Provided by: Cherie C. Binns RN BS MSCN
Vision: Therapeutic Humor Focuses on Strengthening Emotional Health
By: Steven M.
Sultanoff, Ph.D.
Just as our
physical immune system protects us from toxins in our environment, our
“psychological immune system” protects us from the toxins generated from
psychological stressors we experience in the world around us. Research has
shown that humor strengthens both our physical and psychological immune
systems; it helps to sustain the psychological immune system by altering how we
feel, think, and behave.
Cognitive
Benefits
Humor helps
break rigid thinking resulting in our ability to perceive the world more
“realistically” and without distortions. Our emotional state is greatly
influenced by our perception of the events around us. A stressor is not
inherently stressful. The intensity of stress we experience is directly related
to the way in which we perceive the stressor.
Shakespeare
stated, “Nothing is good or bad. It is thinking that makes it so.” Because one
person’s view of a particular stressor influences the impact of that stressor,
a variety of people experiencing the same stressor may have vastly different
reactions, depending on the meaning they place on the stressor.
For example,
someone who feels excessive anger often believes that the world must treat him
“fairly,” and when it does not treat him so, he becomes angry. Humor helps
adjust this particular belief system by providing a more realistic perspective
on an “unfair world.”
Someone who
experiences excessive anxiety often believes that she must perform well to be
accepted or valued. When an environmental stressor challenges her performance,
she experiences anxiety.
Humor, again,
can provide a clearer perspective, placing her “performance” in a healthier
relation to the specific environment so that the individual changes her
thinking pattern from “I must perform to be okay” to “I would like to perform
well, but I’m okay even when I don’t do as well as I hoped.”
Emotional
Benefits
Humor not only
relieves distressful feelings, but it also helps teach us that we have the
ability to “manage” our emotional states. One can’t experience distressing
emotions such as anger, anxiety, depression, guilt, or resentment and
experience humor at the same time. You may have heard someone who is very angry
say, “Don’t make me laugh. I want to be angry.” You cannot maintain a high
level of anger and laugh at the same time.
When I asked
one of my clients (who was very “dedicated” to her depression) what upset her
about my humorous interventions, she replied, “When you make me laugh, I do not
feel depressed.” My humor momentarily relieved some of her depression, which
she seemed committed to maintaining! Humor and distressful emotions cannot
occupy the same emotional/psychological space.
Since the
experience of humor affects our emotions, we can learn to manage our emotional
distress through humor. While humorous interventions may not remove chronic
depression, they can – for a few moments, at least – relieve emotional upset,
teaching us experientially that depression and other distressing emotions can
be lessened or temporarily relieved when we experience humor.
Understanding
the Elements of Humor
We receive
humor as a combination of wit (the cognitive experience), mirth (the emotional
experience), and laughter (the physiological experience). While laughter is
readily observed as a result of a humorous experience, wit and mirth are
internal and not as obvious to others. However, a sense of humor is comprised
of a combination of these components. Just because someone does not laugh does not
mean that they lack a sense of humor. They may be experiencing wit or mirth but
not laughter.
Wit occurs when
we “appreciate” humor. It is the liking, understanding, and the “getting it”
that we experience as humorous. The health benefit of wit lies in its ability
to help us break rigid mindsets that are common among those of us who
experience a great deal of distress such as depression, anxiety, and
anger. Wit helps us to see the world with perspective and thus reduces
the impact of the stressors around us. Exaggeration is an example of one type
of humor that helps break rigid thinking patterns and provides perspective.
Mirth is the
emotional experience of humor consisting of joy, pleasure, or inner warmth that
may occur. Distressing emotions and mirth cannot occupy the same psychological
space. As we experience mirth, our inner distresses dissolve and a pleasant
sunny spirit takes their place. We know this intuitively, as illustrated by
people using humor instinctively to reduce their anxiety or anger.
And, finally,
laughter is the physiological reaction to humor. When we laugh we are
activated, our muscles contract, our pulse rate and breathing increase, and we
begin to lose muscle control.
The good news
is that we can reap all the therapeutic benefits of humor by developing our
“comic vision” – a way of perceiving the world that allows us to be receptive
to the humor around and within us. (For suggestions on how to do so, see the
box on the next page.) Heightened receptivity to humor can stimulate our ability
to be increasingly interactive with, and even proactive toward, the world
around us. In this way we increase our perception of humor – allowing it to
help us manage our biochemical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral states.
As our comic
vision expands, we are energized and recharged; our desire and ability to
choose activity over inactivity increases. We are more likely to greet and
connect with others. And we are more likely to live healthier and happier lives
as we maintain our physical and emotional resilience.
Developing
Your Comic Vision: The Fun-da-Mentals
Jest
for the Health of It
To create a
humorous lifestyle, we must develop our “comic vision.” Comic vision is
the ability to see the humor around us, and the ability to generate humor from
within. Increasing our comic vision begins with what we find humorous and
expanding our vision from there. For example, if your humor is to appreciate
jokes, then learn one joke and tell it well. Later you can learn another
and so on.
Weave
your Web
The internet is
a great adventure in developing a comic vision. You can visit humor sites or
join a humor mailing list to receive humor daily.
Make a
Prop-position
Props are a fun
way to add humor to your lifestyle. Carry a clown nose for a week and wear it
at least once a day. I blow bubbles from my car while stopped at traffic
lights. I also carry Groucho glasses and mental floss to wear in the car.
A Room
“wit” a View
Humor to share
abounds around us. In a restaurant recently I read a sign that said, “Children
left unattended will be towed at the owner’s expense.” Read and share the
humor you discover.
Play
with your Mental Blocks
You may read
signs and take meanings literally. For example, at a cashier at the end
of a cafeteria line inLas Vegasthere was a sign that stated, “We only accept US
traveler’s checks.” I turned to the cashier and said, “I guess I will have to
put everything back. I only have cash!” The sign wasn’t meant to be
funny, but I read it literally and it became funny (at least to me). I then
shared my humor with the cashier.
Commit
yourself
Start by
committing to doing one thing to increase your comic vision. Carry and use a
prop, learn and share a joke, e-mail something funny, make fun of yourself,
exaggerate, and so on. It is not what is humorous that is important; instead it
is what is humorous to you that is significant.
Steven M.
Sultanoff, Ph.D, is a psychologist, university professor (Pepperdine),
professional speaker, past president of the Association for Applied and
Therapeutic Humor, and internationally recognized expert on therapeutic humor.
With nearly 25 years in the therapeutic humor field, he has written many
innovative articles, as well as a pioneering chapter on Integrating Humor into
Psychotherapy which is published in the psychology textbook Play Therapy
with Adults. Dr. Sultanoff has appeared on The Morning Show, STARZ, Lifetime,
and PBS and is frequently quoted in publications such as Prevention, USA Today,
Men’s Health, and Women’s Health. He provides live therapeutic humor training
programs, as well as online humor courses in multi-media formats. His website (www.humormatters.com)
provides a wealth of information on therapeutic humor as well as a wide range
of topical humor.
(Last reviewed
7/2011)
WATCH OUR MS EDUCATIONAL VIDEOS by Topic, found here: www.youtube.com/msviewsandnews
JOIN our Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/msviewsandnews
————-
Thank you
Stu’s Views & MS News, is a publication of:
