Science: Can DANCING cure depression?

Olivia Hebert, LA based correspondent (The Independent, 2/22/24); Fall Out Boy, "Dance Dance"; Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly

Scientists calculated how much exercise we need to 'offset' a day of sitting (ScienceAlert)

I was like this. Then I got up, started moving...

What did the ancients know that we have forgotten? They, too, had bodies like this, only they used them. They moved them. They kept them moving, particularly in patterned, synchronized ways with others.

and someone saw me and joined in.

Social dancing, or even isolated moving around, seems to get the mind going rather than stagnating, ruminating, and falling into an abysmal emotional state. Release. Move. Reach catharsis. And most of all, have fun.

This just in: scientific discovery made by eggheads in a lab wearing white coats and very stiffly avoiding physical contact: New study says dancing is the best exercise to combat depression.*

It's not just for the kids, Agnes! - Oh, you're right, Herbert. I feel better already! Ha ha ha!

Wait, White Man only now figuring out it's joyful to move to drumbeat and feel elation?

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Kathleen and Bree use yoga, dance, breath, sound

At Yogini Bree's Process Class, we always have a component of freeform dancing, just jumping around with some Huhs!. Guess she was onto something even without a science degree and university lab.

Even Johann Hari saw that there was something wrong in the way our civilization -- motivated by capitalist Big Pharma corporations to keep us sick and dependent on symptom alleviation -- was approaching the darkest emotionally fraught mental illness from which we suffer.

Why You're Depressed: How...

The corporations were never going to solve, never going to let a "cure" get out their and ruin their business plans.

There's a cure for diabetes, too, but one never hears about it. It's nutritional, getting enough natural chromium GTF (not fake picolinate) grown on nutritional yeast. Yeast overgrowth a problem?

There are cures for candida and other gut issues. Reforming the diet to leave out all the depression-inducing (after a little false pick-me-up from) processed sugars and starches like white flour and all gluten.

Are We Addicted to Feeling Bad?

These things are available from criticalhealthnews.com, which came up with a product it calls "Sweet Ease" particularly for diabetics and prediabetics.

But who the Hades would want that if allopathic sorcery medicine promises us that we can just pop overpriced synthetic chemical in pill form to overwork our livers instead?

• What does the latest scientific study reveal and say about exercise?

New study says dancing is best exercise to combat depression

What can dancing possibly offer a human?

(The Independent) A new study indicates that dancing is one of the best forms of treatment for depression.

Australian researchers have published a study that shows that the best form of exercise to treat depression is dancing, beating out several exercises including yoga, walking, jogging, tai chi, and strength training among others.

The meta study aimed to identify what kind of exercise would be best for treating major depressive disorder, either in tandem with another treatment or compared to the [commonplace and failed] prescription of psychotherapy and antidepressants.

Through 218 different studies with 14,170 participants, the researchers found that moderate reductions were made across the board with exercise, more so than simply prescribing participants with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) or cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). More

Psychedelics psilocybin (magic mushrooms), DMT, ketamine (Special K) also help (MAPS).

Moving with Joy: Laughter Yoga demo

Meetup L. (Meetup); Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), CC Liu (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

There’s a great way to boost spirits: a hearty laugh. In this Meetup Live event, we’re combining joy and exercise with a beginner-friendly demonstration of Laughter Yoga.

Join Meetup Live for a lively session of movement and fun with Celeste Greene, a certified laughter yoga teacher and US laughter ambassador.

During this demonstration, you'll enjoy a series of exercises designed to get you moving, breathing, and laughing. You will learn about the history and health benefits of this practice. No equipment is necessary. Be sure to stay for the Q&A.

