Pancakes and Laughter Are the Best Medicine…

I told my husband the other day my job was preparing me for one of two new careers. I will either be a writer or a stand-up comedian.  I could write true stories and my book would likely be called, “There are Holes in My Pancakes and Other Stories From the Psych Ward”! The other option of stand-up comedian might be kind of dark and geared mostly toward healthcare workers because as I’m sure you’ve heard, what we find funny, the public might find appalling! If we don’t make jokes about things, we would all probably curl up into a ball and cry our eyes out! We must find humor in things or else we will never survive our careers for very long. Let me give you a very understated example.

As you can imagine, patients at our hospital don’t like all the rules we have. Imagine staying in a hotel with very loud flatulating guests, lots of strict rules, and you’re not allowed to leave due to a judge’s order. The hospital does provide food and clothing (albeit gray sweatpants, grey sweatshirt, and Velcro shoes only) and you can go outside twice a day if it’s not raining, snowing, or above 90 degrees. Oh yeah, and those noisy flatulating guests of your hotel are unpredictable, hallucinate, and express delusions about aliens, the CIA, FBI, and the government. I always say being a CIA or FBI agent must be the toughest job in the world because they’re all at my hospital (See, there’s a mildly sarcastic joke right there). Understandably, you might not like everything about being there.

When patients have a complaint, they can fill out a grievance form. A specific staff member has the job of going to talk with the patient about their grievance form to attempt to resolve the matter. We get some real doozies! Much of the writing on the grievance forms doesn’t even make sense. One day I went with the aforementioned staff member that was going to see one of my patients who had been experiencing hallucinations and very paranoid delusions. The plan was to discuss a grievance he had turned in as well as check in with him about his current mental illness symptoms and the effects of medication. What was written on the grievance form didn’t make a lot of sense but mentioned something about pancakes having holes. We listened to him tell us that he was upset his pancakes had little holes in them which “could fit a couple of grains of rice inside” of them. I tried to explain to him that when you cook pancakes, the batter boils and makes bubbles which eventually burst, creating holes. People who are schizophrenic or bipolar can’t generally reason things through well. They tend to interrupt and draw illogical conclusions. Of course, he didn’t accept my explanation of the boiling pancakes and went on to talk about hyper-religious conspiracies and other delusional thoughts, none of which made sense.  Admittedly, my first thought was not about explaining the logical reason why pancakes have holes. Do you know how badly I  just wanted to tell him those holes are where we hide the tiny cameras? Dark, huh?

Why do we laugh at tragic things? The statement, “Laughter is the best medicine,” was penned approximately 2400 years ago by the Greek, Hippocrates, the father of medicine. As I mentioned at the beginning, one of the reasons healthcare workers laugh is as a form of coping. It would be easy to become burnt out and depressed. Laughter helps us to let go of the tension related to the gravity and reality of our patients’ situations. We deal with very ill patients who have allegedly done some horrific things to other people because of their illness.

Laughter is essential for everyone. When we laugh, predictably we get more oxygen which is good for our organs – heart, lungs, muscles, and brain. Our brain releases endorphins which help reduce stress and pain, and give us an overall feeling of well-being and happiness. There are other ways to increase endorphins besides laughter. Exercise, sex, trying something new, and eating spicy foods help too.

Activities which can be useful:

• Watch a funny movie or television show
• Spend time with a friend who will laugh with you
• Go to a comedy show or watch one on a streaming service. They have some great Dry Bar comedy shows now that feature clean comedy
• Go to the library or bookstore and get a joke book you find funny
• Hang out with me and my hilarious husband!
• Go on a vacation with the love of your life and get slapped by a turtle!!!