Episode 8 Laughter will heal your body and get you that raise.

Laughter, nervous system regulation and emotional mastery with a bit of Tony Robbins magic thrown in. 

www.chloegrahammindsetcoach.com
@bechloebeyou

Transcript

0:01

Episode Eight with me, Chloe, this is all about the laughter, smiling, nervous system regulation, and another one that touches on some more movies, podcast music, and tick tock of all things, here we go. Episode Eight, Wow, I'm so excited to be here. But also, man, I thought it would get easier the more I do these but eight episodes in now. And I've been good and consistent and made them one a week kind of thing. But I don't know if it's sort of the pressure to get better at them each week, or make a topic that's better than the last week or share what I want to share in a better way. It's actually getting tougher maybe because I was just yellowing so much when I started that I had no standard set. And now I've set my own standard, how good or bad that is. And I feel like I need to at least match if not do better than that. So yeah, it's really bizarre, but just thought I'd add that as a side note for my you guys listening, and my friends for being here and sharing my stories and listening. And thank you so much. So today, I actually want to talk about laughter. And thinking back to when I was really tiny, I don't remember laughing much at all, actually, and I've been googling for the last. Well, today trying to find out why we feel like we need to be serious to be taken seriously, apart from obviously, the word similarity. But when I was little I remember maybe wanting to be heard or seen or something by my parents, my colleagues, sorry, colleagues, from a child, my friends, or whatever. And maybe I couldn't be hurt if I was taken seriously. But I don't remember laughing and joking and smiling that much. But then also, if we have what we classes are traumatic childhood, we block out all the good stuff, like a good exercise I did recently and I talked about was finding the good in a childhood regardless of how you framed it, because this is another area where we can go black and white like black. My childhood upbringing was awful, and horrible and traumatic. And so we ignore all good things that happen because they will betray that viewpoint and make us feel like a fraud or a liar kind of thing. So for a long time, I just had it in my mind. And I'd remember the things that made me sad about my childhood. Remember all the bad things that happen and sadly, forget all the good things. And a couple have come back to me I will say that like, just nice memories of like, my mom singing me to sleep at night, or lying on the couch, and she tickle my ear kind of thing. It was just more comforting, not like laughing tickling kind of thing. But yeah, most of the time, I cannot remember laughing. And that got worse in my darkest years of my late 20s. and lack of laughter. Studies have shown that I was actually reading this morning, there's a humour cliff that we go off on, we're 23 When we're meant to grow up, finish uni or whatever, and get jobs and we become worried in our jobs that we're not going to be taken seriously. I don't know if that's worse, if you're in a male dominated career like mine, I think that might have have quite a lot to do with it. But I haven't done the studies. I haven't looked at the studies on it or anything because I was the woman that I saw myself as a girl. So I guess it's more relevant here. If I say girl, so I would say I was a girl in a flight school, where I was, you know, like one in 60. And the rest were men. And you wanted to be seen as one of them as good as them and whatever. And the ironic thing is they would joke about and have fun, but I felt like I couldn't because it would make me look less than or not dedicated or not up to standard or something like that. So where does this come from? Not just in male dominated careers. But why do we feel the need to be taken seriously. And then it happens off a cliff 23 And then also compound this with having anxiety and or depression. So I would say most of the time, I was depressed in my 20s. And the anxiety was a back seat. Constant running theme. It wasn't like her up and down panic attack, it was more like her incessant racing mind and worrying. And the worrying would start first thing in the morning, like, as soon as I opened my eyes, bam, the worrying the racing mind would take off. So that's definitely anxiety. I had no idea what it was then I had no idea how to stop it. I like panic. I was like, Why would my brain slow down, but I didn't actually go in search of a cure. I just thought it was me. And then depression as well. If laughter goes because I was watching all those horror films a and also I would watch sad films because I wanted to feel through the film. I wanted to be jolted awake powerfully, and humour felt to divorced from who I was how my life was. And because I was living in a constant state of flight or fight or freeze, that the drama, replicated my internal so that felt comforting, and also the deep wallowing sadness of all of those love stories where someone would die like the recent Pride and Prejudice, no, not Pride and Prejudice, but was the one with Keira Knightley in where she had that there at that Manor. And she's in that gorgeous green dress. tragic love story. All of the tragic love stories would get me and they just gripped my heart and everything. So humour was not there. And unfortunately, I didn't know. And lots of people