it’s fun!

There is a reason you feel so good after laughing. There is no surer way to lift you out of a bad mood or brighten a glum day than a good belly laugh, especially if you’re doing that laughing with others. Laughter has been shown to create camaraderie in people, forging bonds and emotional connections, which can improve relationships of all kinds. Laughter can diffuse tension, heal resentments, and just generally makes you feel happier. If you are keeping up your daily practice of meditation, you know that the effects last for hours afterward, and the health benefits of laughter are just as far-reaching and long-lasting, so why not make it a part of your spiritual routine?

Have You Laughed Today?

There are documented physical health benefits to laughter. A deep hearty laugh relaxes your muscles and relieves tension immediately, and the effects last for almost an hour! Laughter also improves your blood flow, which can help prevent heart attacks, it boosts your immune system, and it releases feel-good endorphins, which can temporarily reduce pain. Clowns in children’s hospitals and TVs tuned to comedies in patient rooms are no mistake—they can help the healing process, and you can use laughter to help heal you, too, before it gets to the point of hospitalization. Laughter, like energy healing, is both curative and preventative.

The list of the emotional benefits of laughter is just as long. First, a laugh forces you to release negativity. You can’t feel depressed or mad or anxious while you’re really laughing, and since it helps to reduce stress, laughter allows you to relax and recharge. Laughter can even help you directly deal with stressful situations. If you can laugh at it, and at yourself, you can give yourself the necessary distance and perspective to keep you from getting overwhelmed. With more laughter comes a generally more humorous outlook on life, which can help carry you through tough emotions and obstacles with grace and positivity.

As if all that wasn’t enough, laughter heals on another level as well. You know from studying energy medicine that negative emotions are as detrimental to your health as smoking or a sedentary lifestyle. Those negative feelings can become lodged in your chakras, field, and body, creating all kinds of problems from allergies to anxiety. All the energy healing techniques I teach in my healing courses and workshops are designed to help you release negativity and clear, charge, and balance your chakras so your energy can flow freely and keep you healthy. Laughter may not be an official energy medicine technique, but it essentially works the same way journaling does—helping to release negative emotions before they have a chance to get stuck and cause any damage.

Who Doesn’t Like to Laugh?

You probably don’t avoid laughter, but do you seek it out? That is my first tip: don’t wait for laughs to come to you—go out and find them! Incorporate laughter into your day and you’ll be amazed at how much happier and healthier you’ll feel. Here are four ways to do just that.

  1. Watch something funny.

Movies, TV shows, Jon Stewart, SNL, even YouTube videos of goats or cats—whatever makes you chuckle is worth watching! Some of my more serious students scoff when I encourage them to go see the latest comedy or head to a club to see a standup comedian, but now that you know how healing laughter can be, I hope you’ll make the effort! Even a two minute clip from the internet during a break from a bad day at work can make you smile and lighten your mood.

  1. Hang out with people who make you laugh.

Your friends don’t need to be Jerry Seinfeld to make you laugh. Sometimes just getting together with friends and telling stories, playing games, or watching something funny as a group is enough to send you into a fit of giggles or an all-out laugh attack. Laughter truly is contagious, so being around people you think are funny will multiply the laughter all around, boosting the health of everyone.

  1. Spend time with children or pets.

Kids and pets are not worried about embarrassing themselves, which makes them super fun to be around! Animals are so happy to be played with that they are guaranteed to infect you with some of that happiness and at least get you to crack a smile. Especially when they make a cute face. Children do all kinds of silly things that will make you laugh as well, and they “say the darndest things.” Being around the freedom kids and animals embody will allow you to be more spontaneous and laugh more easily not just around them, but in other situations as well.

  1. Go out and play.

Both pets and kids are also likely to get you into the spirit of play, which usually leads to laughter. Run with your dog, chase her or play Frisbee or fetch, or get a string and play with your cat. Think about what you liked to do as a kid and let your inner child have some fun. Go out and jump rope, skip, hop, roll down a hill, do cartwheels, or put on some roller skates. Dance around in your pajamas singing into a hairbrush. Whatever will make you have fun and laugh your head off.

Laughter requires a little bit of letting go, so go for it! Don’t feel self-conscious if you want to let out a loud guffaw—remember that you’re healing yourself with each laugh you let loose, as well as inspiring healing laughter in someone else!

If you are interested in this type of learning… Click here

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Is Your Health a Priority? 3 Ways to Make It One

Is Your Health a Priority? 3 Ways to Make It One

Is your health a priority in your life? It can be!