• Moving with Joy: Laughter Yoga Demo, Tue, Mar 14, 2023, 3:00 PM | Meetup

AGENDA

• Introduction (5 mins)
• Laughter Yoga demo (40 mins)
• Q&A session (15 mins)

ABOUT: Celeste Greene is the director of Celeste Greene Laughs. She is a certified laughter yoga teacher and US laughter ambassador. For over a decade, she has facilitated interactive presentations that get groups on their feet laughing and connecting. She has presented at TEDx Centennial Park Women and to numerous clients in a variety of industries. Her work has been featured in a variety of media outlets including Forbes.com, CNN, and Psychology Today. She leads a free public Laughter Yoga class on Zoom twice a week. She also trains others to facilitate Laughter Yoga in her in-person and online Certified Laughter Yoga Leader Training program. Check out the Community Matters blog for the recording, the latest updates, and stories from the Meetup community.

The Laughing Jesus

This event is online. Install Zoom: zoom.us/download. Space is limited, so reserve a seat. The dial in link will become available after RSVP to the event. Also, don’t worry about a password; it’s embedded in the link. Sign in if logged on to the same email address as the RSVP.

Have a question for our Community Support team? Contact them from the Help Center: meetup.com/lp/community-support.

Members participating in Meetup Live events must be respectful in interactions with people and in content posted on the platform. Meetup monitors and restricts behaviors that are inappropriate or disruptive, undermine the integrity of the platform, violate personal boundaries, or serve to intentionally upset people. Meetup reserves the right to remove members content from the site that violates Terms of Service, including Usage and content policies.

• Eighteen female guards at 'Britain's cushiest jail' fired for having illicit affairs with inmates | Daily Mail Online

International Joke Day (July 1)

NationalToday.com; Dad Jokes; Norm Macdonald (SNL); Stuart Petty; Eds., Wisdom Quarterly

Because, he wants to be at one with!

The Dalai Lama went into a pizza joint and stared at the long menu. The waiter asked, "What can I do for you?" The Dalai Lama replied, "Make me one with everything." (Insert laugh track.)

So begins another International Joke Day on July 1. Where would any of us be without jokes and laughter to brighten our lives? They can help any situation. This July 1st all are invited to take time out of the day to recognize the important job humor plays in keeping stress at bay, building relationships, and bringing levity to a world that badly needs it.

(Stuart Petty Media) If this guy can do it...memorize and try 61 clean jokes.

Be sure not to confuse the purpose of International Joke Day with April Fools’ Day. The two couldn’t be further apart. July 1st is all about getting a grin out of a best friend, sharing a laugh on social media, and appreciating the stand up comics who have left us in stitches for decades.

Speaking of stitches, that reminds me: I asked the doctor the other day if I’d be able to play the piano once I got my stitches removed. “Yes,” he told me, “I mean, why not?” “Well,” I replied, “it's just that I wasn’t able to before.”

Dads do it! (Do not try this at home)

International Joke Day Activities

Send a funny emoji to make a smile.

1. Support live comedy: One of the best ways to celebrate International Joke Day is to head out to a comedy club in the area, support the club and its comedians, and get a hearty dose of laughter while there. Perhaps it’s a small, local club with up-and-coming comics, or an establishment that attracts top talent. Either way, support means we’ll have a steady stream of one-liners rolling out for years.

2. Learn a joke: Telling a good joke is a lot harder than memorizing a few words. It takes timing, reading the audience, delivery, articulation, and experience. So why not take this lockdown holiday as an opportunity to learn -- and practice -- telling a joke? Consider the context in which to use it, practice the delivery, and test it out on friends. If it floats, there’s a joke to put in the back pocket to pull out at any awkward dinner party.

3. Take a break from the news: In today’s 24-hour news cycle, it’s sometimes overwhelming to try to keep up. For one day, like July 1st, perhaps try avoiding the news and instead read humor pieces in any of the country’s leading newspapers. Or of course find the internet’s best comedy on sites like Reddit, Buzzfeed, The Onion, or any of the many sources. Who knows what could be accomplished if we all share a good, sidesplitting laugh even if just for a day. More

World Laughter Day (video)

Dhr. Seven, Seth Auberdon, Wisdom Quarterly; WorldLaughterDay.com; LaughterYoga.org

World Laughter Day is a FREE event celebrated in Los Angeles on the first Sunday of May since 2005 at the initiative of Sebastien Gendry, creator of the Laughter Wellness method.

