Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode 8: Laughter Really IS Medicine with Joel & Sina
Transcript
- 0:00SPEAKER_00: Welcome everyone.
- 0:00SPEAKER_00: I'm Joel Salatin, uh co-author with my uh partner in crime, Dr.
- 0:06SPEAKER_00: Cena McCullough.
- 0:07SPEAKER_00: Uh, welcome to the Beyond Labels podcast.
- 0:10SPEAKER_00: We're delighted to be with you today.
- 0:12SPEAKER_00: And today, this is going to be a fairly short podcast, but we wanted to zero in on humor, on laughter.
- 0:19SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, the Bible says laughter is the best medicine, uh or laughter does laughter does good like a medicine.
- 0:25SPEAKER_00: And uh in in these these dark days of isolation and uh uh kind of uh uh judgment, and what are they thinking about me and and what am I thinking about them?
- 0:35SPEAKER_00: Uh sometimes it's really good to just sit back and and laugh.
- 0:39SPEAKER_00: And as as I've looked at um at you know responses to this whole you know uh uh covet thing, and and I'll one one of my pieces of a I've kind of come up with like an eight-part recipe for uh for immunological function.
- 0:55SPEAKER_00: And one of them is to laugh uh and and get on some some really funny stuff and laugh.
- 1:01SPEAKER_00: So uh Cena, uh what what have you found about about laughter?
- 1:07SPEAKER_02: So I looked in the literature because we've all heard that phrase laughter is medicine, right?
- 1:12SPEAKER_02: So I wanted to see has science caught up with that yet?
- 1:16SPEAKER_02: Is there evidence in the peer-reviewed scientific literature that laughter actually is medicine?
- 1:21SPEAKER_02: And you know what?
- 1:22SPEAKER_02: There is, there's an overwhelming amount of evidence.
- 1:25SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna just uh rattle off a couple health benefits we know about laughter.
- 1:31SPEAKER_02: Laughter actually decreases pro-inflammatory cytokines, meaning that it can lower the level of inflammation of the in your body.
- 1:40SPEAKER_02: And as you know, um that is critical to not only preventing disease, but reversing disease.
- 1:46SPEAKER_02: Laughter also kills cancer cells.
- 1:50SPEAKER_02: It does that by increasing natural killer cell activity.
- 1:54SPEAKER_02: Those are immune cells that are responsible for killing stressed out or sick cells, like cancer cells.
- 2:00SPEAKER_02: And what's really cool too is that the harder you laugh, the more you boost this innate cancer killing ability.
- 2:08SPEAKER_02: Like they actually studied that.
- 2:10SPEAKER_02: They have a humor response scale, and they actually studied the intensity of your laughter with the change in the natural killer cell activity.
- 2:20SPEAKER_02: Um, and if you laugh really hard, it can actually elicit those healing effects for up to 12 hours, which I find that to be totally remarkable.
- 2:33SPEAKER_02: So, one thing that we do in our family, Joel, is um, you know, we get up and a lot of people take their multivitamin in the morning.
- 2:41SPEAKER_02: My kids and I, my husband, we laugh.
- 2:44SPEAKER_02: You know, we're cooking breakfast, we're sitting around the breakfast table, and we tell jokes to each other because it has this great healing benefit.
- 2:52SPEAKER_02: Uh, so do you want me to, I can go into some more studies if you want on lowering blood glucose and type 2 diabetes?
- 2:59SPEAKER_00: No, I uh I I'd like to, I'd like to just uh uh what drill down just a little bit on this on this cancer thing.
- 3:07SPEAKER_00: You know, has there ever been, to your knowledge, has there ever been a study done, for example, uh where they actually did side-by-side studies of somebody of two kind of similarly aged, same sex, you know, same kind of cancer, uh, where one took the regular treatment versus one over here that just watched whatever.
- 3:29SPEAKER_00: I love Lucy, Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges, uh uh, you know, um I mean I I I'm dating myself going, you know, a Mayberry RFD, you know, hey, hey, listen, Steve, listen.
