Pentagon to families: Go ahead, laugh (NBC)
- From: "smiecz" <smiecz@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 20 Jan 2006 20:20:20 -0800
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-01-12-pentagon-laughter_x.htm
Pentagon to families: Go ahead, laugh
By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
When the stress of the war in Iraq becomes too severe, the Pentagon has
a suggestion for military families: Learn how to laugh.
With help from the Pentagon's chief laughter instructor, families of
National Guard members are learning to walk like a penguin, laugh like
a lion and blurt "ha, ha, hee, hee and ho, ho."
No joke.
"I laugh every chance I get," says the instructor, retired Army colonel
James "Scotty" Scott. "That's why I'm blessed to be at the Pentagon,
where we definitely need a lot of laughter in our lives."
Scott, 57, is certified as a laughter training specialist by the
Ohio-based World Laughter Tour, a group that promotes mirth as
medicine. It touts scientific research that suggests chuckling can
boost the body's immune system and decrease stress hormones.
A Pentagon spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, says the Pentagon is
committed to the program and values Scott's skills. "We sent him to the
training," she says.
The laughter program was Scott's idea. It costs the military virtually
nothing, because Scott already travels to states as a director of
military family support policy.
He has taught National Guard family group leaders in Alaska, Kansas,
Oklahoma, Texas and Idaho, and will do so in Michigan, Pennsylvania and
Florida, he says. Another laughter trainer is working with folks in
North Carolina.
"We believe our program prevents hardening of the attitudes," says
Scott, in one of his wordplay aphorisms that beg for a rimshot. The
founder and chief executive of the World Laughter Tour is psychologist
Steve Wilson, who calls himself "Cheerman of the Bored."
"The guiding principle is to laugh for no reason. And that's one of the
reasons it works so well for military families," Scott says. "There's a
lot they have to be stressed over, a lot of worries, a lot of
concerns."
As foolish as students might feel, Scott says he's lost only one
participant: a Marine sergeant major who, Scott says, fled the room
with a bad case of the giggles.
Mary Frances Booth, the wife of a retired soldier, took the class last
year and is an ardent devotee.
She and her two daughters - Meaghan, 10 and Sarah, 8 - were sobbing
after Booth dropped her husband at the Boise airport Sunday; he was
headed for Afghanistan for work as a civilian contractor, she says.
Then Booth called for one of the laughing drills.
"They rolled their eyes at me and thought, 'Mom's on her laughing thing
again,' " Booth says. "(But) it made it a little bit better."
.
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