Make someone smile
Damon Leiss, Special to The Gazette
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Damon Leiss
age : 47
Occupation: Instructor, Department of Health, Physical Education and Recreation. Part-time football coach at Northern Heights. Faculty representative for Fellowship of Christiian Athletes
It seems today that people can pass around a lot of things. We are told to wash our hands, cough into our elbows. Shoot, who knew when you dropped some food on the floor that the three-second rule was wrong!
Therefore, how about emotions?
Recently Jodie; her mom, Sandy; our son, Austin, and I saw “Nunsense,” a great play, very funny, and everyone was laughing and I assume leaving in a pretty good mood.
Laughter has been proven to lessen depression, helps as a coping mechanism, and increases social cohesion. Moreover, happiness has a profound effect on the body.
So, yes, emotions can be passed.
I got my first glimpse of this early on in our marriage. We would go to dinner with this other couple who fought all the time. Sooner or later, you guessed it, Jodie and I would start fighting. We would get home later that night, irritated at each other when all of a sudden we looked at each other and said, “What were we fighting about?”
It was nothing, so needless to say we stopped going out with that couple, and yes, they divorced. The point is: they would pass that negative behavior on to us.
Well, I would like all who are reading this to try something.
First, both Jodie and I teach separate classes titled HL 150, Critical Health Issues and Decisions in Society. One of the things we ask our students to do is a “challenge goal.” These challenge goals are set up for students to try to work on within a week.
I would like to take credit for this brilliant idea, but, actually, it is Shawna Shane who originally came up with this and has used it in her class with tremendous results. Jodie began using it last semester, and I have incorporated it this semester with the same great success.
So, here goes Emporia — your “challenge goal for this week” is to make at least three strangers smile.
See, a smile makes you feel good, and as I mentioned earlier, happiness can be passed around. As you all know, a smile starts the ball rolling toward happiness.
So, go make three people smile, and if you want to go beyond that — by all means do. We all love extra credit.
Who knows? Maybe you might be seeing some more challenge goals in the future, so go make someone smile, because we are all in this together.
Shape Up, Emporia! is a weekly fitness and health column aimed at readers of all ages to get off the couch and get into shape. Each week will feature a fitness, health or nutrition professional from around the area who will share some friendly tips on how to improve your overall health. Our goal is to make getting in shape fun and easy to fit into your existing lifestyle and daily routine.