- 3:43SPEAKER_00: I know here's the deal.
- 3:45SPEAKER_00: Here's the deal.
- 3:46SPEAKER_00: You know how you know how you know when you're becoming an old geezer?
- 3:50SPEAKER_00: Is when when every program that you enjoy on TV is sponsored by uh the scooter store and uh Viagra.
- 4:04SPEAKER_01: I'm happy to say I have no idea what you're talking about, Joel.
- 4:10SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 4:10unknown: Yeah, yeah.
- 4:13SPEAKER_00: So so uh, you know, somebody else's humor might be different than mine.
- 4:17SPEAKER_00: And there's certainly plenty of funny things today, you know, Shrek and whatever.
- 4:21SPEAKER_00: But um uh but you know, you see what I'm asking.
- 4:26SPEAKER_00: Has there ever been a study done where somebody did the orthodox treatment versus somebody who literally who literally read joke books and and and and laughed, I don't know what, eight hours a day or something as a treatment, as a treatment.
- 4:40SPEAKER_00: Has that ever been has that ever been tried?
- 4:43SPEAKER_02: So what you'll find repeatedly in the literature is not um, okay, we're gonna do conventional treatment with this cancer patient and withhold conventional treatment here and just implement laughter.
- 4:56SPEAKER_02: Because in Western medicine, they would um likely deem that to be um inhumane, right?
- 5:02SPEAKER_02: Because you're because you're right, because you're um not allowing, you're withholding the Western medicine answer.
- 5:11SPEAKER_02: So but what they're what does exist in the scientific literature is um all kinds of disease conditions, including like cancer, um, diabetes, uh, you know, dementia, blood pressure, all these different conditions where they do these side by side.
- 5:29SPEAKER_02: So the they they age match them, uh, you know, they match them, they pair them based on you know level of the symptoms they're having, whatnot.
- 5:37SPEAKER_02: And they're all getting, say, for instance, a conventional treatment, but then one group, they will add laughter as a component, right?
- 5:44SPEAKER_02: So they're specifically studying that laughter component.
- 5:47SPEAKER_02: And I tell you, study after study is showing that that laughter should be part of a wellness program.
- 5:55SPEAKER_02: And in fact, what you're seeing in these um these scientists that are concluding um in these papers is that yes, people need to start including laughter as part of the wellness program.
- 6:08SPEAKER_02: It specifically since you asked about cancer, laughter has been shown in those side-by-side studies to increase the health and the well-being of the cancer patients.
- 6:17SPEAKER_02: So, not only, you know, help in fighting off the cancer, but reducing their pain, reducing anxiety about having cancer, and lowering the stress hormones involved with that anxiety in pay in cancer patients.
- 6:32SPEAKER_02: When they asked the patients how they felt, uh, the patients that had the laughter as part of their protocol, overall they had a a better general wellness and increased feeling of well-being.
- 6:47SPEAKER_02: Um, and and this is not, like I said, this is not isolated just to cancer.
- 6:53SPEAKER_02: Um, so there's a study I'm looking at right here in diabetes research and clinical practice.
- 6:58SPEAKER_02: So these are high-impact journals, you know, uh, these aren't just some alternative journal uh that uh that a Western medicine doctor would not publish in.
- 7:08SPEAKER_02: So in here, they're showing that laughter lower the blood glucose levels in patients with type 2 diabetes.
- 7:15SPEAKER_02: Um, and it does it it improved, um, you know, diabetics tend to have cardiovascular complications.
- 7:22SPEAKER_02: It improved um those complications.
- 7:24SPEAKER_02: So it lessened complications in those diabetic patients.
- 7:29SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, and the list goes on and on, decreasing stress hormones, decreasing cortisol, decreasing adrenaline.
- 7:35SPEAKER_02: Um, and you they only had to laugh for like 20 minutes.
- 7:38SPEAKER_02: Um, and they saw these huge improvements in their in their health um and well-being.
