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ACTIVE LISTENING MAIN STORY

LAUGHTER AND TEARS

Have you ever wanted to just let go, break down and

release all your problems in a river of tears? Depending on your gender and your culture crying in public might not go over well. Entrepreneur Hiroki Terai is trying to change that. His business is offering a unique service, corporate crying workshops.

As a teenager, Terai had no friends. He spent his lunch breaks eating his meals in a toilet cubicle. It was difficult for him, but his solitude allowed him to become a keen observer of his peers. Terai says, “It was around then I feel I started to find out more about people’s real emotions.

On the surface they’re smiling but that’s not always how they feel.”

As an adult, Terai started a business offering divorce ceremonies. To symbolically separate the couple, he

created a ceremony where couples could air their

grievances. The ceremony ended with the former couple crushing their wedding rings with a hammer. During these ceremonies, Terai noticed that the couples who cried

together felt healed by the experience.

In Japan, where Terai lives, crying is frowned upon.

People often have great difficulty expressing their sadness in any way. In a study of 37 countries, Americans were the most likely to cry and Japanese were the least likely to cry.

According to one Japanese psychologist, “Hiding one’s anger and sadness is considered a virtue in Japanese

culture.” Terai is determined to change this, both at home and at the office. He says that crying in the office has an especially negative image associated with it. So he’s hitting that issue head-on with his corporate crying workshops.

These workshops help the participants cry through

watching sad films as a group.

Terai has found that when people cry in front of others, it improves the work environment. This display of

vulnerability brings people together, helping them to get along better and work together as a team.

Crying carries a stigma all over the world, not just in Japan. According to a study done by biochemist William H.

Frey, men seem to have the hardest time with it. In fact, according to one study, women cry on average 5.3 times per month while men only cry an average of 1.3 times per month. This may be due to the differences in hormones between the sexes. But that’s not the only reason – cultural norms also play a role.

Studies show that crying has a vast number of benefits. A good cry can release emotional buildup, relieve stress, and strengthen the immune system. One study found

that crying can elevate your mood more effectively than any antidepressant. In fact, 90% of people who cried

experienced improved moods.

About three decades ago, Frey did a study on the chemical composition of tears. He compared emotional tears to non-emotional tears (like those from cutting an onion). He found that emotional tears carry more of a certain protein. This protein stimulates the production of hormones, which regulate the body’s response to stress. This, according to Frey, shows that emotional tears have not only a psychological effect on us, but also a physiological effect. In other words, emotional tears heal the body in a very real way.

The famously funny Dr. Patch Adams, on the other hand, believes that laughter is the best medicine.

Adams is a peculiar doctor. He has made waves teaching both doctors and patients the power of love, laughter, and friendship. His fame hit new heights when Hollywood made a movie about him starring Robin Williams. Today, Adams travels the world delivering his message of love and laughter. Every year, he takes groups all around the world on “clown trips.” On these trips, the group dresses up in colorful clown outfits and tries to make people laugh. Their mission is to bring joy to orphanages, refugee camps, hospitals, homes of the elderly, and any place that could use a smile.

Adams wasn’t always all smiles. He was once suicidal as a young man. He spent time in a mental hospital three times before he was 19 years old, due to difficult experiences in his life.

It was during his time in a mental hospital that Adams noticed that most of the patients in the hospital were extremely lonely. They didn’t have people who loved them. He decided that the key to happiness was to have loving, caring people in your life. While he was in the hospital, he befriended the other patients and tried to give them the love that they lacked. He then decided that he wanted to heal people through love and laughter and that the best way to do that was to become a doctor.

Adams became a student of medicine but he also

became a student of life. He set out to learn everything he could about people, happiness, and friendship. He

loved to clown around with people. He often called the wrong number intentionally to speak with strangers and learn how to draw them out of their shells. He would

spend time in elevators testing how long it would take to get people to introduce themselves and even sing songs together.

After graduating from medical school in 1971, Adams

began treating the person instead of treating the disease.

He says that if you treat a disease, you will win some and lose some. If you treat a person, you will win no matter the outcome. While he was at it, he even set up a make shift hospital where doctors would see patients for free.

They combined their traditional medicine with soul

healing activities. Performance arts, crafts, nature, agriculture, and social service were all a part of his new vision of healing. Adams and his doctor friends worked out of their communal home and funded the work

themselves.

Adams was given the nickname “Patch” by a patient who said that he had patched their loneliness.

Adams was ahead of his time. According to recent

research, laughter may be as important as diet and

exercise when it comes to your health. It’s common

knowledge that stress can lead to many health

problems.

Dr. Lee Berk says that laughter stops the release of stress hormones like cortisol.

And it increases feel-good neurochemicals like dopamine. Laughter has health benefits ranging from improved immune systems to improved blood circulation.

We laugh for many reasons and health is just a side benefit. Aristotle believed that laughter was what separated human beings from all other animals. He believed that laughter was connected with having a soul and that a baby did not have a soul at all until he or she laughed for the first time.

Aristotle may have been wrong about humans being the only animals who laugh.

Professor Jaak Panksepp at Bowling Green State University studies animal emotions.

He studied rats and noticed that they played just like human children. They chased each other about and wrestled, but unlike human children who frequently laugh while they play, the rats were silent.

One day, the professor’s assistant had an epiphany. What if the rats were making sounds that the human ear was unable to hear?

They ordered a device used for recording bat sounds that are inaudible to humans.

Lo and behold, they found that the rats were making sounds while playing, and the sounds were similar in rhythm to that of a human laugh.

Chimpanzees have also been observed making panting sounds that are very similar to human laughter. And just like humans, chimpanzees seem to make these sounds for social reasons and rarely laugh alone. Some think that laughter evolved in chimps as a way to communicate the difference between playful roughhousing and serious physical aggression.

Animals can laugh, and some believe they also can cry. Dogs separated from their owners sometimes cry tears. And they are not the only animals to shed a tear. A photo of an elephant crying after he was separated from his mother went viral on the Internet. Some say that the elephant’s tears had nothing to do with genuine emotion and instead simply showed physiological distress.

The jury is still out on whether animal tears are evidence of human-like emotions.

Whatever the case, laughing and crying are tools that both humans and animals use to communicate. And perhaps, like humans, animals also benefit from its healing power.