How Laughter Supports Wellbeing
Growing up in small town, Alabama, the Readers Digest used to be standard literature for one specific room in our house, when you had just a couple minutes on your hands.
During these times, you could find classic articles under “Quotable Quotes”, “Life in These United States”, but my favorite was “Laughter is the Best Medicine”.
In addition to lots of laughs, it turns out this old saying has some medical merit as well.
We’ve all had days like these
Sometimes, none of the dice fall your way. It’s not like just one thing goes wrong at a time, but more like they were all sitting around waiting on each other to all go wrong, all at the same time.
It’s like the saying, “when it rains it pours”, but for your brain, because …
- the microwave decided to flake out this morning,
- then the car wouldn’t start,
- even when it did you hit a massive traffic delay,
- then your printer can’t print
- and the tech person randomly took a day off
- and your report is overdue
- and you have to pick up the kids early because [fill in the blank].
You get the picture.
We’ve all had these days — where ALL the dice come up 1’s and 2’s. On days like this, it can be so easy to slide into an abyss of despair.
Laughter Can Be An Emotional Guardrail
Finding humor, especially when it’s all hitting the fan at once, becomes a powerful weapon. It allows us to step back from the brink by finding a silly or ridiculous twist on the events. This can help flip the script on what you make it all mean.
Of course, none of it undoes the train wreck that just happened (right after the daycare called because your child has a playground bark chip lodged up their nose — this ACTUALLY happened to me). But “flipping the script” with humor can help create some emotional separation between ourselves, and those events that happened.
It acts like emotional guardrails. And, at a bare minimum, it keeps you on the road and out of a state of despondent desperation.
Practice Humor
If you’re not doing this already, then you’ll definitely need to practice. But even if you’re being facetious at first, do work this muscle. You will find that it becomes so helpful to you when stuff goes sideways, like it always does sooner or later, and you’re ready to throw your hands up, look up, and give up.
To practice humor, consider these starter options:
- watch your favorite comedian, movie, or standup act
- spend time with people who make you smile or laugh
- crowd-source the solution! Share the craziness of the day with your family or friends. Let them know you need to find something at least a little bit humorous, and just listed to what they come up with.
And just in case you don’t have Readers Digest in your “reading room”, here’s some research you can peruse.
- 2021 research found that people who showed both humor and optimism had better well-being when faced with challenges related to COVID lockdown
- A 2017 study found that laughter therapy reduced symptoms of depression
- A similar study in 2020 reported that those who told jokes and played fun games with one another had reduced depressive symptoms
Pls do SHARE with someone who perhaps could use this information on humor and health.
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