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By Amy Dee
Imagine: It’s so hot your thighs are sweating. Your throat feels like you’ve swallowed sand. You bring the icy glass of lemonade to your parched lips and drink a huge gulp. Suddenly, your tastebuds sear with tongue slipping sour; you spit the drink out, yelling, “I forgot the sugar!” Forgetting to laugh during stressful times like drinking lemon water. Laughter makes a sour day, sweeter. Humor is the sweetener in life. When you learn to shift your perspective and find the light side of a situation, you can turn lemons into lemonade. Humor doesn’t ignore Difficulties, it makes them tolerable. You do not have to let the fact that you are frustrated, stressed, and overall miserable keep you from finding a bit of fun and joy out of life. I’ll help you understand that humor has the power to weaken negative emotions. As a matter of fact, humor can even flip a negative mood into a positive one. Furthermore, finding funny can redirect you towards finding solutions to the problems that created your negative emotions in the first place. It will ease the tensions you feel and give you greater control over the challenges you are facing. Humor helps keeps everyday irritations in perspective. Most (not all) problems are pretty small when you consider the big picture. Laughter is Contagious Once you get good at adding comic sugar to sour days, you will feel happier. Better yet, those positive emotions will transfer to those around you. When we sprinkle humor into our day, goodness grows. As a funny motivational speaker, I’ve watched one giggle swell into a wave of snorting, knee-slapping laughter that swamps my audience. We all know how good it feels to share a laugh with family members at a reunion or with co-workers. Let’s face it, the sound of roaring laughter is contagious and much better for us than a sniffle, sneeze, or cough. Shared laughter unites us and increases our joy and affection for each other. Laughter Strengthens Resilience The power of laughter appears when you learn to use it during stressful situations.
For this reason, your sense of humor plays a huge role in your resilience. On your worst days, humor will help you bend without breaking. Finding the funny will help you better handle the challenges life throws at you. Laughing is a powerful weapon to help you punch back at adversity. Laughter Helps In addition to the ripple effect of happiness and delight, laughter also activates healthy physiological changes.
Laughter Is Strong Medicine For The Body There are oodles of stress management techniques out there. People find great success with deep breathing, meditation, yoga, and other stress busters. However, we often forget that humor is one of the most effective stress reducers available to us. It is natural, free, and one of the most essential tools you have to create an enjoyable life. No pill you pop will work faster or is more dependable in bringing your mind and body into balance than a deep laugh. Laughter is a potent remedy to conflict, stress, and pain. A good giggle lightens your burdens and keeps you grounded. It creates a connection to others and helps you remain focused and alert. Laughter has healing power. For this reason, your ability to laugh easily and frequently is a tremendous resource because it:
Humor Doesn’t Mean... Just because you find something to laugh about during tough times doesn’t mean you aren’t serious about it. In fact, laughing can actually help you handle the problem more effectively. For instance, consider that many corporate meetings start out with a funny story or a joke. Beginning with a laugh puts attendees in a positive frame of mind, which can help the meeting flow better. Likewise, if you’re racing through your day, putting out fires, a good belly laugh can dampen the flames. Did you know that four-year laughs once every four minutes while adults laugh only an average of 15 times a day? Increasing our ability to find humor is vital for lots of reasons. Let’s start by exploring a few of the physical benefits, such as: Positive vs. Negative Humor Just to be clear, not all humor is the same. We’ve all known people who have miserably failed to be funny during stressful situations. Most likely, their humor leans towards being sarcastic, rude, or cringe-worthy. A study showed that the tendency to use negative humor is associated with lower interpersonal competence, self-esteem, and psychological well-being, higher levels of depression and anxiety—and even more frequent psychiatric symptoms. On the other hand, a bias towards positive humor is associated with higher self-esteem, interpersonal competence, and overall psychological well-being and lower depression and anxiety. Dark Humor President Abraham Lincoln once read something to his advisors, which he found very funny, but they didn’t laugh. He said, “Why don’t you laugh? With the fearful strain that is upon me night and day, if I did not laugh, I should die, and you need this medicine as much as I do.” As a psychiatric R.N. who worked in an acute care psychiatric hospital, we dealt with heartbreaking situations and horror stories daily. There is an emotional build-up resulting from being immersed in other people’s emotional conflicts and turmoil day after day. Humor helped us, “let go.” I’ll admit that there were times when our humor could turn slightly gray. Humor preventing our negative emotions from taking over. It helped us maintain a positive focus while dealing with our patients. Not to mention, humor helped us avoid the ongoing risk of burnout. We also knew this humor could only be shared with staff, not patients or people outside our unit. Our sense of humor was sometimes unusual, but it also helped us manage our personal roller coaster of emotions. I love collecting stories from audience members after my keynotes. This true story came after a keynote to an audience of nurses. Emergency service personnel such as police and firefighters and E.R. providers also use humor to cope with the agonizing events they encounter. In these demanding occupations, cynical humor or ‘gallows humor’ helps them cope with stress, relieve tension, and vent their feelings. A Coping Mechanism One way this humor helps is by allowing the service giver space to detach or distance themselves. Also, it helps foster group stability and social support. As a result, they can be more effective during tough situations. None of this humor is meant to hurt or diminish the pain of the people they care for every day. Instead, it creates a momentary positive focus, which, in turn, helps them live with the emotionally draining things they confront daily. In addition, it helps them fight burnout and do their job effectively. Humor doesn’t ignore Difficulties, it makes them tolerable. You do not have to let the fact that you are frustrated, stressed, and overall miserable keep you from finding a bit of fun and joy out of life. I’ll help you understand that humor has the power to weaken negative emotions. As a matter of fact, humor can even flip a negative mood into a positive one. Furthermore, finding funny can redirect you towards finding solutions to the problems that created your negative emotions in the first place. It will ease the tensions you feel and give you greater control over the challenges you are facing. Humor helps keeps everyday irritations in perspective. Most (not all) problems are pretty small when you consider the big picture. “Life is full of misery, loneliness, and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly.” (Woody Allen) “It is because they can be frivolous at times that the majority of people do not hang themselves.” (Voltaire) Laughter is Contagious Once you get good at adding comic sugar to sour days, you will feel happier. Better yet, those positive emotions will transfer to those around you. When we sprinkle humor into our day, goodness grows. As a funny motivational speaker, I’ve watched one giggle swell into a wave of snorting, knee-slapping laughter that swamps my audience. We all know how good it feels to share a laugh with family members at a reunion or with co-workers. Let’s face it, the sound of roaring laughter is contagious and much better for us than a sniffle, sneeze, or cough. Shared laughter unites us and increases our joy and affection for each other. Laughter Strengthens Resilience The power of laughter appears when you learn to use it during stressful situations.
