Rewire Your Brain: Think Your Way to a Better Life

Benefi ts of Laughter 
•
Improves cognitive function
•
Exercises and relaxes the muscles
•
Momentarily increases the heart rate and the blood pressure
•
Decreases the cortisol level
•
Increases natural killer cell activity
•
Alters gene expression
•
Stimulates dopamine
•
Increases longevity
It ’ s important that the type of humor you cultivate is positive. 
Negative humor, the kind of humor that belittles another person, 
is not wise, it ’ s petty. Positive humor, the kind of humor that looks 
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at light irony, metaphor, incongruity, and unbelievable believability, 
elevates rather than degrades. Cultivating positive humor enhances 
mental health. 
Psychological Benefi ts of Humor 
 
↓
 
Anxiety
 
↓
 
Stress
 
↓
 
Depression
 
↑
 
Self - esteem
 
↑
 
Energy and hope
 
↑
 
Sense of empowerment
Positive humor boosts the vitality of your thoughts and your emo-
tions and enhances your self - esteem and your ability to deal with 
stress, anxiety, and depression. 
Given all the health benefi ts that it provides, positive humor can 
be understood as an aspect of wisdom. So lighten up and be wise! 
Have a good laugh. It ’ s good for your brain.
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187
A
ngela came to see me after her primary care physician told her 
that he wouldn ’ t schedule a return appointment unless she saw 
a psychologist fi rst. He told me that he thought her problems were 
more psychological than physical. “ She seems to look for physical 
problems that don ’ t exist, then she obsesses about them. ”
After she sat down in my offi ce, the fi rst thing out of her mouth 
was, “ I don ’ t know what you are supposed to do for me. ” She then 
stared at me as if I had the answer. 
Instead of taking the bait and providing the expected wrong 
answer, I told her that I wished to help her, but I, too, needed to 
discover how I could be helpful. 
“ He says that my attitude makes me sick, ” she explained. 
When I asked for clarifi cation, Angela told me that she went to 
see her doctor for any type of ailment, even when she had a cough 
or a skin abrasion. She added that she was an avid daytime TV talk 
show viewer and that she watched the talk shows to “ learn what 
I can about how to stay healthy. ” After watching a television show on 
attention defi cit disorder, she worried that she needed to be treated 
9
The Mindful 
Attitude
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188 Rew i r e
Yo u r
B r a i n
for it — until there was a show on fi bromyalgia, and then she worried 
about that. She told me that she “ learned ” the most from medical 
shows like
ER
. “ I go to my doctor just so I know that I ’ m okay. Isn ’ t 
that what he ’ s for, to provide checkups? ” she inquired. “ But I doubt 
if he ’ s really taking me seriously. ”
“ It sounds as if doubting all the time increases your worrying, ”
I pointed out. 
“ Isn ’ t it better to be safe than sorry? ” Angela asked. 
“ Maybe worrying all the time causes your body to be unneces-
sarily stressed, ” I suggested, “ and maybe
that
is something to worry 
about. ” It was clear that she needed to shift her attention from wor-
rying about her health to fi guring out how she could improve her 
overall health by changing her attitude. The question in my mind 
was how I could stir up the motivation in her to make that shift in 
attention. Since anxiety seemed to be the underlying cause of her 
tendency to focus on the negative aspects of her health, I tapped 
into that to motivate her to pay attention to something she could 
change: her tendency to worry excessively about one health concern 
after another. She needed to understand the impact that excessive 
worrying was having on her body and her brain. I explained that the 
release of cortisol damages many body systems when an increased 
level is extreme and prolonged. 
Paradoxically, this information gave her something to really worry 
about: that she could be worrying too much. Her new worry was 
that she could be doing damage to her brain if her stress level 
was high enough and sustained over a long period. This motivated 
her to ask me about ways that she could prevent this from happen-
ing. “ What about my personality would make me so susceptible to 
such destructive forces? ” Angela wanted to know. 
I told her that her problem seemed to stem from jumping from 
one concern to another and not using her attentional capacity to 
stay focused. 
“ I ’ m focused on my health! ” she exclaimed, as if I hadn ’ t heard 
anything she said. 
“ You ’ re worried about your health, but you ’ re not doing anything 
to improve it, ” I noted. 
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Th e
M i n d f u l
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189
Angela shrugged her shoulders. She seemed to be ready to hear 
more, but she didn ’ t want to come right out and say it. 
We therefore started our work by addressing how she could apply 
her attention differently in her life. I asked her to be much more 
selective in what she watched on television, limiting her viewing to 
just a few programs. 
“ What ’ s wrong with TV? ” she asked, looking at me as if I were 
crazy. 
“ To begin with, it takes you away from being attentive to the 
present, ” I said. “ You ’ ve become a vicarious observer rather than a