- 7:46SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
- 7:46SPEAKER_00: That that's that's fantastic.
- 7:48SPEAKER_00: So Cena, tell me tell me one of your uh one of your morning jokes.
- 7:54SPEAKER_00: Tell me a joke.
- 7:55SPEAKER_02: All right, so these are my kids' favorite jokes.
- 7:59SPEAKER_02: Okay, why does a seagull fly over the sea?
- 8:06SPEAKER_00: Why does a seagull fly over the sea?
- 8:10SPEAKER_00: Over the sea.
- 8:13SPEAKER_00: Uh I have no idea.
- 8:15SPEAKER_02: You're thinking about it too much.
- 8:18SPEAKER_02: Because if it flew over the bay, it would be called a bagel.
- 8:24SPEAKER_00: Oh, of course, of course.
- 8:27SPEAKER_00: You you know, uh, you you you may not know that I really I really enjoy uh elephant jokes.
- 8:34SPEAKER_01: I didn't know that.
- 8:35SPEAKER_00: You're familiar with elephant jokes?
- 8:36SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I like elephant jokes.
- 8:38SPEAKER_00: So my favorite elephant joke is you know why the elephant wore red sneakers.
- 8:45SPEAKER_02: Why?
- 8:47SPEAKER_00: Uh to hide in the strawberry patch.
- 8:50SPEAKER_00: Now, now now here's the kick.
- 8:52SPEAKER_00: Have you ever seen an elephant in a strawberry patch?
- 8:55SPEAKER_00: No.
- 8:56SPEAKER_00: Well, it works pretty good then, doesn't it?
- 9:02SPEAKER_02: I love that.
- 9:04SPEAKER_02: I love that because I didn't see that part B of that joke coming.
- 9:07SPEAKER_02: That's hilarious.
- 9:09SPEAKER_02: Okay, well, I got another joke that my kids love that's perfect for a farmer such as yourself.
- 9:16SPEAKER_02: What has ears but can't hear?
- 9:21SPEAKER_00: Uh that would be corn.
- 9:24SPEAKER_02: A cornfield.
- 9:26SPEAKER_00: A cornfield, yes, ears but can't hear.
- 9:29SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's that's cute, yeah.
- 9:31SPEAKER_02: Okay, let me do another one.
- 9:33SPEAKER_02: What do you call a boomerang that won't come back?
- 9:39SPEAKER_00: A boomerang that won't come back.
- 9:42SPEAKER_00: I don't know, a stick?
- 9:44SPEAKER_01: Yes, a stick! Oh god, and a stick.
- 9:49SPEAKER_01: That's crazy.
- 9:53SPEAKER_00: Oh me, a stick.
- 9:56SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's right.
- 9:57SPEAKER_02: I love that one.
- 9:59SPEAKER_02: But yeah, so this is one way that we add laughter to our day, is we start out by telling these jokes.
- 10:05SPEAKER_02: And if we run out of them, we just look online to find, you know, kid-friendly jokes.
- 10:11SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I'll tell you, there's some real humor on um on YouTube.
- 10:17SPEAKER_00: You know, if you start looking at at some you know, clean, clean comedians on YouTube.
- 10:22SPEAKER_00: Uh I mean, one of our favorites is uh Jeff Foxworthy.
- 10:27SPEAKER_00: Oh Jeff Foxworthy's hilarious.
- 10:30SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, he now now this guy's deceased, but uh Jerry Clower, you know, Jerry Clower was a was a South Mississippi uh fertilizer salesman.
- 10:39SPEAKER_00: That that uh one night at a at a sales meeting, he told a joke and everybody laughed and he loved it so much.
- 10:44SPEAKER_00: He became a full-time, I mean he was a big he made you know records and all sorts of all sorts of stuff.
- 10:50SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah, Jerry Clower, uh what a what a funny guy.
- 10:54SPEAKER_00: But yeah, there's a lot of good humor on uh on YouTube now that you can, you know, that you can pull up.
- 11:00SPEAKER_00: And uh it's it's good.
