Mojo Monday ~ Comedy

Comedy is acting out optimism. ~ Robin Williams

Having a sense of humor about life helps reduce stress, can boost positive feelings and can even benefit your overall mental and physical health.

According to an article called Laughter Is the Best Medicine there are a number of things that occur physically when you laugh.

• Laughter relaxes the whole body. A good, hearty laugh relieves physical tension and stress, leaving your muscles relaxed for up to 45 minutes after.

• Laughter boosts the immune system. Laughter decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, thus improving your resistance to disease.

• Laughter triggers the release of endorphins, the body’s natural feel-good chemicals. Endorphins promote an overall sense of well-being and can even temporarily relieve pain.

• Laughter protects the heart. Laughter improves the function of blood vessels and increases blood flow, which can help protect you against a heart attack and other cardiovascular problems.

Knowing this has led me to view comedians more as Laugh Doctors or MD’s and I love to get a regular dose of the medicine they are prescribing.

I have had the good fortune to have seen comedian Robin Williams perform three times in person. Another favorite comedian who I also saw perform once in person is Stephen Wright. Click here to see him perform a stand up routine.

I recently watched Date Night with my husband and I have to say that at the start of the film I was feeling a bit stressed about my to-do list and yet by the end of the film I was feeling much more relaxed. 

Do you have a favorite comedian? A favorite comedy film?

What makes you laugh?

What is comedy? Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke.

~ Steve Martin

Nonsense wakes up the brain cells. And it helps develop a sense of humor, which is awfully important in this day and age. ~ Dr. Seuss.

Jennifer Grey & Derek Hough - Viennese Waltz (longer clip)

Mojo Monday ~ Earth the Perfect Place

The above card is one I received from my mom long ago, possibly even 20 years ago. The message is one that really resonated with me, a short and simple list of things that make life sweet, a list of things to make one feel grateful to be living here on planet Earth.

Now and again I take the time to write out my own list.


Earth ~
the perfect place
to create,
paint,
write,
practice loving other people,
and forgiving,
sing,
pet cuddly soft kittens,
speak one's truth,
nap,
travel
rock out,
float in water,
soak up the sun,
hold hands,
shine!

What would you include on your list? Please share…

Mojo Monday ~ Music

 "The discovery of song and the creation of musical instruments both owed their origin to a human impulse which lies much deeper than conscious intention: the need for rhythm in life… the need is a deep one, transcending thought, and disregarded at our peril." ~Richard Baker

According to Wikipedia "The word music comes from the Greek mousikê (tekhnê) by way of the Latin musica. It is ultimately derived from mousa, the Greek word for muse.

In ancient Greece, the word mousike was used to mean any of the arts or sciences governed by the Muses. Later, in Rome, ars musica embraced poetry as well as instrument-oriented music.

While we may be happy to just think about music in terms of the latest song we just downloaded or singing along to the radio while driving, the truth is that music is able to do a lot more than just entertain us.

According to the eMed Expert web page music affects us in a variety of ways and can even promote health. Their list states that music is capable of doing six things:

1. Music heals

There are even organizations like Music that Heals and Music to Heal that provide musical entertainment to patients in hospitals and clinics. Dr. Fred J. Epstein, a world-renowned neurosurgeon states that "There is little question that music is therapeutic. I have become a 'believer' only through first-hand observation of what music has done for so many of my patients. I have seen children who were lethargic become wakeful, I have seen others who were suffering from enormous anxiety over impending surgery become upbeat. I support with pleasure efforts to raise funds to provide live performances to children afflicted with serious and life-threatening disease."

2. Music even makes you smarter

"The idea that music makes you smarter received considerable attention from scientists and the media. Listening to music or playing an instrument can actually make you learn better. And research confirms this."

3. Music improves physical performance

4. Music helps to work more productively

"Listening to upbeat music can be a great way to find some extra energy" and "According to a report in the journal Neuroscience of Behavior and Physiology, a person's ability to recognize visual images, including letters and numbers, is faster when either rock or classical music is playing in the background."

5. Music calms, relaxes and helps to sleep

6. Music improves mood and decreases depression

"Music's ability to "heal the soul" is the stuff of legend in every culture. Many people find that music lifts their spirits. Modern research tends to confirm music's psychotherapeutic benefits. Bright, cheerful music (e.g. Mozart, Vivaldi, bluegrass, Klezmer, Salsa, reggae) is the most obvious prescription for the blues."

What are some of your favorite songs?

Do you have favorites for exercising and others for relaxing?

Some people even have favorite songs to listen to when they're sad. How about you?

Mojo Monday ~ Being Present

"Each today, well-lived, makes yesterday a dream of happiness and each tomorrow a vision of hope. Look, therefore, to this one day, for it and it alone is life." ~ Sanskrit poem

Excerpt from the novel Things I Want My Daughters to Know by Elizabeth Noble

“I don’t want to die. I’m not ready. I’m not finished. You’re not finished. Nothing is over. I don’t want to die.

It’s like the world is suddenly all new and wondrous and exciting again. Like I’ve been wearing blinkers, or something, all these years. Never lay back and watched clouds changing shapes. Or raindrops hit leaves. Or saw just how perfectly smooth a baby’s skin is. Never really listened to children laughing or choirs sing or how beautiful an oboe sounds.

All at once, the world—the same one I used to view with indifference—is the most perfect, fascinating, amazing place that I cannot bear to leave.

And you, my girls. I don’t want to leave you. I haven’t finished. I haven’t told you often enough how much I love you and how amazing you are. I haven’t helped you enough. Confronted you enough. Listened to you enough. SEEN you enough.

Every minute you already had that I wasn’t with you feels like a waste, a missed opportunity. I should have home schooled you. I should never have left you with a babysitter because I thought I’d scream if I didn’t have an hour without you. Why did I ever think that, anyway?

I sound like a crazy person, I know. I just never knew I didn’t have that long. I never heard the tick-tock.

If we all knew—if there was some fortune cookie you could open and find out what your allotted time was—would we all live entirely different lives? Would we waste less time? ‘Carpe” the ‘diem’ more. Really?

I daresay I’d still have felt like I was going to strangle you if I didn’t get away for an hour. I wouldn’t have home schooled you. (God knows you wouldn’t have a maths qualification between you if I had’ve done.)

But I’d have played in the playground more. Swung, climbed, hung. Instead of hogging the bench and reading the paper.

Could I have loved you better? Maybe. If that’s true, then I’m sorry. Could I have loved you more? I don’t think it’s possible.”

If there was some fortune cookie you could open and find out what your allotted time was—would you live your life differently?


Would you create a "Bucket List?" If yes, what would be on it?

"If, before going to bed every night, you will tear a page from the calendar, and remark, 'there goes another day of my life, never to return,' you will become time conscious." ~ A. B. Zu Tavern