Tension therapy

Occasionally I watch Bollywood  movies…”Munna Bhai M.B.B.S”  is one of the rarest movies that I have watched more than once… According to the movie “tension” is a bag full of diseases…..and the main source of tensions are emotions…. So, how should one deal with tension? There are two opposing approaches…. Dr. Asthana a medical doctor is believing in Laughter-therapy as an effective means of always available cure…..while Munnah Bhai a gangster (social worker) is believing that caring about others… and expressing them openly especially by hugging is an effective method of confronting tensions…….It is a comedy movie and the writer of movie while trying to favor Munna Bhai’s method actually utilizing Dr. Asthana’s method by making viewers laugh…….

I liked the movie because it has a very powerful message in very light manner…..Most of us are experts in giving tensions….and worst that we give tension with good intentions…..In 1967, Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe developed their “Holmes and Rahe stress scale” based on their research on records of 5000 people…. The scale lists 43 life changing events that creates stress and causes relative illnesses…. When I look to the list I get surprised that most of the events are linked to social relations….. It is why I joke sometimes…saying that unlike Dr. Asthana we are expert of Tension Therapy… we try to fix the problems by giving tension…….

 http://img.docstoccdn.com/thumb/orig/31988651.png (Image source)

 Though we all like laughter-therapy via our instincts… (As it increase oxygen intake, release endorphins….perhaps burn some extra calories) but the fact is laughter makes us hungrier…. It just adds more pounds…. There are traditions of big bites while watching comedy on TV shows, in theatres or in circle of friends…..it is known as comfort eating….. Similarly there is tension eating…when we get stressed we tend to eat a lot and sleep a lot…..

So it is the not the burning extra calories, taking extra oxygen and release of endorphin that are important for health but making others laugh and get pleased brings us close and help us avoid go higher in Holmes and Rahe stress scale….

Is it addiction or a survival factor?

It might have happened several times to you that while…. watching a movie or drama or reading a novel…. Your parents have scorned you of wasting your times and have asked you to study some serious stuffs…. that help you in your career or you learn something out of them…..  Frankly, sometimes when I watch a movie or read some novel type books, I scorn myself for wasted times…… Today, while looking to list of the……. “IntelliQuest- The world’s 100 greatest books”……. I got surprised by list as there were only one “Scientific Book”…The Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin…. Even Origin of Species is more of descriptive and narrative book than a real scientific book… Some Philosophy books like,….. “Meditations – by Rene Descartes”…. “The Critique of Pure Reason –by Immanuel Kant”…..” World as Will and Idea – by Arthur Schopenhauer”…..” -Self-Reliance- and - Nature - both by Ralph Waldo Emerson”……” How We Think – by John Dewey”……” Walden – by Henry David Thoreau”…………” The Social Contract – by Jean-Jacques Rousseau”….. “The Republic – by Plato”…… There are one book on Politics, “The Prince – by Machiavelli” and one on economy, “The Wealth of Nations – by Adam Smith”…………………..

These are the list of the serious books out of 100… Everything else are story books especially books of legendary mythical heroes like those narrated in Iliad and Odyssey by Humor or fictional heroes in most famous novels….. What really struck me is finding the …..”Beowulf”…. It is a 6^th century poetic collection of folk legendary stories of Northwestern Europe where legendary creatures like Dragons are villains… You might have watched the 3D movie of Beowulf….. that has nothing  of scholarly nature…..

You might include ….” Candide – by Voltaire”…. and “The Divine Comedy –by  Dante Alighieri” among serious studies but I am not sure if are really serious studies… ..

Finding story books dominating the list of greatest books ….(It is not necessary that I agree with lists as some of the books that have influenced me are missing among the list and I am sure that I am not alone in this regard)…..I was wondering that…. though we are scorned and sometimes we scorn ourselves on wasting our times by reading stories, listening stories or watching then …..why it is so irresistible…Why the reading stories are so common? … why the popularity of storytelling has not diminished by rapid scientific progress and increasing time crunching….   Is not a common addiction? … It is more probable that Stories have evolved in the course of human evolution as it is the greatest source of learning….. human might have adapted it to increase their survival chances…. I think it is more than addiction…. I don’t know any study for its genetic basis … but the commonalities of stories are indicating so…

If story telling have survival factor… then the list is not biased??