7 steps to turn your life around with humour

Research done by William Fry, professor emeritus at Stanford University School of Medicine, has found that kindergarteners laugh 300 times a day, whereas adults laugh just 17 times.

I know exactly what you are thinking. With so much hate, violence, political machinations, a horrible boss, a soul-sucking job, miserable work conditions and pay, how can you find any reason to laugh or even smile about? 

It is when you find yourself at your mental or physical lowest, I offer to you, that humour could be a small turning point.

Mark Twain

The secret source of humour is not joy but sorrow; there is no humour in Heaven.

Humour is an instrument, which in the direst circumstances, can make you smile and laugh. For that infinitesimal space,  it lights up your mind. Humour makes you a little bit more playful. In that space, it gives you an opportunity to transform negative emotions into a positive emotion.

People who show a better sense of humour are more optimistic, confident about their abilities and reported a higher well-being or happiness.

An interesting research by Petersen, Seligman, and Park showed that recovery from a psychological disorder or serious illness was associated with an increase in elevated levels of humour. Humour not only changes your mood, it allows you to view your adversity in a lighter side, and sustain your positive mood. When practised appropriately, humour is known to decrease your negative moods, depression, anxiety and stress.

Edmund Hillary

Good planning is important. I've also regarded a sense of humour as one of the most important things on a big expedition. When you're in a difficult or dangerous situation, or when you're depressed about the chances of success, someone who can make you laugh eases the tension.

Personally, for me, humour works like a great gravy or sauce. You could even treat humour like a little garnish. The freshly ground green chutney, the sprinkling of freshly ground black pepper on your pasta, or just that set of extra olives on your pizza.

The Masterchef of Humour is Paul McGhee, who developed the Seven Humour Habits Plan, where you practice one for a day. The idea of the programme is to begin the practice on a good day, and then later on use it on days that you are not feeling so good. It does seem awkward that you can actually increase your sense of humour. It might even perhaps stress you out if someone suddenly asks you to crack a joke or start becoming funny.

Ralph Fiennes

One of the things that binds us as a family is a shared sense of humour.

Step 1: Surround yourself with humour and think about your sense of humour

Most people have a sense of humour, it is just that they don’t actively look for it. They do not see the humour in what others may find funny or amusing. So the first step is to understand your own mindset about humour. Watch a few YouTube—sitcoms, cartoons, funny scenes from films—anything that tickles you.

Use this to think about your own sense of humour.

Peter Ustinov

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.

Step 2: Cultivate a playful attitude

Humour is more a state of mind and being receptive to ideas. Think of various props around your home or work that brings a smile to your face. It could be some funny WhatsApp photos. It could be Garfield, Charlie Brown or Dilbert cartoon strips. It could be reading Asterix, Tintin or Lucky Luke comics. It could be making funny doodles. It could be a joke of the day website. Keep them close by.

Every day, use a minimum of two of these funny tools.

Salma Hayek

If you're feeling blue, lock yourself in a room, stand in front of a mirror, and dance - and laugh at yourself and be sexy. Dance the silliest and ugliest you've ever danced. Make fun of yourself and try to recover your sense of humour.

Step 3: Laugh more often and more heartily

People who laugh are healthier. Studies show that that bursts of laughter decrease blood pressure, and enhances your immune function. In certain contexts, when combined with exercise, they will reduce levels of chronic pain. They will improve the physical health of elderly populations.

Other studies also found that laughter improves depressive symptomatology and sleep patterns.

While studying stress, Barbara Fredrickson and Bob Levenson have found that laughing, probably through its effects on breathing that make you breathe more deeply, actually calms your cardiovascular system.

There are simple ways of increasing your laughter. The first and the simplest way is to laugh a little bit louder that you normally would. Another way is to get associated with laughter, so you could watch a funny movie alone or with someone.

Here is the most interesting of them all. Change your personal script. When you find yourself getting irritated or angry, try and laugh. While you are doing so, observe your emotional state changing.

Changes the conditions in and around you to let humour flourish.

Bob Hope

I have seen what a laugh can do. It can transform almost unbearable tears into something bearable, even hopeful.

Till now, what we were doing is just setting the foundation to build humour.

Aristotle

The secret to humour is surprise.

Step 4: Create your own verbal humour

History has documented the use of humour in language. Court jesters would use language to send out a message through their humour. Great philosophical debates would be laced with high-quality humour.

So here is the exercise. Seek out the humour in your everyday life. The easiest exercise is to observe humour in language. They could be funny (or not funny) puns. They could be funny road signs. The idea is to build a habit of noticing and appreciating humour. Newspaper headlines, especially sports pages, have lots of puns. Many advertisements have puns and interesting twists of situations.

When you come across them, write them down. Humour is not about making or telling jokes, but it is about just having a lighter and more imaginative approach to life.

