The Wonder of Being Cheerful

Robin Ghosh

Abstract: In his best-selling book. Anatomy of an illness, Norman Cousins to some extent enlightened the medical profession. The book is a fascinating story of how the author ?laughed his way? out of a progressive crippling illness that doctors believed irreversibly degenerative. In August 1964, with a slight fever, the author flew home from the USSR to the USA after an official visit. His fever and achiness of body rapidly worsened and within a few days he was hospitalized, unable almost to move his limbs. The doctors diagnosed Collagen, a systemic disease of the body?s connective tissue. Asked about his chances, the doctors said frankly that recovery would require a miracle. His chances of living through it were one in five hundred. But Cousins was a courageous man. The shattering news, instead of trapping him in a state of utter despair, set him thinking and produced quite a different reaction. He was at this point taking maximum doses of pain killing drugs, codeine, colchicines and sleeping pills, but mainly phenylbutazone and aspirin, and felt ?run over by a truck? in every joint. Cousins also survived some lapses in hospital care, which should have been better. He decided to fight the adverse circumstances. First of all, he reasoned that if negative emotions wear a patient down, positive emotions must have the power to bring about salutary changes. If depression, anxiety, helplessness and stress could cause incalculable damage to body and mind, by the same token, cheerfulness, faith, love, and hope must have their reverse effects. With this positive philosophy and a determinism to buck up his optimism. Cousins took the responsibility of getting well into his own hands.

Keywords: Commonsense, Life force, Place boy, prescriptions, legendary, strange

How to Cite?: Robin Ghosh, "The Wonder of Being Cheerful", Volume 14 Issue 7, July 2025, International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR), Pages: 1240-1244, https://www.ijsr.net/getabstract.php?paperid=SR25719171559, DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.21275/SR25719171559