THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF HUMOR AND LAUGHTER

Activities directors, caregivers, and healthcare professionals,here is some great information


Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals,


Your residents will love the Amazon Kindle Fire




Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be


Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care  professionals to get an easyceu or two


Follow alzheimersideas on twitter

The Dementia Caregiver's Little Book of Hope [Kindle Edition]

Helpguide.org

• Humor is infectious. The sound of roaring laughter is far

     more contagious than any cough, sniffle, or sneeze.

When laughter is shared, it binds people together and

increases happiness and intimacy. In addition to the domino

effect 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. 

Laughter is strong medicine for mind and body

Laughter is a powerful antidote to stress, pain, and conflict. Nothing works faster or more dependably to bring your mind and body back into balance than a good laugh. Humor lightens your burdens, inspires hopes, connects you to others, and keeps you grounded, focused, and alert.

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.

Laughter is good for your health

• Laughter relaxes the whole body. A good, hearty laugh relieves physical tension and stress, leaving your muscles relaxed for up to 45 minutes after.
• Laughter boosts the immune system. Laughter decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, thus improving your resistance to disease.
• Laughter triggers the release of endorphins, the body’s natural feel-good chemicals. Endorphins promote an overall sense of well-being and can even temporarily relieve pain.
• Laughter protects the heart. Laughter improves the function of blood vessels and increases blood flow, which can help protect you against a heart attack and other cardiovascular problems.

Laughter for those wiith Alzheimer's disease and related dementias is the best medicine

Activities directors, caregivers, and healthcare professionals,here is some great information

Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professionals,

Your residents will love the Amazon Kindle Fire

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care  professionals to get an easyceu or two

Follow alzheimersideas on twitter

What better way to put your dementia residents in a good mood than by making them laugh.
Here are a couple good riddles
Why did the chewing gum cross the road?
It was stuck to the leg of a chicken !!!

What did the egg say to the other egg?
Let's get cracking!

click below for jokes and riddles sure to make all laugh http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/games/riddles/jokes/jokes-galore/index.htm

Laugh with Limericks (Part 2)

Activities directors, caregivers, and healthcare professionals,here is some great information


Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals,


Your residents will love the Amazon Kindle Fire




Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be


Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care  professionals to get an easyceu or two


Follow alzheimersideas on twitter

The Dementia Caregiver's Little Book of Hope [Kindle Edition]

The first two are baseball limericks


Baseball


If pitching a shutout is one of your goals
Show batters your pinpoint ______
Finesse them ________
But whatever you do
Don’t hang a curveball _______




Baseball Caps


Baseball caps are meant for _______
When after fly balls you're _______.
But worn ______
Only by ________
And those who lack an _________.


There once was a pauper named Meg
Who accidentally broke her _______.
She slipped on the ______.
Not once, but ______
Take no pity on her, I __________.


The artist who's working in wood
Must be certain her handtools are ____
For if those knives be ____
It's certain she'll ____
Over blood spilled for her ______.


Describe a librarian's day?
Peaceful and quiet, you___
There is one thing it ____
Back there in the stacks____
And that thing is more decent ____.


The secret of love is the power
To weather the sweet and the _____
Your joy will not _____
With love as your ______
Through sunshine and through _______.

Soup Humor

Activities directors, caregivers, and healthcare professionals,here is interesting information
Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professionals,

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be


It is always good to make those with dementia and other long term care residents laugh. With that I bring you

