Understanding Humor and Laughing More
When was your last time you laughed out lout? How did you feel in that situation? Did you notice your body reaction? Do you find hard to laugh at yourself in some cases?
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I was torn between the following sentences to quote for the illustration of this article:
“If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.” said Mahatma Gandhi, the great-souled, venerable Indian who led the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule.
“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” said Groucho Marx, a master of quick wit and one of America's greatest comedians.
If you was me, which one would you select? As you can see, I chose the second one. What he described was definitely true. Books are helpful for our mental life and literally we can’t read inside of a dog because it’s completely dark. Anyone laugh like me when reading the second one?
In our daily life, when facing those unexpected events or situations, our mind is easily disturbed as a result of defense mechanisms caused from physiological to psychological. Defense mechanisms are believed to protect the ego from emotional pain through the unconscious mind’s distortion of reality. The use of defense mechanisms may have positive or negative ramifications depending upon the particular mechanism and how it is used.
For example, the mechanism of denial, when you are in love, serves as a barrier to accepting the breakup and seeking help. In contrast, a person who is not yet ready to face trauma may use mechanisms such as regression or suppression as protective mechanisms until ready to face the situation.
So, what role of humor can help us in defense mechanisms? In VIA’s definition1, humor means to recognize what is amusing in situations, and to offer the lighter side to others. Humor involves the ability to make other people smile or laugh, even yourself. It also means having a composed and cheerful view on adversity that allows an individual to see its light side and thereby sustain a good mood.
Furthermore, humor also serves as an invaluable strength associated with various indices of psychological wellbeing, work-related benefits, learning, and creativity. You can do your own researches and for sure that it shows many results about the benefits of humor. By this chance, I would like to highlight two benefits that direct affects to our daily basis as follows:
Lower level of internalizing criticism. We tend to criticize ourselves when things go wrong and this process that may be inhibited by a good sense of humor. Instead, we laugh at our own clumsiness and remind yourself that mistakes make a man perfect, then you will see the matter simply and less seriously.
Humor at the workplace was linked to enhanced relationships, more creative thinking, more collaborative negotiations, and better customer relations. Between a colleague who like to tease and lower stressful atmosphere and another one who always complain and blame difficulties, who do you prefer to work with?
So, how to be a person with sense of humor. Here are something you can do:
Watch or listen to stand-up comedy or comedy movies;
Read funny books;
Spend more time around funny people;
Play with pet;
Don’t be afraid to embrace your inner child. Adults often feel that they must always behave in an “age-appropriate” way. However, if being silly and playful made you happy at age 12, it probably still will. Don’t deprive yourself of happiness because of perceived pressure to act a certain way.
You know, one of my top five character strengths as resulted from the VIA Character Strengths test is humor. I like laughing and sometime make up a funny story in my mind just to laugh at my own (sound like crazy, right?). I found that laughing helps me release negative thoughts and emotions, everything become clearly and I can see the matter as it is. The more I get caught up in the emotions and interpretations in my mind, the more I get stuck in the mess and go beyond the nature of the matter.
Last thing, I am wondering if you have ever visited a Vietnamese pagoda yet. Have you ever noticed the first Buddha when entering is the statue with big smile? He is Maitreya Buddha, the Buddha of the Future, also representing the beginning of a new year and implying that we never know what would happen next, we’d better keep smiling that will light up a new start, direct us to the light side and see thing comes as it is.
Let’s smile and may you always find something little funny in you daily life.
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Thư Lê (Ivy)
Positive Psychology Coach - Positive Psychology, APA Certified | ICF 70-hour ACSTH Certified Coach | Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam | ivythule.substack.com/about
VIA Institute On Character. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.viacharacter.org/character-strengths/humor