Special Guest Editorial
Leo Huber
March 25, 2010

Opinion Essay

I think Norman Cousin’s laugh therapy is a very good idea. I think there is a lot of truth to the idea of a mind-body interaction. The mind can always help you and in my opinion the mind is the first step in reaching any goal in life. Without positive thinking, the body can’t improve. With positive thinking, your body gets energy, gets stronger, gets positive feelings, can perform better, and, as in the case of Norman Cousins, can even help cure disease.

In my eyes, laugh therapy is really good because it doesn’t cost you a lot of money. A patient should have the right to choose any treatment they want. There are a lot of different options in how to do laugh therapy, for example watching movies, doing fun activities, reading humorous books like Norman Cousins did. I think everything starts in the mind, so laughter is in your mind, too. Just as people with special religions don’t have to go to the doctor to be cured, people can use laugh therapy as a medical treatment. I can’t say that I have any medical experience with laugh therapy, but I have worked a lot with it in my experience with sports. Although I play a lot of tennis and I was often in the situation to lose, positive thinking helped me to change the course of the game and perform better. In my Mental Conditioning course at IMG Academies, I have learned how the mind can help you to reach your goals, not only in sports, but also in relationships, illness, school, and all of life.

In the end, I think laugh therapy is a really good idea because it can really help you. It helped Norman Cousins overcome his illness. If he had not found the alternative treatment, he probably would have died. Because of this, you can see how powerful the mind can be. If I had not learned about the power of positive thinking, I wouldn’t have been so successful in tennis. The mind-body interaction is so strong that it can help you to succeed in life.