Norman Cousins

Good point.

I think of Norman Cousins, who was the editor of the Saturday Review.

He was terminally ill.

He checked himself out of the hospital into a hotel room with a slew of Marx Brothers and Candid Camera films.

healthy.

Norman Cousins.

What's that? That was his quote.

Yes, I think it was.

Norman

Cousins.

What's that? Norman Cousins.

That

Join us each week for great conversations, amazing guests, and cutting-edge information on health, consciousness, and the keys to transformation.

In 1964, Norman Cousins was the editor of the Saturday Review when he developed an extremely painful inflammatory connective tissue condition.

He was diagnosed at the time with ankylosing spondylitis.

He became so stiff that he reportedly struggled to move his limbs, turn his head, or even open his jaw.

But Norman Cousins believed that positive emotions might counteract some of the physical effects of prolonged stress.

Cousins worked with a physician to develop a really unconventional addition to his medical care.

He left the hospital and went to a hotel.

It became very popular and eventually spurred a whole movement.

Yeah

... and, and I do want to do, I think, a whole podcast on laughter and Norman Cousins and the serious-

Your cousin's Norman?

Well, sh, well ...

We know about this innate intelligence that's connected to your universal intelligence and energy, and so I was blown away by this.

And the first book I read, I remember m- my mom was in a wheelchair at the time, and I was going to chiropractor school, and one of my, um, neighbors gave me a book about Norman Cousins-

Mm-hmm

... and "The Anatomy of an Illness." And you just read something like that, and you read this medical-minded guy, he was the, you know, um, editor of, I think "The New Yorker" magazine.

You know what I mean? It's just like, so on the surface and, and that's, You know, that's how we're designed.

There's one of my favorite dead guys is Norman Cousins.

And he was, you know, a writer for the Saturday Evening Post.

He got diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis.

I was in the original company.

So I took my background in improvisational theater, hooked up with Norman Cousins and Dr. O. Carl Simon.

Norman Cousins, for those who don't know, wrote the book about the medicinal benefits of laughter.

Correct.

It was called...

We want hope because it inspires people to work toward the very future they imagine in their most hopeful moments.

Norman Cousins even said, the capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life.

It provides human beings with a sense of destination and the energy to get started.

But others say, not so fast.

its use.

When Norman Cousins, who was the editor of the Saturday Review, became terminally ill, he checked himself out of his hospital and into a hotel room with a slew of Marx Brothers and Candid Camera films.

And he said, laughing for a few minutes gave me an hour of restful sleep.

So there's the physical, absolute physical ramifications of laughter and humor.

did.

When we first started our conversation, I kept thinking in the back of my mind, I'm thinking of it right now, Norman Cousins' famous book, Anatomy of an Illness, where he was extremely ill and ended up just watching like Laurel and Hardy and Abbott and Costello and the things that made him laugh, those comedies from his era, which just kept him in that frame mind of feeling state of joy, that things could get better, of upliftment.

And so he started attaching that to his nervous system, kind of like the way you're talking about this song.

Similar?