EE Cummings

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.

Step 5: Look for humour in everyday life

When you talk to people about humour, the first response predictably is, “I am too busy to find humour” or “There is only stress, difficulty, frustration and sadness in my life”.

You can try this simple exercise. While commuting to work or at work or home or at the gym, try and relate jokes and events to your life.  In case you forget to do so, you might want to put up a small reminder or a funny poster.

Alternatively, you could think about a past event in which you used humour for your benefit and the benefit of others. You could think about how others used humour.

Humour is about just laughing, friendly teasing and bringing happiness to others. If you can make someone smile with the power of your words, then you have overcome the biggest step towards mastering the skill of humour. If need be, write down the situation and share it people close to you.

Step 6: Take yourself lightly

This is perhaps the most difficult of exercises, mainly because of its perceived social awkwardness.

In this step, uncomfortable as it may sound, go easy on yourself. Instead of wallowing in self-misery, just for a change, gently laugh at your flaws. For me, I have learned to live with forgetting wallets, watches, laptops on aircraft, airports, hotels and conference rooms. You might want to identify aspects of your personality, which you do not like to talk about. It could be your age, height or weight. Identify the hot button issues, which set you off in the wrong direction.

Here is the exercise. Identify an issue, which is not a very hot button for you. Learn a few self-deprecating jokes. Authors like Kushwant Singh, RK Laxman and comic strips like Dilbert and Charlie Brown are fantastic sources. Once you have identified a self-deprecating remark, practice it with yourself first. Once you are comfortable with it, try it on a few people who know you well. See if it works. If it does, then take it for a test drive and use it in the company of people you do not know very well.

In the process of learning you will make mistakes. Some jokes will fall flat. That is absolutely fine. Just power on and change the joke or change the delivery.

If you find the joke funny, but others don’t, then maybe just keep it as a private joke you share with yourself.

Once you can joke about the lighter issues, the important point is that you should now move on to the really hot-button topics.

Individuals who can demonstrate this step are able to see the lighter side of life in many situations, finding things to be cheerful about rather than letting adversity get the better of their minds.

Remember, the idea is to train your mind to use humour as a first response, rather than anger or frustration.

Now we move to the final step.

Bert Williams

The man with the real sense of humour is the man who can put himself in the spectator's place and laugh at his own misfortune.

Step 7: Find humour in the middle of stress

Great leaders develop a fantastic sense of humour and know exactly when to deploy it. I have seen them deploy it in a tough board meeting or when negotiations have reached an impasse. A small joke tends to lighten the atmosphere. They use it with great élan and sensitivity so as to not hurt anyone. A small knowing smile, a wave of laughter or a little twinkle can set off a ripple of positivity in the room.

Once you have developed the six steps, it is time to apply humour in the toughest of situations, when you are undergoing the highest amount of stress. You will need all your positive emotions and intellect to make an impact.

All you have to do is implement the humour habits stated above when you are stressed.

You can begin by using humour in situations which are predictable and get you stressed. For example, when being stuck in traffic makes you furious or when the waiter does not get your order right or when someone does not deliver what they were supposed to deliver. Be careful to practice in lighter situations before moving on to more strenuous situations.

What do these steps cover?

They start with exploring your humour mindset and works toward convincing you that humour can be strengthened. It then works on training your mind to notice the humour that surrounds you and to laugh heartily. As a result, you experience more positive emotions and reduce the negative emotions that accompany undesirable situations. The programme works on helping you create a verbal language of humour. You slowly develop an ability to laugh at your own self and then most importantly laugh when you need it the most, in times of stress. It works as an excellent coping mechanism.

When does humour not work?

Negative humour has a reverse impact on our mind. It makes us feel worse about ourselves. Nobody really likes hurting anyone. Humour that is mean-spirited does not work well for both the person who delivers the joke or the person who is at the receiving end. It could even lead to a downward spiral when a mean-spirited joke is rebutted with a meaner joke.

Humour that is reflective or shows an interesting insight, works better than clichéd reference or a boorish joke. Jokes about stereotypes never ever work. Jokes built around an interesting or warm aspect works better than a cold brutal analysis.

Humour is built on the foundation of persistence.

What I have to offer to you is that humour has within itself a very readily available and potent antidote to combat the adversarial nature of life. Within you is locked a power to bring a gentle smile to the faces of people and to mentally lessen their burden.

As we enter the last month of 2015, a year that has seen so much polarisation and turbulence. Let’s bring to life a long buried cliché and let humour flourish in a fertile imagination. Let’s use the next four weeks to savour the good and then build on our aspirational plans for 2016. 

Erin Morgenstern

When you meet someone new who instantly gets you, your sense of humour and your attitudes and your worldview, even if theirs are different - and you get them in return. You both talk and talk and agree and laugh and nod and yes, yes, of course you should get another round of drinks.