How often do you have a really good laugh? I mean, really weep with laughter?

Yesterday I spoke to a man with chronic pain who claimed that by far the best ‘pain medication’ was to recall times when he’d been convulsed with laughter. He found this often worked better than ‘pain pills’. I didn’t roll my eyes at this, as you might have expected, as I’m quite well aware that laughter really is a ‘tonic’. A good belly laugh can suppress pain, boost immune response, lower blood pressure and enhance a sense of intimacy and shared understanding with those around – to name but a few of the benefits of laughter.

Humor, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Well, so to speak!
 We often find the unexpected funny – as long as we don’t feel threatened by the jolt it gives us. Many jokes rely on this for their effect – they mislead our expectations and then suddenly face us with a totally different outcome. This jolt has other uses. A short sharp humor shock can actually help us become better learners and problem solvers as we burst into laughter. This is because it loosens up our everyday mind – which tends to travel along pretty comfortable, predictable tracks. The jolt stimulates the brain to make new connections and get creative. It gets us out of ‘automatic thinking’ and into an altogether looser, freer, livelier-feeling mode of awareness. That’s why you should really take laughter seriously.

Should we be able to laugh at everything, though? Some people find it a bit hard to swallow that you might sometimes get a better understanding of even quite serious matters if you inject humor into them. Isn’t this just trivializing important things, disrespecting the real seriousness of what is at issue? But while no one should laugh at another’s misfortune, for example, helping that other to laugh at their own misfortune here and there, now and then, can – when done sensitively – actually do them a real psychological favor. It can genuinely lighten their burden.

And some sorts of seriousness really could do with a jolt of humor. People who take themselves too seriously (I’m sure you know a few) become pompous and overbearing. You can’t reason them out of it – but a joke might help them see their own ridiculousness. This was often said to be the real role of the medieval court jester – they had special dispensation to remind the sovereign that that they were only human after all by pricking their pomposity with humor. This was too risky for ordinary people to do – they might get their heads chopped off!

Anyway, I asked this guy what were the memories he went back to that were so hilarious they could suppress the pain. And he looked me straight in the eye and said: “No shortage! I worked in banking for thirty years!”

Ho ho.

Mark