Tags
Dublin, health, home, intense emotions, laughter, mental-health, miscellaneous, new neighbours, party, people, psychology, random, stress hormones, thoughts
Yesterday two of my lovely neighbours and I decided to turn talk into action and plan a street party. So we sat, talked, drank tea, ate cake and tried to figure out the least stressful and easiest way to get the ball rolling and the party started.
With so many new neighbours moving in to the street we decided that it is the perfect time to celebrate and get to know one another and what better way to do that than with a BBQ. But while we where making decisions and chatting about flyers and food my mind wandered wondering how strange it is that we love parties so much. After all they only really have the fun part of function.
I imagined how odd it would seem to an alien to land on earth in the middle of a celebration of some kind: groups of people coming together to eat and drink, mostly the kind of beverage that makes you a little dizzy and ditzy, talk quite loudly at, more than with, each other and possibly make fools of themselves while they sway, jerk and twirl to loud music and laugh hard and long and lots.
But the more I thought about it the more sense it started to make. As human beings we tend to be able to express certain intense emotions more easily in groups of people. For instance we probably have all experienced pant-wetting and off-chairs and sofas falling fits of laughter when we are with friends but rarely, if at all, does hysterical hilarity overwhelm us when we are on our own. And as we all know laughter triggers endorphin production in our brains making us instantly feel better. But it does have other very positive side effects too: it boosts your immune system, lowers your stress hormones, relaxes tense muscles and makes your blood vessels healthier, so in essence laughing can prevent heart attacks.
With our plan positively done and a plan B ready and waiting in case the weather decides to pour down on us we left my neighbours kitchen with a few more items on our personal to-do lists. Feeling good about ourselves and looking forward to a celebration in the not so far future we went home excited and ready to party.
SO if you are in the neighbourhood in few weeks from now, come and join us for some BBQ and lots of healthy laughter.
jensinewall 