don't know how incredible a medicine laughter is. So I'll just run through some facts quickly, because I think that's important still. And then I'll talk about sort of my stories with it. Laughter actually, actually increases the oxygen flow to your heart, lungs and muscles. Are you live longer? And I know if lives seem depressing as all hell, but I'd actually thinking about longevity, we're just wanting to make the pain go away right now. If we can see past that end can imagine ourselves as having a happy life. Can you imagine if it turned around where we just get hold of happiness, fulfilment. And then because we haven't taken care of ourselves, we cut our life short, and don't have the time to experience all of the joy that we can do. So even if life looks bleak at the moment, let's make it long enough so that we give ourselves the most time possible to change it into a happy life. Because it is possible, I do believe it is possible. If you find the right resources, if you find the right coach, the right people to surround yourself with 1,000%, you can go from just plagued by anxiety and depression and sadness and turn it around. Laughter also calls down this chronic stress response. So again, I was listening to the Tony Robbins stuff, and he was talking about his state change stuff. So there's your state change in the moment. And that, that ties in with nervous system regulation and also emotional mastery. So being able to change your state, physiologically, will change your mental state. So he's got some very famous methods for doing that. And he's got his morning priming thing. There's a lot of stuff on YouTube that he shares, and some free audios. And also, he's got them on his podcast, I believe. And he will literally talk you through a morning priming. And you have to follow through like physically with what he's saying. So he'll say like, stand up stand tall, arms wide, because the opposite of anxiety and depression is standing tall chin up arms wide, taking up space believing that you're worth taking up space for as the opposite is anxiety and depression is you want to curl into a ball and hide because the you feel that you're small and you're not worthy of taking up space. So state changing can actually break you out of the habit and I say this carefully habit of anxiety and depression, the behaviours that we replicate on a daily basis to reaffirm those emotions and those states of sadness. So like anything that's a habit If you can create a state change, which is a short term change, you, you are on to a winner, you are really on to a winner, you can do other state changes, like screaming in the car, tapping I love, I've only found that thing to be about about a year from now. And it can just down regulate your stress response in your body in a space of 10 minutes. So, try lots of things out there, meditation won't do it, that's for you use that for something else I'm talking about state changes nervous system regulation, there's another one, I forget the name of it, where you you literally put your thumb in your mouth, and you block the airway and then blow out of it. So you're blowing against a stop. And that actually will, in turn activate your vagus nerve, which activates your parasympathetic nervous system. And that will get you out of fight or flight or freeze. Another very easy way of doing it. And this will just help you lower those chronic stress in your body lower your blood pressure and your heart rate. And make you feel better with not much effort at all as laughter How cool is that? It's it's the easiest one. I think, even though it'll feel strange, as you know, the best thing is, you can do it, even if you don't feel it, if you fake laugh, fake smile. There was a study I read somewhere that said, they gave some clinically depressed people the assignment of smiling for five minutes every day. And the control group didn't. And I think they're all on the same medication or no medication at all. And they actually felt physical changes and mental changes by doing just five minutes of smiling a day. So actually had a look earlier on my phone. I was like, What can I find? Song wise, and I suggest you do the same. And I'm not a huge Michael Buble fan, he can just wind me up a little bit. Sometimes suppose it's so cheesy. But I did find one song that he had. And I put it on a playlist and I called it morning smiling. And it's literally called when you're smiling by Michael Buble. And I thought what we could do is we could just smile. And I don't know look at a picture of family or friends or something that you love. And a song is only three minutes long. So I don't know, when you first start drinking your coffee in the morning, when you're waiting for the kettle to boil or something like that. If we can look at a picture that makes us really really happy, not sad, happy, put a song on whatever makes you smile and smile, we have to smile for the whole five minutes, it's gonna make our jaw cheeks hurt. But it can literally change your depression levels in your body. Because negative thoughts and chronic stretch strikes sorry, stretch actually create biochemical reactions in your body, it decreases your immunity. And so if you laughter actually reverses this, it increases the level of serotonin and decreases cortisol and adrenaline. So you can actually fight any of the horrible, nasty diseases that might come your way. Like God forbid you get something like cancer, it will actually help you fight cancer, fight. Outsiders fight any of those big