Stress Management Techniques Humor

Although nearly 5 years old now, the worlds funniest joke, according to the laughlab website goes as follows :

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses.

He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed.

The other guy takes out his phone and calls the emergency services.

He gasps: "My friend is dead! What can I do?"

The operator says: "Calm down, I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead."

There is a silence, then a gunshot is heard.

Back on the phone, the guy says: "OK, now what?"

The laughlab website was created by Dr Richard Wiseman to discover what made the world laugh the most. The website listed over 40,000 jokes and allowed visitors to rate jokes. The purpose of the website and the experiment was to understand how jokes and humor were used in communication. A by-product of this research was a better understanding of how humor and jokes work.

Jokes work in three ways :

They make us feel superior to others

Reduce emotional impact of anxiety provoking situations

Surprise us because of some kind of incongruity.

If you break these statements down you can see how they have benefits to a persons psychological and physiological well being.

Making a person seem superior is an ego boost and a pick me up for somebody that may be depressed in someway.

Reducing the emotional impact could be identifying a stressful situation for the person but then ridiculing the situation and hence defusing it's potency. It also forces the person to re-evaluate their own understanding of the situation.

Surprising somebody is like altering their consciousness. It forces them to look at a situation from a different perspective through surrealism or absurdity. It helps them to think with the right side of their brain if they have been solely focused on using their left side or vice versa. It is the break they need from their everyday reality.

University studies have pinpointed the physiological changes that occur in our bodies when we laugh. It is contended that the blood flows more vigorously and is enervated. This can improve the immune and cardiovascular systems. It also contends that common stress hormones that are released in stressful situations are reduced

The well known aphorism “laughter is the best medicine” has been applied to general health problems for hundreds of years. Today, clown doctors will visit sick children in hospital and play pranks and gaffs on themselves or the kids. This is said to have beneficial results on the children's recovery rates. This can also be applied to dealing with stress. Laughing can prevent stress from causing ill health. 

Oh an here's another joke from the laughlab.

A man goes into a doctors surgery.

He says “Doctor, doctor I have a terrible problem, bit embarrassing, err I have a piece of lettuce sticking out of my bottom”

The doctor asks him to drop his trousers so that a he can take a look.

“ Well, what is it ?” asks the man.

To which the doctor replies “I'm sorry to tell you this but it's just the tip of the iceberg”

Bahboom ! Humor is also highly subjective too !

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