- 11:02SPEAKER_00: It it's you know, a belly laugh, a belly laugh has a long tail.
- 11:07SPEAKER_00: I think that's what that's what your research is showing.
- 11:10SPEAKER_00: That so often, you know, we think that all this is just for the moment, the moment, and then that's it.
- 11:16SPEAKER_00: But actually a good belly laugh uh has a long tail, and that's that's a good thing because you know it it it actually hurts to laugh a long time, you know.
- 11:26SPEAKER_00: If you sit here and laugh for 10 minutes, you can actually get a you know, your ribs, your ribs can hurt, uh if you laugh, if you laugh too much.
- 11:35SPEAKER_00: So uh so yeah.
- 11:37SPEAKER_02: Um and so I'd like to close, Joel, with asking you a question.
- 11:42SPEAKER_02: So we know how important laughter is, and in my opinion, it would be fantastic if we could all incorporate it into our daily wellness practice, you know, just like right alongside clean water, clean food, grounding, and so forth.
- 11:58SPEAKER_02: In today's climate, you know, it there's so there's so much tension, there's so much negativity, there's so much stress coming from you know, multiple sources.
- 12:09SPEAKER_02: How do you pull yourself out of that and and create humor, laughter, or joy in your day-to-day?
- 12:20SPEAKER_00: Oh, what a great question.
- 12:22SPEAKER_00: So, my answer to that is I'll go back to Stephen Covey, uh, who wrote Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
- 12:29SPEAKER_00: And one of his principles was to stay within your sphere of influence, stay within your sphere of influence.
- 12:36SPEAKER_00: And uh he's got these little concentric circles, you know, things you can control, things you can't control, things out of you know, beyond your control.
- 12:44SPEAKER_00: And what he what he points out in that chapter is that that the more time we spend focused on things that are beyond our control, the smaller our sphere of influence.
- 12:54SPEAKER_00: And the more we spend on things that we can control and forget about the things that are beyond our control, our sphere of influence actually grows.
- 13:02SPEAKER_00: It it's a it's counterintuitive, you know.
- 13:04SPEAKER_00: And but but when you think about it, most of the things that you and I whatever, most of the things that we fret about are actually beyond our control.
- 13:12SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, you and I aren't, you know, there was nothing that you and I could do about the pullout from Afghanistan.
- 13:19SPEAKER_00: There was there's nothing that you and I can do, uh uh whatever, uh about um a lot of things, you know.
- 13:26SPEAKER_00: Uh we we can't control what Fauci says when he steps to the microphone.
- 13:31SPEAKER_00: You know, we can't, that's beyond our control.
- 13:32SPEAKER_00: So, you know what?
- 13:34SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
- 13:35SPEAKER_00: It's just out there.
- 13:36SPEAKER_00: And and and and what we can do is we can concentrate on investing in in relationships and skills and knowledge that will that will make uh that will make our control a better world, whatever we control a better world.
- 13:55SPEAKER_00: And I I call it building a parallel universe.
- 13:57SPEAKER_00: Uh we need to be about building a parallel universe.
- 14:01SPEAKER_00: Um and and you know, some some of that is certainly increasing your freedom, your freedom of dependency on on things that are beyond your control.
- 14:11SPEAKER_00: So, you know, if you can put a cistern in and catch your roof runoff so you don't have to depend on city water, for example.
- 14:18SPEAKER_00: Uh, you can put in a solarium so you can extend the growing season and not and reduce your dependency on the grocery store for a couple of extra months a year by growing some food for yourself.
- 14:28SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, there there are there are numerous things that that we can do um you know in in our lives, including, you know, knowing our farmer, knowing our food sources, uh, you know, uh goodness, investing in our health, not having to be dependent on pharmaceutical companies or the doctor or whatever.
- 14:50SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, we're we're you know the the most uh the most important uh what self-reli self-reliance thing you can do is is is maintain your health, right?
- 15:01SPEAKER_00: And so um and and so you know, I can control whether I drink a coke or not.
