Laughter is a powerful antidote to stress, pain, and conflict. Nothing more precisely or quite as fast to bring your mind and body back into balance than a good laugh (aside from medication). Humor lightens your mind, makes your burdens seem bearable. It connects you with others, inspires hope and helps to keep you not only focused and alert, but also grounded.Humor is also infectious. Nothing is more infectious than the sound of a roaring laugh. It is more contagious than any cough, sniffle, or sneeze could be.  When laughter is shared, it binds people together and increases not only happiness but intimacy as well. It can have the domino effect of creating the feelings of joy and amusement.Laughter also triggers healthy physical changes in the body. Humor and laughter strengthen your immune system, boost your energy, diminish pain, and protect you from the damaging effects of stress. Best of all, this priceless medicine is fun, free, and easy to use.

The million dollar question we all want the answer to is how do you learn to find the humor in life? Especially it feels like life is handing you tacky lemons? There are lots of ways you can develop, or refine your sense of humor, and it is a lot easier than you may think.

• Make Humor a Focal Point. Find a few simple items, such as funny comic strips or photos that make you giggle. Hang them up at home or in your office– where you will see them often. Take a 5 minute “funny bone break” and watch funny clips or shows you remember from your childhood.  Add some of your favorite comedians to your iPod to shuffle through when you need a good laugh break.
• Everything is Funny– You just have to find it. Even the most stressful situations can be funny– it’s just all in how you choose to look at them. Allow yourself to feel the anger, pain or stress. Then try to find the one funny thing from the situation and focus on that. By doing that you will feel your stress start to fade away and your outlook on life start to change. Even if it feels forced at first, practice laughing. It does your body good.
• Share a laugh. Make it a habit to spend time with friends who make you laugh. And then return the favor by sharing funny stories or jokes with those around you.
• Knock-knock. Nothing is funnier than hearing a good joke. Especially when it’s well delivered. Browse through your local bookstore’s selection of joke books and get a few rib ticklers in your repertoire that you can share with friends.
• Know what isn’t funny. Never laugh at the expense of others. Some forms of humor are not appropriate. Use your best judgment to discern a good joke from a bad, or hurtful one.

With so much power to heal and renew, the ability to laugh easily and frequently is a tremendous resource for surmounting problems, enhancing your relationships, and supporting both physical and emotional health.

For most people, finding an extra hour, a babysitter and then the motivation to get the gym everyday is difficult. However, most everyone has those basic things around the house that needs getting done, so why not do those chores AND get some exercising in?It has been proven that if you just get up and move for 15 minutes a day, you can increase your life expectancy by up to three years. That is a lot of time to add to your quality of life simply by getting up and moving– and then if you add a little more to your daily routine, you can become healthy and live longer. Win Win for everyone.

Here are few more ideas on basic things you can do in 15 minutes or less that will help tone your body and get your household chores done.

1. A Basic Push Up that you can do at your sink, countertop (while waiting for that dinner to finish) or at the changing table. Every time you throw a dish in the sink, or when you’re at your changing table, make a little rule for yourself “I’m going to do 5-10 Basic Push ups every time I do ____”. It will take you less than 5 minutes and you will get a fantastic workout.

Here is how:
Place your hands on your counter top while keeping your back and neck in a straight line. Slowly bring your chest to the counter while keeping your abs tight. Come up and repeat. Remember to keep your neck straight in line with your spine, and your abs tight.

2. Wax On/Wax Off – we all have showers that need cleaning, tables that need dusting. floors that need moping and windows that need cleaning. Whenever you do these chores, pull out your inner Mr. Miyagi and use wax on/wax off in exaggerated motions. This firms up your arm muscles and works that flabby area. If you keep your back straight and tighten your ab muscles at the same time, you can add to this “chore workout.”

While you are on all fours, moping the floor with your exaggerated Mr. Miyagi moves, do your leg lifts behind you. You will work back quad muscles, and your bum WHILE you clean your floor.

3. The bathrooms are a great place to begin cleaning. And exercising.  Scrub the bathtub by cleaning the tile with long sweeping motions. Exaggerate the movement up and down until you feel the burn. Get on your knees to scrub the tub, and use long motions back and forth to work the arms and shoulders. As you clean the toilet bowl and sink, use round circular movements with your arms. After you finish cleaning, stretch by raising your arms above your head.

4. Vacuuming and Lunging. Just plain old vacuuming is so last year. To be hip and cool, you should be vacuuming AND lunging. Make sure your knees do not go lower than your toes. Also make sure your shoulders are square and your stomach is tight.

5. Push Mow your Lawn. I know. That’s a total drag, but if you do that 1x a week for just 15 minutes you are getting not only a cardio workout, but a strength training one as well. It works your upper arms (holding the mower and pushing) and your legs. You can even take it one step further and Lunge WHILE you mow. The neighbors might get a kick out of watching you and you might look a little silly, but your body will look amazing.

Did you miss the first list?  Find it here.

Most of us are faced with simple choices, that when used correctly, could improve a persons life expectancy.  In a recent study, it was proven that just 15 minutes a day of exercise could add up to three years to a persons life expectancy. Each additional 15 minutes of daily exercise (up to 100 minutes a day) can also reduce the risk of death by an additional 4%. People who get 30 minutes of activity a day can add about four extra years to their life expectancy. Would you make the simple choices necessary to increase your life expectancy? Most people would.  So, what are  those simple, easy choices that could be so beneficial?1. Taking the stairs instead of riding the escalator/elevator. This simple task, while taking a little while longer, could potentially add up over the day to be more than 15 minutes a day. Taking the stairs, in the middle of the work day, can count as exercise and be the needed “wake up” to help get your brain circulating again.

2. Parking at the back of the parking lot and walking to the store. While it is easier, and more desirable to park closer, simply parking further away from the entrance to the store can also count as exercise and be beneficial. Especially when you are pushing your shopping cart full of groceries back out to the car– parked at the back of the parking lot. It’s a simple, easy way to exercise AND get your errands done.

3. Squats – Most everyone talks on the phone at some point during the day. While you’re shooting the breeze with your mother, why not do 3 repetitions (10 each) of squats?

Squats are where you keep your back straight and bend your knees until you are in a sitting position. Repeat this 10 times. It’s an excellent way to chat on the phone and tone your thigh muscles at the same time.

4. Do lunges while vacuuming (keep toes pointed straight ahead, and don’t bend your knees further than 90 degrees). You’ll feel it in your thighs.

5. Bath Tub Bench Press. You know that obnoxious skin that can wave at people in two, different directions? This simple exercise is one you can do while you’re bathing the kids.

• Face away from the bathtub and place your arms behind you on the tub’s edge, keeping them straight.
• Bend your knees and make sure your legs are shoulder width apart.
• Keeping your abs tight, and shoulders down, slowly bend your elbows and bring your tush down, without touching the floor.
• Hold for a count of one then come up slowly as you straighten your arms.
• Do this 10 times. If you can do another set, then repeat for an additional count of ten.

Check back on Wednesday when we will have more simple tricks that you can do while you’re doing your every day thing.

Do you have any “exercises” that you do while doing other chores? Share those in the comments below.