Thich Nhat Hanh (tinybuddha.com)

It started in India in 1998 and now takes place in all the world's major capitals and many other cities.

The aim is to promote intentional laughter with its many healing benefits to raise awareness about the thousands of community laughter clubs around the world.

• Several listed below are in the Los Angeles area.

Everybody knows laughing and hugging feel good. Few realize how valuable these simple tools can be in improving everyday well-being.

Laughter cannot heal or solve anything, but it can help to heal and dissolve everything.

In a gloomy economic climate, we need to lighten up. We need it more than ever. Laughter is an expression of a positive and powerful emotion. It has all the ingredients required for individuals to change themselves and to change the world in a peaceful way. More

Science: Laughter Really is Good Medicine

(SkypeLaughterChain.com) A contagious language we all understand that brings us closer.

Scientists Hint at Why Laughter Feels So Good
Text by James Gorman (New York Times, Sept. 13, 2011)

Laughter is regularly promoted as a source of health and well being, but it has been hard to pin down exactly why laughing until it hurts feels so good. The answer, reports Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary psychologist at Oxford, is not the intellectual pleasure of cerebral humor, but the physical act of laughing.... ha, ha, ha... endorphins... “Laughter is very weird stuff, actually”... laughter contributes to group bonding and may have been important in the evolution of highly social humans. Social laughter, Dr. Dunbar suggests, relaxed and contagious, is “grooming at a distance,” an activity that fosters closeness in a group the way one-on-one grooming, patting and delousing promote and maintain bonds between individual primates of all sorts. More

In search of the world's funniest joke

Wisdom Quarterly (INVESTIGATION)

Monty Python introduces the theoretical consequences if such a joke were ever found before science reveals the answer. "Laughter is the best medicine," of course. And those benefits obtain even if the laughter, at first, is forced. This explains the growing popularity of Laughter Yoga. Prof. Richard Wiseman explains the submission and voting process that collected 40,000 jokes. Buddhism is wonderful because it keeps its sense of humor in the face of all.

Prof. Wiseman explains comedy to comedian Lewis Black (History Channel)

• "The Jerry Seinfeld of Buddhism": Ajahn Brahm
• Wes Nisker's crazy cosmos, the levity in Buddhism
• VIDEO: Arj Barker's "The Sickest Buddhist"
• Comedy Central: Jokes about Buddhists
• BUDDHIST JOKES the Dalai Lama doesn't get
  

Jokes.com
Arj Barker - Sickest Buddhist
comedians.comedycentral.com
Jokes Joke of the Day Funny Jokes

A Colbert-Style Report: Comedy with News

Wisdom Quarterly, Colbert Nation, The Buddhist Blog, Dr. Robert Jacobs

Stephen Colbert on "blogger and journal-ish" Breitbart on Weiner on crotch-shots on Comedy Central (Huffington Post)

Living in a topsy-turvy world is easy -- as long as our sense of humor remains intact. That's not always easy. To keep smiling, to start laughing, is a blessing.

It takes not only an open mind but a throbbing heart. The heart opens, the mind opens. The marriage of compassion and wisdom is no mismatched pairing.

There are are growing number of intelligent comedians thriving in the the Bush-catastrophe era we are still living in with Barack O'Bush, who has done so much to keep and promote not only the policies of the Cheney-Bush administration but also its key players.

Why argue about revolution when things are worse than ever with a much nicer face on it? How I wished we could have a black president. I never bargained for a (shsssssh) sad "sell out."

The Colbert Report, Family Guy, American Dad, The Onion, The Daily Show, SNL (Seth Meyers), YouTube, The Young Turks, Bill Maher, Go Harrison-Jimmy Dore-David Feldman (KPFK radio progressive news comedians), Amy Sedaris, David Sedaris, This American Life... there are many options, many opportunities to laugh.

Buddhism has many comedians: Ajahn Brahm, Nes Wisker, Roshi Albrizze, Ashley Wells, and even the British Western-Thai-Theravada-tradition monk Ajahn Sumedho, who wrote a book titled Who We Really Are, which explains:

Laughter is Great Medicine for self-obsession

The Buddhist Blog

"Now one of the big problems in meditation is that we can take ourselves too seriously.