Soup Humor

• He's the only man I ever knew who had rubber pockets so he could steal soup. (Wilson Mizner)
• You ever wonder if illiterate people get the full effect of alphabet soup? (John Mendoza)
• He found a great way to eat his wife's soup. He pretends it's mud. (Milton Berle)
• I once cut my mouth on my wife's soup. (Milton Berle)
• She loves to make soup--especially cream of yesterday. (Milton Berle)
• I cast my bread upon the waters tonight. Of course my wife claimed it was soup.
• Everything she cooks turns out tough. Can anyone lend me a soup knife?
• A physicist, a chemist, and an economist are stranded on an island with nothing to eat. A can of soup washes ashore. The physicist says, "Let's smash the can open with a rock." The chemist says, "Let's build a fire and heat the can first." The economist says, "Let's assume that we have a can-opener."
• I put instant soup in a microwave and almost went back in time."
• "I make soup so thick that when I stir it, the room goes round."
• "We were eating in this open-air café when it started raining. It took us an hour and a half to finish our soup."
• "She's such a noisy eater that when she started on the soup, six people got up and started doing the polka."
• guy goes into a restaurant and orders soup from a waitress. The waitress goes into the kitchen and the man passes his time waiting by looking out the window. When the waitress returns, he says, "Looks like rain." The waitress says, "Yeah, but it's soup!!" (Thanks to Doug Bonner of Fuzhou, China, for the cite.)

Soup Humor (part 3)

Activities directors, caregivers, and healthcare professionals,here is interesting information
Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals,

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here are more interesting dementia brain boosting activities

It is always good to make those with dementia and other long term care residents laugh. With that I bring you

Soup Humor(part 3)

• I put instant soup in a microwave and almost went back in time. (Steven Wright)
• I make soup so thick that when I stir it, the room goes round.
• We were eating in this open-air café when it started raining. It took us an hour and a half to finish our soup.
• She's such a noisy eater that when she started on the soup, six people got up and started doing the polka.
• Some of the stuff that stares out of gumbo should not be allowed out except for Halloween. (Steve Epstein)
• I don't want to panic, but my alphabet soup says, "Forget about me...just try to save yourself." (Tom Wilson)
• He's so meticulous he eats his alphabet soup in alphabetical order. (Mitch Murray, 60's songwriter turned speechwriter)
• When their little boy wouldn't speak, mom and dad took him to the doctor, who was also baffled. Finally one day the boy said, "My soup is too cold." His parents were ecstatic. "Why haven't you spoken to us up to now?" "Because the soup was never too cold before."



)

Soup Humor (part 2)

Activities directors, caregivers, and healthcare professionals,here is interesting information
Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals,

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here are more interesting dementia brain boosting activities

It is always good to make those with dementia and other long term care residents laugh. With that I bring you

Soup Humor(part 2)

• Why do the New England Patriots eat their soup on a plate? Because bowls make them choke!!! (Thanks to Ryan Campbell for his timely joke on Superbowl XLII, New England Patriots v. New York Giants.)
• You know what's good about sheep's head broth? Its eyes will see you through the week.
• What's Martha Stewart's recipe for chicken soup? First, boil the chicken then dump the stock.
• "How did the cannibal cook respond when complimented on his soup?" "It's all relatives."
• "When is rabbit soup not good?" "When there's a hare in it."
• "Do you like day-old soup?" "Yes, I do." "Well, come back tomorrow, then." (Attributed to the wife of a wealthy Canadian philanthropist)
• "Who is the head of a soup factory?" "Souperman" (7-year-old Californian Marguerite, bless her heart)
• "How you make gold soup?" "With 22 carrots."
• "A bowl of alphabet soup a day is good for the vowels." (Mitch Murray, 60's songwriter turned speechwriter)
• "Wonton disregard: negligently serving hot noodle soup" (L.A. Times, 4/16/02)
• "What do ducks have for lunch?" "Soup and quackers"
• "Never darken my Dior again" (Canadian actress, when a waiter at Buckingham Palace spilled soup on her dress)
• When is soup musical? When it's piping hot.
• On bad movies: "Better films have formed atop day-old soup."
• "At the Olympics, Mormon president Gordon B. Hinckley met with President Bush and the First Lady and declared them both from 'good stock.' Does he mean, like, soup?" (Ron C. Judd, Seattle Times).
• What do you call 2,000 pounds of Chinese Soup? Won Ton.
• You know how movies always have sex scenes and the studios say that is because sex is part of life and movies should be lifelike? So why don't movies have more soup scenes? Soup is part of life; no one was ever too tired to have soup.... (Jackie Mason, in The World According to Me--many thanks to Louis S. for the contribution).
• I went to a restaurant that serves "lunch at any time." So I ordered bean soup during the Renaissance." (Stephen Wright)
• "What's the difference between roast beef and pea soup?" "Anyone can roast beef."
• A retired printer went into the restaurant business. One day one of his customers cried, "This is an outrage--there's a needle in this soup!" "Merely a typographical error, sir," said the printer, "should have been 'noodle.'"
• When Marilyn Monroe was married to Arthur Miller, she got tired of his mother always serving matzo ball soup. "Gee, Arthur," she said after the tenth time, "These matzo balls are pretty nice, but isn't there any other part of the matzo you can eat?"
• Checking the menu, a restaurant customer ordered a bowl of vegetable soup. After a couple spoonsful, he saw a circle of wetness right under the bowl on the tablecloth. He called the waitress over and said, "It's all wet down here. The bowl must be cracked." The waitress said, "You ordered the vegetable soup, didn't you?" "Yes," he replied. "Well, maybe it has a leek in it." (Milton Berle)
• The cannibal wiped his mouth daintily and said, "My wife makes great soup. But I'll miss her."
• "Yes, I know fish is brain food, but I don't care much for fish. Isn't there some other brain food?" "Well, there's noodle soup."
• "Will you join me in a bowl of soup?" "Is it big enough for both of us?"
• "What do you call a chicken in a hot tub?" "Soup."
• Bill and Hillary Clinton were at a restaurant. The waitress asked Hillary for her order. She said, "I'll have the onion soup and the chicken dinner." The waitress said, "what would you like for your vegetable?" Hillary said, "He can order for himself."
• "What is Dracula's favorite soup?" "Scream of tomato."
• "What does a dragon eat with soup?" "Firecrackers."
• "What do firemen put in their soup?" "Firecrackers."
• "Is chicken soup good for your health?" "Not if you're the chicken."
• "What does pea soup taste like when it gets cold?" "I don't know. Who would eat cold pea soup?"

