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VLog #66 – Is Having Fun Good for your Mental Health?

David Logan 4,378 Comments

Video – VLog #66

Is it good to have fun?

What is the best way to have fun?

Is fun a human need?

Script – VLog #66

David Logan: Hi and welcome to another week of The Techno Dinosaur Meets The I.T. Geek; the Techno Dinosaur being over there; the I.T. Geek, me, in the casual wear.

David Logan: My name is David Logan, based here in Annan, south west of Scotland, United Kingdom. With me today is Willie Nicol, the Techno Dinosaur. So, Willie, how are you and where are you today?

Willie Nicol: Hi David, I am very well, thanks for asking. I am Willie Nicol, the Techno Dinosaur, so named because of my being technologically challenged. I’m also a personal development life coach. I’m based in Troon, South Ayrshire, Scotland, U.K.

David Logan: And, as I said, I’m the I.T. Geek who can help people like yourself Willie, who are technically challenged. Hence the reason you and I got together at the start, well over a year ago, Willie.

Willie Nicol: Quite so, yes.

David Logan: So, following on from where we have been going week in and week out …. Question for you this week Willie. Is it good to have fun?

Willie Nicol: Well, the short answer is David …. absolutely yes. Having fun has a lot of health benefits. Who knew?! And I did some research before coming on today and found quite a lot of information to substantiate that, to help us understand what fun can do for us. And simplistically, having fun is great, isn’t it? Just having a laugh, enjoying the company of friends, doing something silly, right. Have fun, it raises us up, makes us feel better.

Willie Nicol: It’s also quite a good stress relief technique. Just let me refer to some notes I made earlier on. So, a lot of us feel like we’ve got great responsibilities, we’ve got lots of demands on our time and we kind of forget about having fun, right. So, they say, what is the saying, all fun .…

David Logan: and no play!

Willie Nicol: …. and no play makes Jack a dull boy. And there’s an element of truth in that. So, if we forget to have fun, we can get a wee bit down in the dumps, right. So, it’s important to remember and have fun. People say, “Yeah, so what Willie, having fun ….”. But I’m being serious here – which is obviously the opposite of having fun.

Willie Nicol: Now I talked about stress there and we’ve talked before about stress being an everyday part of life, right. And some stress is good for you and you actually get some stress from having fun, right. You might go rock climbing or you might go scuba diving or you might go swimming or whatever, right. And there’s a wee bit of an element of stress in that but it’s good for you, it elevates you, it lifts you up, it increases and enhances your mode, not mode, mood. It can help you create a positive attitude, right. If you’re having fun, you tend to be a bit more upbeat. If you’re not having fun you tend to be a bit downbeat. So, to gain a positive attitude, think about having some fun.

Willie Nicol: I also wanted to talk about laughter. There’s the old phrase – “Laughter is the best medicine”. And there’s actually a big degree of truth in that and, according to my research, the benefits of laughter are far reaching. Laughter can help relieve pain, bring greater happiness, positivity and so on and so forth. It’s apparently an attribute that we should use more of, laughter, the ability to laugh at ourselves and laugh at other people.

Willie Nicol: I also wanted to talk about laughter. There’s the old phrase – “Laughter is the best medicine”. And there’s actually a big degree of truth in that and, according to my research, the benefits of laughter are far reaching. Laughter can help relieve pain, bring greater happiness, positivity and so on and so forth. It’s apparently an attribute that we should use more of, laughter, the ability to laugh at ourselves and laugh at other people.

Willie Nicol: Laughter is also a physical release because you use a lot of your facial muscles, you use your lungs, you use your diaphragm, you’re actually getting a wee bit of physical laughter. And you’ve probably heard the phrase “You’ve got a right good belly laugh”. That’s because your belly moves, right. Or when you laugh, you move your shoulders and you smile, right.

Willie Nicol: Apparently, it takes X number of times more muscles in your face to frown than it does to smile. So, when you smile, you’re actually not using as many muscles because it’s easier, it’s probably easier to smile than it is to frown, see what I was saying.

Willie Nicol: Laughter’s also a distraction, right. You can be feeling angry or guilty or stressed or whatever and you can quite easily get out of these negative emotions by having a good laugh. Now, you might want to watch a funny thing on the telly. Or you might want to get something on your phone, or you might want to recall something that really made you laugh. We’ve all had instances when something funny has happened and we laughed at it and we can recall that and get that good feeling back. It’s also good in a social setting to have fun with your friends, to have a laugh with your friends, to have a laugh at them, with them. They can laugh at you and it becomes a kind of communal stress relief mechanism, does that make sense?

David Logan: Yeah, all making good sense …. keep laughing!

Willie Nicol: Keep laughing! And it’s good to laugh while watching the telly, watching a comedy show you like. It’s also good to laugh when you’re with friends. I remember going to the Kings Theatre in Glasgow and they were doing a stage version of Still Game, the Scottish comedy show, right. It was absolutely hilarious, we we’re all knotting ourselves, right. And even when you turn round and you look at someone beside you laughing, even if you haven’t found that particularly funny, you probably laugh at them laughing because they’re quite comical when they’re laughing. And you feel good because of these feel-good chemicals. And it also helps with reducing the chemical, the bad chemicals or the bad hormones we talked about, like cortisol and adrenaline, the things that keep you a wee bit stressed and hyper.

Willie Nicol: So, you get laughter being the better of the two which suppresses these chemicals and gives you the good chemicals, yeah? So, in a nutshell, having fun, enjoying yourself, elevating your mood, right, is a good thing. It’s good for your health, mental and physical, and one of the good ways of having fun is to have a laugh with your friends, your family, watching the telly, watching a good funny movie, whatever. It’s all good. And that’s why you may have noticed I’ve taken recently to saying, stay safe, stay well and have some fun. It’ll do you good, ok?

David Logan: That’s good, that’s great. So, have fun and laugh, don’t take life too serious.

Willie Nicol: Exactly. There are obviously many serious things happening just now but if you look hard enough there’s always some humour to be found if you open your mind to it and are open to, you know, “I’m going to treat that as a joke”. Yes there are serious things going on and no one can deny that. But if you’re open to the possibility of finding a bit of humour in this situation and having a laugh, and that’s probably easier when you’re doing it with someone else, right. You could stand and tell a story, have a wee laugh, have a giggle and you will feel better.

David Logan: Fantastic. Well, put a stop there now Willie, I think it’s all good for this week. Thank you for your answer to the question, “Should we have fun?” Whether it’s daily, weekly or all the time, we don’t have to be so serious sometimes. So, from me to you the viewer, have a great week. If you’re looking for our videos, go onto Google and search for The Techno Dinosaur Meets the I.T. Geek. Please share the love and enjoy your week everybody.

Willie Nicol: Thank you very much David. As I said earlier on, be safe, be well and have some fun. You deserve it! Goodbye for now.

David Logan: Bye!

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