Using Laughter to Reduce Stress

When you laugh, your body relaxes, releasing the same endorphins that give you a calming glow after exercise. When you make others laugh, you draw people together and strengthen relationships. When you find humor in a setback or an unhappy situation, you push yourself to look at life from different perspectives, which can help you break out of a low mood and find ways to get past obstacles. Humor and laughter help you let go of defensiveness and resentments and approach life, even its greatest challenges, with more openness, flexibility, and courage. With so many benefits and no cost, it makes sense to draw on the power of humor and laughter as tools for managing stress.

How to Bring More Humor and Laughter Into Your Life

When you feel down, under pressure, or in a rut, look for opportunities to laugh:

• Be a humor consumer. Watch funny movies, TV shows, and comedy acts. Listen to funny podcasts and audio recordings. Read funny books, stories, and articles. Find online videos that make you laugh. Look online for lists of the funniest movies, books, and recordings, and try some out.
• Find things to laugh about in your own life. Even the most difficult situations have their absurd aspects. Think of the experiences you've had that were painful or awkward at the time but that you were able to laugh at later. What's probably happened is that, with time, you were able to see things from a different perspective and not take things so seriously. Try that now with the stresses you're facing. Is there a funny aspect to your boss's behavior or the mess your brother has gotten himself into?
• Spend time with people who make you laugh. Think of the friends who, when you're together, encourage you to find the humor in your life and who make you laugh by pointing out absurdities in their own situations. Spend time with them. If you get together regularly, you'll probably find yourself looking for the silly aspects of your experiences so that you can later share them for a laugh.
• Make a game of it. If bad traffic is irritating you, count the times another driver makes it worse. Instead of letting that make you mad, turn it into a positive by going for a new record (while keeping your cool and driving safely yourself). If you find the jargon used in work meetings annoying, quietly make a list of the most ridiculous terms and compare notes later with a sympathetic colleague.
• Exaggerate the situation in your mind. Life is full of little absurdities. One way to make yourself laugh is to imagine them multiplied by ten, a hundred, or a thousand—to the point where they become ridiculous in a funny way. Having trouble finding a public trash can? Imagine there were none, and people were expected to carry their trash for the rest of their lives.
• Learn to laugh at yourself. Everyone has their eccentricities, and everyone makes mistakes. When you're able to laugh at your own, you'll let go of the defensiveness that can cause you to react badly to well-meant criticism and stew over perceived slights. Watch the best comedians: You'll see them making fun of themselves, as well as the common situations their audiences recognize from their own lives. People who can laugh at themselves in healthy ways are fun to be around. Try turning embarrassing moments from your past into funny stories.
• Flip things around. Feeling overwhelmed by your to-do list? Make a "to-don't" list, too, of the things you do that get in the way of your most important priorities. That's become a serious time management and self-improvement strategy—and an example of how looking at things from different perspectives can reveal both humor and fresh ideas.

Humor Cautions

Humor is personal, and tastes in humor vary widely. What's funny to one person can be offensive to another. When using humor to make others laugh, you need to be careful. The safest and most welcome humor finds things to laugh at in common situations and shared annoyances:

• Don't use humor to mock or demean other people, especially people who are different from you.
• Don't use humor to make light of another person's pain or dissatisfaction.
• Be conscious of differences in power when using humor. It may be OK for employees to laugh together about the quirks of their manager, if done in a good-hearted way and without undermining the manager's authority. It's almost always a bad move for a manager to laugh about the behavior of employees.

Pay close attention to the reactions of others as you try to lighten the mood of a group with humor. If you cross a line and offend someone, apologize, move on, and don't make that mistake again. If it's not clear to you what you said that caused offense, have a private conversation to ask.

For More Information

"Laughter Is the Best Medicine," HelpGuide.org (Updated 2022, August)
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