Laughter is the best medicine: Easy Riddles

Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals,

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here are more interesting dementia brain boosting activities

Get your subscription to Activity Director Today's e magazine

Here are some riddles that are sure to make you and your residents laugh

Can you spell eighty in two letters?
A-T.

Did you hear the story about the skunk?
Never mind, it stinks.

How can you double your money?
Look at it in a mirror.

How can you make seven even?
Take away the letter S.
How can you name the capital of every U.S. state in two seconds?
Washington, D.C.

How do you file a nail?
Under the letter N.

How do you make a lemon drop?
Hold it and then let go.

How does a baby ghost cry?
"Boo-hoo! Boo-hoo!"

How does a broom act?
With sweeping gestures.

How does a fireplace feel?
Grate! (Great!)

Enjoyable reading for People with Dementia

Activities directors, caregivers, and healthcare professionals,here is interesting information
Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals,

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here are more interesting dementia brain activities

Spark of Life



People who have dementia enjoy reading simple, little one-liner sayings such as Affirmations and Life Wisdoms, which seem to feed their souls and lift their spirits. They also respond to Riddle Jokes with a smile and a laugh, and Proverbs bring the joy of recognition.

Even people with severe dementia, who communicate mainly through actions and facial expressions, show joy in reading such sayings or having them read to them.

Here are some examples:

Affirmations:
I am safe and I am free.
I stand here with pride.
My feelings are important.
Life Wisdoms:

The most important thing in life is to keep breathing.
The best knowledge comes from inside.
Forgiveness is an act of the heart.
Riddle Jokes:

(Jokes are extremely culturally specific and may need to be adapted to suit individuals.)

How do you make an orange turn over?...Tickle its navel!
What did the puppy say when it sat on the sandpaper?…Ruff, ruff!
What has fifty heads and no brains?...A box of matches!
Proverbs:

United we stand - divided we fall!
As you sow…so shall you reap!
A watched pot never boils!
Here are some suggestions on how to use these sayings with people who have dementia.

Create a ritual around your mealtime where people can take turns to read ‘Today’s Saying’.

Lift their spirit by sitting down with the person who has dementia and reading some of the sayings. Ask them, ‘How does that make you feel?’ or ‘What does this make you think of?’

Give a special saying to make that person feel really special or to give them a laugh.