Happiness: Laughter is the Best Medicine

by Mom It Forward on April 11th, 2011 | No Comments »

This week's Season of Service challenge involves helping others laugh, out loud. A man named George Gordon Byron once said that laughter is "cheap medicine." Let us all be inexpensive doctors then.

10 Tips to Help Others LOL

Tickle your toddler the next time you're at the grocery store. Of course, that makes him or her laugh, and anyone who hears the sound of a child's laughter inevitably laughs, or at least smiles, too.
Put on a silly puppet show for your kids when they get home from school.
Watch a funny movie (I recommend Nacho Libre) with your family tonight. There is nothing better than laughing together.
Buy an inexpensive bunch of flowers and pass them out to friends or co-workers.
Put together a Secret Easter Bunny, or Secret Santa if you're really planning ahead, gift exchange with friends, fellow book club members, or co-workers, but with a difference. Each person picks a name from a hat and envisions the recipient as a child. The toys you exchange will give you all a good laugh and when you're done, collect up all the toys and donate them to a local children's nonprofit.
Slip a joke in your husband's lunchbox.
Go to OperationBeautiful.com, then put a happy, anonymous post-it note in a random public place.
Eat at a vegetarian restaurant listed on HappyCow.net.
Bake some brownies, spread some Nutella (yummm!) on them in the shape of a happy face, and take them to a neighbor.
Play hopscotch outside for at least 15 minutes

How Will You Give to Others This Week?

What other ideas do you have for helping others laugh?
How has laughing made a meaningful difference for you this week?
How have others made you laugh this week and what difference has that made in your life?

How Else Can You Make a Difference This Season?

Make a meaningful difference this season by taking the Season of Service (SOS) Challenge. Here's how you can participate:

Commit to do one act of kindness/service based on the week's challenge.
Leave a comment with ideas relating to the week's challenge as well as your experience(s) performing it.
Enter to win each week's giveaway. Check out this week's prizes from Frito-Lay by clicking here.
Join #gno this Tuesday on Twitter to connect with other Mom It Forward moms about the challenge.

What other ideas do you have for helping others laugh? How has laughing made a meaningful difference for you this week? How have others made you laugh this week and what difference has that made in your life?