horrible diseases, it's actually even been proven to increase your level of self esteem. So you might pluck up the courage or someone else to go and talk to your boss ask for a raise. And I mentioned earlier just like the serotonin in your body, like that's what we're on antidepressants for, you know, to artificially raise the level of serotonin in our body. I won't go much into it. But there are 14 different serotonin receptors in the body, and SSRIs antidepressants only target one to seven. So if you're low in the serotonin, there's actually eight to 14, they're going to do nothing for you and you won't feel any better. Whereas if you're making this yourself, it's in our gut, but also that's for another podcast but laughing will also raise your serotonin level, you are actually going to help yourself more than antidepressants have occurred. So how do we find it? Let's let's talk about what we can look out online. Like I read some articles about comfort, watching when the pandemic started, and they take us back to something that we know the plot of we know that we're not going to be stressed watching it and that's absolutely okay. But that's comfort watching. I want you to find something where you laugh And that's so different for everyone. There are four different types of humour. Okay, so first up is the stand up so they're bold, natural entertainers. They're unafraid to ruffle a few feathers for laughs I'm a huge fan of them if they start picking on people in the audience. I love people that take the piss out of our society as a whole, like Michael McIntyre. Trying to leave the house with kids like stuff like that. Just love it. Sweet hearts there. That's what they're called the earnest, understated tend to use humour, the lights the mood, like there's nothing really offensive about them. But you get the snipers that edgy, sarcastic, nuanced masters of the unexpected dig. And then finally, there's the magnet magnets are expressive, charismatic and not afraid to be silly. So the reason why I'm bringing this up is it's so important when we're looking after and trying to heal ourselves. Because it's very easy, very unique, very accessible way of building it into our lives. So maybe make a alarm to go off at seven o'clock when you'd normally sit down on the sofa, and 15 minutes half an hour just rather than just mindlessly watching. something you enjoy, enjoy. I want you to actually look for something that makes you laugh, smile, giggle at the screen and you will be changing your life in the easiest way possible. It's become so important and researched in psychology in by business. There's two ladies Jennifer Acker and Naomi bag Donna's I'm probably butchering her surname, but they created a course called humour serious business, to help students deliver their pre develop the appreciation of the role of humour in the workplace. And going on from that, like, people found that people that were actually funny at work, were seen as more confident. bosses were respected, more trusted more, and the camaraderie and the bond that it can make if you're laughing together. It just seemed to make them excel at business. Like one of my favourites is CEO Sara Blakely. She is the founder. Sorry, she's not CEO anymore. She stood down, but she is a billionaire. And she founded Spanx. I follow her on Instagram, and she's so unique and so goofy, and so her. Yet she's clearly a remarkably smart, incredible woman, her philanthropic efforts, let alone her business endeavours are in incredible. And she's funny, she's weird. I absolutely love it. And I think people sort of get drawn to her because of that. So laughter is the secret weapon in how we deal with life, especially when it gets stressful. It actually makes us more resilient to tensions and stresses of life. It creates bonds with people increase our trust, it lowers our anxiety and depression. So, if I was to offer you one thing this week, one thing that will just help us get through the worst times and get ready for the next bad time because they will come that's just part of life. But if you can shedule in daily laughter, learn to see the the absurdity sometimes of life rather than panicking, just laugh in the face of just the shitstorm that's been sent your way. Take yourself out of fight or flight or freeze daily. regulate the nervous system. You can't do any personal growth you can't see clearly you can't think clearly if you're filled with fear, it wipes out your creativity at work and outside. Think how much gross you could have if you could just learn to learn to laugh. So I've found laughter since I healed a lot of my trauma from when I was younger and the things that come up most when I think about it the moment I think Brazilian jujitsu was the best thing I could have done because you're gonna look stupid and you just have to release that ego attached with just looking silly and you're a beginner and stuff like that. And the biggest thing it gives me every day, I'm smiling and laughing at myself and with other people and rolling around on the floor fighting like a little kid who's just filled with joy. And the other thing I have to give credit to is my partner. He It makes me laugh every day. Mostly it's with the just insane nicknames he comes up with about me. I don't know where it gets them from, but they're amazing and they make me laugh every single day. So thank you, Dave. I'll sign off now. Let's go and find some laughter let's get better at humour. Let's bring it into our everyday and watch the magic happen