"We can see ourselves as religious people dedicated towards serious things, such as realizing truth.

"We feel important; we are not just frivolous or ordinary people, going about our lives, just going shopping in the supermarket and watching television.

"Of course this seriousness has advantages; it might encourage us to give up foolish activities for more serious ones.

"But the process can lead to arrogance and conceit: a sense of being someone who has special moral precepts or some altruistic goal, or of being exceptional in some way, having come onto the planet as some kind of messiah.

It's a kind of pride that can make human beings lose all perspective; so we need humor to point to the absurdity of our self-obsession."

James: I laugh a lot when I meditate, especially when that sneaky ego creeps in with the "spiritual materialism" of smugness, arrogance, and pride of feeling like I'm something special because I'm meditating, because I'm a "Buddhist," or because I'm feeling like I "get it." It is as if there is something to "get" (shaking head and chuckling). It's more like there is something to lose [to abandon, to let go of]. Namely, the very ego that wants to acquire. More

Kirlionics diagnoses and heals diseases

• Dr. Rife (also) cured cancer with frequencies
• Kirlionics cures cancer and other diseases in Space Age
• What is "electronic harassment"? (bugsweeps.com)

Laughter and Buddhism
This May I will travel to France to present a paper on Laughter and Buddhism. The meeting is that of philosophers interested in comparative work between Western and Eastern philosophies. The topic this time is "Laughter: East and West."

PICTURES: Buddhist wonders from Tegis Photography

India Adventure

Home of Buddhism, India's amazing diversity offers a spectacular adventure to intrepid travelers. From the moment one sets foot in the holy land to be greeted by a gentle Namaste, a gesture denoting both welcome and respect, one is in for an extremely rewarding life experience.

Bounded by the majestic Himalayan ranges in the north and a spectacular coastline on three seas, India is a vivid kaleidoscope of landscapes, magnificent historical sites, and royal cities. There are golden beaches, misty mountain retreats, colorful people, a rich tapestry of commingling cultures and constant festivities.

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Throughout the year India offers a dazzling array of destinations and festivals. In the summer as the subcontinent is sizzling, there are spectacular retreats amidst the heady beauty of the Himalayas and the lush heights of the Western Ghats with cool trekking trails, magnificent peaks to conquer, and stretches of white water for thrill seekers.

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In the cool Indian winter, cities come alive with cultural fests full of music and dance. The balmy weather is an ideal time for era-hopping in romantic cities studded with medieval forts and palaces. The sun drenched beaches are inviting and wildlife sanctuaries with their abundance of flora and fauna are abuzz.

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Taste the delights of the Indian monsoon season anywhere in the country -- on a camel safari in the Rajasthan desert when nature comes alive and the peacocks dance, along the west coast where the relentless slanting rain colors the countryside in brilliant greens or hiking into the stark grandeur of mountain valleys lying in the rain shadow of the Himalayas.

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Experience exotic India: live like a maharaja in the rich ambiance of opulent royal forts and palaces that have now been converted into heritage hotels. Lounge in the serene beauty of a coral island alongside a turquoise lagoon. Participate in the exuberance of a village fair or a colorful festival. Daydream on a houseboat drifting down palm-fringed backwaters or gliding over Lake Dal in war torn Kashmir (never mind the soldiers). Delight in the graceful movements of a dancer or shop on the cheap for exquisite fabrics, carved figurines, brass and silverware, marble inlaid with semi-precious stones, finely handcrafted jewelry, miniature paintings, and carpets.

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India, always warm and inviting, is a place of infinite variety -- one that favors travelers with a different facet of its ever changing customs and fascinating customs. Steer clear of Bombay (Mumbai), its Jewish and business capital, with its Zoroastrians (Parsis) and "sky burials," its rat catchers and Laughing Yoga. Or if all this sounds like too much, break out the hand sanitizer and rent a film like The Fall or Out of India.