Humor as a Stress Buster

By Mark Gorkin

To understand humor as a way to reduce your susceptibility to stress, let's start by defining humor. Then we'll describe the therapeutic power of laughter.

Humor is the recognition and expression (both verbal and non-verbal) of the absurdities and incongruities in people and in situations. It helps each of us embrace or better accept our fears, flaws, and foibles.

And hearty laughter is like turning your body into a big vibrator, giving vital organs a brief but vigorous internal massage. Such laughter, also called "inner jogging," releases the mind-body's mood uplifting chemicals, like endorphins and dopamine – another way of creating "stress buoyancy."

How to bring humor and laughter into your life?

Try these five tips:

First: Do things that make you laugh: watch Seinfeld reruns, HBO comedy specials, or read your favourite comics.

Second: Learn to "reframe," that is, put events in an unusual or playful perspective. For example, the 20th century French poet, Edmond Rostand, upon turning 75, gazed into a mirror and declared: "Mirrors just aren't what they used to be."

Third: Share and embellish an embarrassing moment. Write a funny story; learn to laugh at your flaws and foibles. Years back, after discovering, through good old cutthroat medicine, that a tumor in my thyroid was benign, I could laugh with relief and invent the field of "tumor humor."

Fourth: Embrace both serenity and the unexpected. You know the Serenity Prayer: "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom…to know where to hide the bodies!" No, of course, it's the "wisdom to know the difference." But playful surprise is almost always a good source of laughter. And sometimes it can even be vital for surviving hazardous situations.

Let me share a story. In late 1990, as war clouds were gathering in the Middle East, almost all the staff members at the American Embassy in Kuwait were confined to the compound. Not surprisingly tension was building, along with internal grumbling and some verbal sniping. The Ambassador decided to intervene before coping capacity and morale were adversely affected. He told his second-in-command to inform personnel that the next day was a holiday and that all embassy staff would be going to the beach.

His deputy, incredulous, protested: "Sir, a war could break out at any moment. It's not safe to leave the compound!" The Ambassador, nevertheless, reaffirmed his directive.

Bright and early the next day the Ambassador descended the stairs in bathing trunks and robe while carrying a blowup rubber ducky. Most personnel were not similarly attired. "Ye of little faith," declared the Ambassador and proceeded to march everyone outside. And lo and behold, during the night, somehow, this Ambassador had managed to have tons of sand trucked into the compound. And staff had a tension-relieving, fun-filled day at the beach. The in-house stress siege was broken; the embassy personnel regrouped individually and as a community and professionally weathered the war storm.

The moral: Even under trying conditions, stress doesn't have to spiral uncontrollably downward. When safely encouraged by a savvy leader, some outrageous play can be joyfully infectious and uplifting.

The fifth and final recommendation is based on having lived in N'Awlins for many years: embrace the Mardi Gras spirit. Try costuming. Explore different personas; not only is it fun, but you just may gain a fresh perspective on your world.

Mark Gorkin, LICSW, "The Stress Doc," ™ an international/Celebrity Cruise Lines speaker, training consultant, psychotherapist, syndicated writer, and upcoming author of Practice Safe Stress: Healing and Laughing in the Face of Stress, Burnout & Depression. Mark, recently interviewed by BBC Radio, has a multi-award-winning, USA Today Online "HotSite" – www.stressdoc.com – cited as a workplace resource in a National Public Radio feature. As AOL's "Online Psychohumorist," ™Mark runs his weekly Shrink Rap and Group Chat. Email for his monthly newsletter recently showcased on List-a-Day.com. For more info on the Doc's "Practice Safe Stress" programs, email stressdoc@aol.com or call 202-232-8662. Published in Networking Today, January 2005.