Humor

Edward de Bono said: “Humor is by far the most significant activity of the human brain.” Humor is a core part of who we are as human beings. Some people have a sense of humor. Alas, some people do not. But humor is more than just laughing. It has a powerful effect on us both physically and mentally.

Believe it or not, laughter can improve our heart health by increasing our heart rate and lowering our blood pressure. In a study from 2016, the authors showed that people who rarely laughed were 1.2 times more likely to have heart disease than folks that laughed daily.

Laughter can also help boost our immune system. We can actually increase antibody-producing cells in our body. Crazy, huh?

Humor can also reduce stress, improve memory, reduce pain, and improve sleep. Dang.

It can also create better social situations by bringing people closer together or easing tension in meetings or conversations. It makes discussions more real and more productive. I’ve experienced it many times in work settings where someone has thrown a joke or a witticism into a discussion when the temperature was rising. Everybody laughs for a second, then we get back to the topic in a much more effective way. It helps break the ice, give everyone a chance to take a deep breath, and start again.

And it’s not just at work. It’s in our everyday lives. Humor makes us relatable as human beings. Somebody makes a joke when you’re standing in line at the grocery store, ticket line, wherever…and everybody kind of chuckles and the mood lightens. Sometimes folks even begin having conversations after a moment like that. People remove social barriers that would otherwise inhibit such interactions. It’s incredibly powerful.

Sometimes we need to have a sense of humor just to get through the day. I mean, how many times have you said: “I have to laugh, otherwise I’d cry”? <Hand raised>. A few days after my Dad passed away, my brother and I were doing something (I can’t remember exactly what). But the situation presented itself for me to make a joke about our Dad. We both laughed so hard we cried – and we knew our Dad would be right there laughing with us. It was cathartic. We still mourned and grieved, but we remembered our Dad in a way that really resonated with who he was.  

And sometimes, we just need to laugh at ourselves. When we first moved into our house here in Bismarck, I could NOT figure out how to open the windows. I tried to turn the handles, and they were just stuck. My wife said: “Maybe if you flip the lock up they’ll open.” Those locks that I rested my hand on to try and open the windows <smh>. So, yea. We throw it into a conversation every now and again – “I can build a fence, but I can’t open a window.” And it brings a smile to our faces.

Finding and creating opportunities to laugh help us navigate our human journey in a much more positive way and communal way. On that note, I leave you a clip of Nate Bargatze trying to order coffee from Starbucks.

(All written content created the old-fashioned way.)