Now, be honest. Is taking care of yourself something that you really prioritize, or is your health something you would like to be a priority, but in reality gets pushed to the side when you’re busy? For so many people, especially women, the true answer is that you are the last person you take care of, after your partner, children, pets, coworkers, etc., when it should be the other way around! Your overall health and wellbeing—emotional, mental, and spiritual as well as physical—should always be your number one priority. Without it, nothing else matters.

This week, the United States Department of Health and Human Services Office of Women’s Health wants to remind you to make health a priority with National Women’s Health Week. The specific goal is to empower women to take control of their health and learn better ways to take care of themselves. Since energy medicine has the exact same goal, I’m joining in National Women’s Health Week with some tips for how you can prioritize your health, and why it’s essential for your quality of life.

As an energy healer and spiritual teacher, your health is my life. I am constantly seeking methods of healing that go beyond the physical to target your whole being from the inside out. Remember, health is not just about your body, but about the totality of you: mind, body, and soul. That holistic approach is what drew me to energy medicine, and in thirty years of study I have yet to find a more effective way to heal, thrive, and grow. To practice energy medicine is to make your health a priority, and as thousands of my students have discovered through my energy healing courses, when you take the time to take care of yourself, your whole life improves.

Here are a few ways you can get started:

  1. Remember that maintaining your health is necessary.

The first step towards prioritizing your health is to really understand that it is absolutely necessary. So many of my students—again, particularly women—tend to feel guilty when they put themselves before others, even when it is for good reasons, so they often don’t. How many times have you rescheduled a doctor’s appointment in favor of your job or a partner’s work trip or your kids’ soccer practice? How often do you skip exercising or meditating because you have to make dinner or stay late at work? These may seem like little sacrifices, but added up they equal long term neglect, and eventually that lack of care can have serious consequences.

Remember that prioritizing your health is not selfish. Put that on a sticky note on your mirror. On an airplane, if the oxygen masks fall due to a drop in cabin pressure, who are you supposed to put the mask on first? Yourself. You have to be able to breathe in order to help anyone you are with. The same is true of your health. You must take care of your own mind, body, and soul before you can be of use to anyone else.

  1. Attack from all angles.

One of the things you learn in energy medicine is the intricate relationship between your mind, body, spirit, and emotions. These aspects of your health are like the four sides of a pyramid, and if one side starts to sink, the other three sides sink as well.

This means you need to balance taking care of these different parts of yourself. Take care of your body by exercising, getting a good amount of deep, restful sleep, and eating a varied and nutritious diet with limited sugar and processed starches. Take care of your mind by getting outside, reducing stress, and engaging in activities that keep you thinking. Take care of your emotions by journaling, participating in creative pursuits like singing or drawing, and spending time with good friends, loving pets, and people who make you laugh. Take care of your spirit by meditating, praying, and communing with nature, your guides, and your higher self. The idea is that by prioritizing all areas of your health, you prioritize you as a whole.

  1. Practice energy medicine.

The goal of energy medicine is to heal you, so by its very nature, energy healing will focus your attention on your health. Energy medicine techniques are designed to get at the heart of your issues, rooting out the underlying cause of the problem so it can be healed at the source. Many physical ailments, from heartburn to asthma to cancer, are manifestations of energetic blocks, and, with a little training, you can sense and clear those obstacles so that you can begin to truly heal.

Energy medicine includes meditation and processing your emotions, but each technique you employ makes you healthier by helping to keep your chakras and energy field clean and clear. Since your body and mind reflect the state of your energy field, health starts with your chakras. When your chakras are in top working order, they move energy in and out from your field to the universal field, revitalizing and recharging you. When your chakras become blocked, your energy gets stagnant and creates all kinds of health problems.

What’s more, energy healing can root out disease or illness before it ever manifests! As any doctor will tell you, prevention is the best medicine, and with the daily routines energy healing encourages, you can heal your chakras before physical or other symptoms develop and avoid getting sick completely. Imagine a calmer, sharper, more centered, happier you. With energy medicine, there is no way to avoid making your health a priority and vastly improving the quality of your life.

Health is not a static issue; it’s fluid and ever-changing, which is why is requires your daily attendance. Learning how to tend to your own needs is probably the most important lesson of the physical plane, but once you’ve learned it, you will be so glad you did.

If you want to learn more about how energy medicine can improve your life, please check out https://deborahking.com/courses/learn-to-meditate-with-deborah/