- 15:06SPEAKER_00: I can control whether I eat junk food or not.
- 15:09SPEAKER_00: I uh and so so this creates joy, joy and fun in the journey.
- 15:18SPEAKER_00: Just don't worry about all that stuff you can't control.
- 15:21SPEAKER_00: I can't control it.
- 15:23SPEAKER_00: So I'm not gonna worry about it.
- 15:24SPEAKER_00: Instead, I'm gonna be positive and invest in in building a positive parallel universe in my life, my family's life, my business life, and and and um, and you know, uh uh surround ourselves with people of of light precious values, you know, uh that share that that are fun to be around.
- 15:45SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, we're we're we're just entering our uh our stewardship pick time for our new uh stewards for next year.
- 15:52SPEAKER_00: And uh the question we always ask is do I want to spend my summer with this person?
- 15:59SPEAKER_00: You know, it really comes down to is this a is this a person fun to spend time with?
- 16:04SPEAKER_00: Uh if I if I meet if I meet you for two minutes, do I walk away and say, hey, I'd like to I'd like to spend a few more minutes with that person?
- 16:12SPEAKER_00: And uh and the people that you want to do that to, structure your life so you can.
- 16:21SPEAKER_02: I love that.
- 16:22SPEAKER_02: I love that.
- 16:22SPEAKER_02: And we're doing the same thing, you know, and that's one thing I talk about with people too when they're healing from or trying to reverse diseases, for instance, is figure out which relationships are toxic to you and which relationships are nurturing to you.
- 16:36SPEAKER_02: And that's that's pretty much what you're saying, and surround yourself by those nurturing people where you bring each other up, you know.
- 16:42SPEAKER_02: So um, and so I'll add into this that on a practical, like day-to-day basis, um, I try to add joy in not only by telling those jokes, you know, starting out the day with the jokes, but I actually um, you know, it's so easy to get wrapped up in the day-to-day and you know, working and and all these responsibilities that we put on ourselves.
- 17:05SPEAKER_02: So sometimes when my schedule gets overwhelming, what I actually do is I put in my schedule fun time.
- 17:12SPEAKER_02: And so I'll like set a timer and I make myself stop and I'll go out and I'll play tag with my kids, or we'll play a board game or a card game, or you know, watch, like you said, a funny video or a comedian.
- 17:24SPEAKER_02: So I I literally um and I because I'm so passionate too about what I do, and there's seems to be so much work.
- 17:31SPEAKER_02: I literally will schedule it in to make myself stop, and so I can create a better balance for myself.
- 17:40SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I call those, I call those commas in life.
- 17:43SPEAKER_00: You know, we we live under this this uh uh incorrect supposition that we work, work, work, work, work and in order to deserve a two-week vacation once a year or three week three-week vacation once a year, you know, to go away somewhere.
- 18:00SPEAKER_00: And that's our that that's our our downtime.
- 18:02SPEAKER_00: But actually, it actually it's much it's much better rather than taking that uh you know a three-week uh three-week away time, it's much better to take a couple of hours every couple of days and put what I call a comma in your life.
- 18:17SPEAKER_00: It might be a backyard fire pit, fire pit, and you're cooking hot dogs.
- 18:21SPEAKER_00: It might be a uh, you know, uh uh yeah, a game of volleyball.
- 18:28SPEAKER_00: We have a volleyball net here at the farm.
- 18:30SPEAKER_00: And and uh, I mean, it's worn to a the the it's a it's a dirt, you know.
- 18:35SPEAKER_00: I mean, the grass is completely gone.
- 18:37SPEAKER_00: And and we play volleyball a lot, and um, and you know, even after making hay all day, just to, you know, just to uh um have that have that fun period.
- 18:48SPEAKER_00: And so I call those commas, commas in life.
- 18:51SPEAKER_00: It's much better to have your life sentence full of strategic commas than just once in a long while a great big bank space.
- 19:02SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, because then by that point, it's almost like you need that vacation as an escape from your life.
