Silly Walks as an Antidote for Anxiety

Never underestimate the power of silliness and laughter to combat anxiety and depression. I'd been feeling quite a lot of anxiety lately, about a lot of things--the state of the world, politics, stresses in my family and feeling overwhelmed in my own life. But tonight I saw a funny gif posted online:

 That reminded a friend of mine of Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks, so she posted this:

And that reminded me of the prank silly walk crosswalk sign in Norway, so I posted this:

By this time I was completely in a silly walk mood so I went searching for more and discovered that there's an official silly walk crosswalk sign in Spijkenisse, Netherlands.

Here's the opening ceremony for that one:

There's also one in Groningen (also in the Netherlands).

And there's a Silly Walks Tunnel in Eindhoven (also in the Netherlands; those Dutch are really into this!).

Here's John Cleese at the opening ceremony for that:

And the city of Brno (Czech Republic) has an annual Silly Walk March across the city.

By the time I'd watched all of those I was laughing out loud and the feeling of anxiety in my stomach was completely dissipated. I think if we did stuff like this to enhance the silliness of the American population, we'd solve some of the things that cause many people anxiety.