Frolicking in the Funny
What I read: How to laugh more by Freda Gonot-Schoupinsky. Published March 17, 2021.
Laughter feels good. Finding the humorous in life is necessary to counter so much of the crap we each live with individually and collectively these days. So, when I ran across this article about how to laugh more, I decided to read it since it struck me as likely useful.
Laughing is one of the best things you can do to cheer yourself up. So much so that I actively make a habit to laugh regularly – and I think you should, too.
Gonot-Schoupinsky lists several physical benefits of laughter such as improved heart rate and heart-rate variability, enhanced immune system, reduced blood pressure, and the reduced likelihood of experiencing a heart attack. Laughter even helps our pain tolerance.
Apart from physical wellbeing benefits, laughter improves our psychological health too. Laughter releases mood-boosting chemicals that help alleviate stress and depression. Sleep quality, self-esteem, creative thinking, and our learning abilities are improved by laughter.
All of this can be summed up in the quote by Lord Byron mentioned in the article.
Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.
Turns out it is indeed good medicine and laughter is something we can invoke at any time if we know how to do it.
Many people don’t necessarily feel like they have lots of opportunities to laugh. I get it. Life can be rough. The situations in which we find ourselves can be challenging. Sometimes it feels like the entire world is crumbling down around us. But even amid all of it, laughter and humor can be found and we need to find and cultivate it to make us more resilient in the face of some of the challenges we all have to deal with daily.
While it’s great to have things in life that prompt us to laugh, having such prompts isn’t required. You can laugh simply to laugh and doing so is good for you.
Humour can certainly make us laugh, and laughing can make things humorous. But based on my own research and others’, it’s clear that they can occur separately too – and laughter without humour can still make you feel happy. The upshot is that we don’t need to wait for something funny to happen before we can experience the benefits of laughter.
Laughing when we’re with others seems to come more naturally to us than laughing when we’re alone. Yes, we’re 30 times more likely to laugh with someone else than when we’re alone, but we don’t need other people to laugh.
Gonot-Schoupinsky offers several ways you can encourage more laughter in your life. Surround yourself with the humorous and the funny. Cultivate a more playful attitude at work, at home, everywhere. Intentionally laugh more often and make those laughs out loud and hearty laughs. Try to find the funny in your daily life wherever you can. There are also jokes one can read. Check out these 10 Funniest Jokes Ever Told. There are many similar lists on the web.
You can also train your own comedy skills by creating your own jokes. I’ve never thought of trying to consciously improve my comedy skills, but as I think about it I can’t imagine a better life skill to have. So maybe I’ll work on that.
Figure out ways to laugh with others whether that laughter is prompted by something funny such as a video or shared meme, or just laugh more when conversing with friends and colleagues.
In the interest of promoting some laughter, I thought I’d include a few videos of people who make me laugh. The first is from a standup comic I’ve only recently discovered, Sarah Millican, and I think she’s so damn funny. Consider subscribing to her channel and pull up one of her videos anytime you need a laugh.
Another online series I find quite amusing is UNHhhh starring drag queens Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamolodchikova. I love drag queens. When I was a young man just coming out as gay, drag queens were among those who took me under their wing and mentored me. And they made me laugh.
Then there’s this one. I think a baby’s laugh is about as infectious as laughter gets. Among the many laughing baby videos online, this is one of my favorites.
I hope you have a good laugh today.
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