For this reason, your sense of humor plays a huge role in your resilience. On your worst days, humor will help you bend without breaking. Finding the funny will help you better handle the challenges life throws at you. Laughing is a powerful weapon to help you punch back at adversity. Laughter Helps In addition to the ripple effect of happiness and delight, laughter also activates healthy physiological changes.
Laughter Is Strong Medicine For The Body There are oodles of stress management techniques out there. People find great success with deep breathing, meditation, yoga, and other stress busters. However, we often forget that humor is one of the most effective stress reducers available to us. It is natural, free, and one of the most essential tools you have to create an enjoyable life. No pill you pop will work faster or is more dependable in bringing your mind and body into balance than a deep laugh. Laughter is a potent remedy to conflict, stress, and pain. A good giggle lightens your burdens and keeps you grounded. It creates a connection to others and helps you remain focused and alert. Laughter has healing power. For this reason, your ability to laugh easily and frequently is a tremendous resource because it:
Problem-Focused vs. Emotion-Focused Coping Problem-Focused on Coping Because problems come in all shapes and sizes, there isn’t a one size fits all solution. Admittedly, we know this is true. But instead, we often apply a preferred solution to most of our problems, ignoring the fact that it doesn’t fit. While addressing a problem, one of the most important questions you can ask yourself is: What can I control? One of the most helpful methods you can use to address a problem is; What do I have control over? We need to be realistic about what we can and what we can’t control. Problem-focused coping works when the problem causing you pain is under your control. For example, like many of you, COVID significantly disrupted my work when all my convention events were postponed. I couldn’t control the virus, but I could control my keynote options. Within weeks my husband and I built a studio in our basement, and I started presenting virtually with great success. My mom was diagnosed with wet macular degeneration. She can’t reverse the disease but is now on an eye-injection regime that has diminished its progress. Some situations we can fix and some we can’t. Instead, we must learn to live them. Emotion-Focused Coping However, some situations we can fix and some we can’t. When we can’t fix it, we must learn to live it. For example, you arrive at work and several co-workers are out sick. No float nurses are available, so your patient load is increased. As a result, you have a hectic and stressful day. In this case, emotion-focused coping concentrates on changing your mood or your frame of mind. In this case, you need to pull yourself out of anger or anxiety and replace it with a positive frame of mind. Switching from a negative to a positive mindset will help you recognize what you need to do to deal with stressful situations. SHAZAM! HUMOR TO THE RESCUE Humor creates a cognitive-affective shift. In other words, it reframes our perspective. Once you change the way, you also have an emotional shift to a more positive direction. Once you accept that humor creates this shift, you can deliberately use it to manage your emotional state.Now that’s POWER! The power of humor is that you can’t be genuinely happy and sad at the same time. 3 ways to increase your humor 1. Boost the humor in your daily life. Funny surrounds us, so there are lots of simple ways to boost humor in your life. Consider looking at outside sources.
2. Laugh at Yourself We all make mistakes, have quirks and goofy habits that are funny. Life is happier when you learn to laugh will get stop taking yourself so seriously. (Even though you continue to take your work and responsibilities seriously.) 3. Look for the Humor Humor is everywhere. Watch for humor at home, at the grocery store, at your job. Find fun in your relationships, at the dinner table, and while doing lawn work. Life is funny. When you look for the Funny, you will find it Humor is one of our greatest blessings. Being funny is possibly one of the best things you can do for your health. It helps bolsters your immune system, eases pain, protects the heart, and burns calories. Laughter strengthens relationships, enhances teamwork, and diffuses conflict. Find the funny relieves stress, improves your mood, and strengthens resilience. Best of all, laughter brings joy and zest to life. Everyone deserves a laugh and, if you look, every day will give you one. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success!
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