Did you know that April is national humor month? I guess it makes sense since the month starts with April Fool’s Day.  Humor improves our overall well-being and enriches our lives.  Yet, as we get older, we laugh less.  We take ourselves too seriously.  According to Psychology today, the average 4-year-old laughs 300 times a day, while the average 40-year-old only laughs 4 times a day.  I wonder how often the average 64-year-old laughs a day?  Not enough.

I think that most of us want to laugh more. I want to observe the funny side of life, because it is there…. buried under the responsibilities, commitments, worries and hardships of life. It is still there. Humor is healing. When people are grieving, they need moments of laughter to keep their world from crashing in.

For a large portion of my career, I worked as a nurse in an emergency department. You see some of life’s deepest heartbreak within those walls. You have to learn how to hold the hand of someone that is experiencing life’s worse nightmare and yet, not take it home with you. It is not your nightmare to carry. One way healthcare workers learn to cope is through laughter. Because, honestly, you see a lot of humorous stuff walk through those doors too. So, we learn to balance the pain with humor. Isn’t that the same as life in general? We need to balance the pain with humor. But if we don’t laugh enough, that balance gets tipped in the wrong direction.

Laughter is good for your health

The literature has identified numerous health benefits to laughter. Psychology Today claimed laughter and a sense of humor as one of the top 24 main signature strengths a person can possess. Research suggests that laughter has the potential to:

• Improve your immune system.  Positive thoughts release neuropeptides that help fight stress and illness. It is like laughter is the dimmer switch that you can turn up to increase the immune system response.
• Relieve pain. When you laugh, your body releases endorphins, which help relieve pain and create a natural sense of well-being.
• Increase personal satisfaction. Laughter can help people cope with difficult situations. Since laughter is often shared, it also has the benefit of connection to others. The University of California, Berkeley did a study of long-term couples and discovered laughter to be one of the universal aspects that held their relationships together for so long.
• Decrease stress. Laughter reduces cortisol, the hormone associated with stress and anxiety.
• Improve cardiovascular health. Laughter increases blood flow and oxygen intake, both of which benefit your cardiovascular system.
• Improve your mood. Laughter can help decrease stress, depression and anxiety and make you feel happier. When you laugh, your body releases serotonin (a natural antidepressant) and dopamine (the neurotransmitter that helps us feel pleasure).

“Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.”

Lord Byron

How to laugh more

Just hang out with kids for a little while if you need a good laugh. They are the experts on this, obviously, since they laugh over 300 times a day. They approach life from a lighter side, and you never know what is going to come out of their mouths. When our boys were small and we were on a car trip, we passed a beautiful snowcapped mountain rising up to the sun. One of the boys, excited to share his knowledge with us, stammered, “I know what that mountain is. It is, it is, it’s… Mount 7-Up!” He was on the right track. It was Mount Shasta. Smile. If you are a boomer, you probably remember Art Linkletter’s show, Kids Say the Darndest Things. If you need to laugh, go watch a few reruns of it. Better yet, hang out with a child.

Being around pets is also a great way to get a few laughs. Bonus if they are your grand pets. They are like grandkids in that you get to enjoy them without all of the work and responsibility.

Carefully choose what you look at and read. I get our local newspaper on-line and make a point to read the funnies every morning. Having raised four teenage boys, I can really appreciate the humor in the comic Zits, and the comic Pickles helps us see the humorous side of aging. Try following a comedian or two on social media. I follow Ellen Skrimetti’s IG site, justskrmetti. Choose funny sitcoms and movies to keep you positive and smiling. Personally, I do not watch the daily news because it is so depressing. (Don’t worry, the news still seems to find its way to me, so I am not totally in the dark.)

Hang out with humorous people. We were in a commuter van recently. Like a true baby boomer, at first, I was skeptical of the young driver with a bandana and dread locks. We all chuckled cautiously at his first few jokes, but by the end of the ride, we were all smiling and sharing in his banter. He may have been working the tips, but he was positive, fun, knowledgeable and making the effort. We got off that bus in a much better mood than we started. Laughter and a positive attitude just might be more contagious than COVID. (And we did leave a bigger tip than we normally would.) It helps you laugh more if you are with others who are willing to laugh at life and themselves.

Seek out the humor in life. Sometimes it just takes being more cognizant of the humor around us. Being aware and noticing it. Once you start doing this, you will see more of it. Smiles and laughter will be closer to your lips. I seem to be more aware of humor when I travel. Maybe it is because I am not rushing with my head down plowing through my day.

My take

If you have been reading my blog for very long, you have probably noticed that I try to keep it positive and light. I try to be optimistic and search out the joy and beauty in life. Why not? The alternative is to be a grumpy old person, and no one wants to be around that person, including myself. But being positive and upbeat is not the same as being humorous. It is not the same as having a good ole belly laugh or even a smile and a little chuckle. I need to laugh more.

We all have concerns. Things we worry about in the depths of night when we can’t sleep. No one gets away from life unscathed. Or, as they say, #$@% happens. It is all too easy to sit with a scowl and wait for the next shoe to drop. I have to constantly choose not to focus on these things. I believe that we should arm ourselves with joy so that when problems rear their ugly heads, and they will, we will be filled up and better able to deal with them. It is kind of like being prepared with a full tank of gas. So, I am making a commitment today to see the funnier side of life. It sure beats the alternative.

“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.”

Norman Cousins