When Hal Wright died suddenly at the age of 82, his children and eight adult grandchildren gathered quickly to be with their mother and grandmother. The setting was a quiet retirement community but, over the next three days, neighbours graciously tolerated the noise from the Wright’s backyard. What they heard was dearly loved and much missed; his grandchildren celebrated the rare opportunity to be together with stories from their childhoods, jokes and gentle teasing.
Laughter is Good Medicine
What the Wright grandchildren were doing of course, was coping with the stress of the loss of a loved one. Laughter is great medicine in all kinds of stressful situations. Hospitals often arrange visits from performing groups or celebrities to lift the pall of illness, or they use comedies to help lighten the mood. Similarly, some employers host occasional parties to ease tensions in the workplace and reduce stress.
Humor Relieves Tension
Some people naturally use humor in stressful situations. Others feel that every situation is so serious that any humor is inappropriate. Most of us, however, appreciate a good laugh when we’re scared or worried. It distracts us and relieves tension.
Coping with Stress
Sometimes you take yourself too seriously and unremitting stress can wear you down and make it harder to cope. Scientists theorize that laughter releases certain “feel-good” hormones which, in turn, make it easier for us to cope with stressful situations.
Remember Laughter
The next time you’re ill, worried or overstressed, try to remember that you can intervene in the stress process. Get together with friends, take in a show or watch a humorous show. You might be surprised at how much better you feel after you’ve spent some time laughing.
Humor helps us to think out of the box.
The average child laughs about 400 times per day, the average adult laughs only 15 times per day. What happened to the other 385 laughs?
A book you may want to read is
“You CAN’T Be Serious!”
Written by Michael Kerr, it’s about putting humor to work at work!