- 19:07SPEAKER_02: Right.
- 19:07SPEAKER_02: And I said that to my husband several years ago.
- 19:09SPEAKER_02: I said, I don't want to have to escape from my life, right?
- 19:12SPEAKER_02: I want to I want to live a life that I want to live, like filled with joy and happiness and freedom, and you know, so exactly what you're saying.
- 19:20SPEAKER_02: And it could be as simple as like if you don't have the time or the energy at the end of the day to play a game of volleyball, it could be something as simple as picking up the phone and calling someone in your tribe and just chatting for five minutes just to connect with somebody.
- 19:34SPEAKER_02: So so even it could be something you do in five minutes.
- 19:37SPEAKER_02: So I just had this idea as you were talking.
- 19:39SPEAKER_02: Um, so anybody who's listening or watching, uh watching the video, what would be great is in the comment section, if you have a joke, right, to share, type in whatever joke that you know of, you know, that that you can share with the rest of us so we can all laugh together.
- 19:58SPEAKER_02: I think, you know, when when um at the polyface summit uh that we did that we hosted together this last summer, you know how I mentioned laughter and I was telling jokes during my talk?
- 20:10SPEAKER_02: People from the summit afterwards they were sending me emails with jokes in them.
- 20:15SPEAKER_02: And I thought this is fantastic, right?
- 20:17SPEAKER_02: We've created this tribe where we're bringing each other up, right?
- 20:21SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's right.
- 20:23SPEAKER_02: Please, everybody send us your jokes.
- 20:24SPEAKER_02: And um, Joel, I think it would be kind of cool if, at least in some of the podcasts coming up, what do you think about we start out podcasts with telling a joke?
- 20:34unknown: Right?
- 20:35SPEAKER_00: It's not a bad idea.
- 20:36SPEAKER_00: So as as we close, as we close this one, Cena, I've got one of uh one of my favorite Jerry Cloud jokes.
- 20:42SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.
- 20:42SPEAKER_00: So Jerry Clower, he's from South Mississippi, and his and and he grew up with a boy named Marcel Ledbetter.
- 20:49SPEAKER_00: It was a family of like you know, 10 boys in this family.
- 20:52SPEAKER_00: And Marcel, uh, he was down one day and this uh this tourister guy came in and they were growing watermelons that year to sell watermelons.
- 20:59SPEAKER_00: And this guy came in and he he looked at Marcel.
- 21:02SPEAKER_00: Marcel was, you know, tall and thin, and he said, Boy, he said, uh, if you can eat that whole watermelon, I'll give you five dollars.
- 21:09SPEAKER_00: Well, five dollars was a lot of money, but uh Marcel, you know, he wanted it, but he wasn't sure.
- 21:14SPEAKER_00: So he said, uh just give me a minute, sir.
- 21:16SPEAKER_00: And he went up to the house, and about 10 minutes later, he came back from the house.
- 21:20SPEAKER_00: And uh he said, Yes, sir, I'll I'll take you up on that offer.
- 21:24SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'll I'll I'll um I'll do that.
- 21:26SPEAKER_00: And the guy said, Well, you were gone for 10 minutes.
- 21:29SPEAKER_00: What did you do?
- 21:29SPEAKER_00: You know, 10 minutes while you were gone.
- 21:30SPEAKER_00: Marcel, well, he said, Marcel said, Um, well, that's a pretty big watermelon, and I didn't know if I could eat it.
- 21:36SPEAKER_00: So I went up to the house.
- 21:38SPEAKER_00: I knew I had one that same size up at the house.
- 21:40SPEAKER_00: So I went up and I ate that one, and I knew if I could eat that one, I could eat this one right here.
- 21:50SPEAKER_00: Thanks everybody for listening to Beyond Labels Podcast.
- 21:55SPEAKER_00: And uh hope you're having a great day.
- 21:57SPEAKER_00: Tell a joke to your loved ones, laugh heartily today, and we'll see you next time.
- 22:02SPEAKER_00: Thanks.