Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Humor Can Heal

Article By Heather Cozen, M.S.

A psychology professor once asked my class, “What do you think the biggest form of stress relief is?” Students began to shout out the answers.

“Meditation!”

“Yoga!”

“Exercise!”

Our professor merely shook her head and stood for a moment in silence. Finally, she said, “None of these answers are correct. The biggest stress relief is actually FUN!” In this moment, the class let out simultaneous exhales, and my life was forever changed.

I went to college at UC Santa Cruz and spent three years after graduating living there. Lifestyles that are considered obscure in Los Angeles are the norm in Santa Cruz, such as being a vegan, macrobiotic, yoga junkie or guru follower. I grew up in a Jewish household with a fair amount of anxiety, and so naturally I was attracted to methods of stress relief upon leaving home for the first time. After 7 years of Santa Cruz, I began to internalize the concept that stress relief comes from silent, serious and somewhat strict daily practices.

While I still deeply believe that eating healthy, exercising, practicing yoga and having some type of spiritual belief are of the utmost importance for living a balanced life, I now believe that many of these practices lack a central element— FUN! After my professor mentioned this concept in class, I became particularly fascinated with how fun can enrich our lives, and even more specifically, how adding humor can make life more fun.

I began to remember that during various challenging times in my life, I naturally gravitated towards watching funny movies, listening to hilarious comedians, and reading light-hearted books and magazines. While these forms of entertainment may seem superficial or unrelated to times of sadness, I now view them as a spiritual and psychological journey that shifted my perspective for the better.

Comedy provides us with the opportunity to not take ourselves and our issues so seriously. Laughing at ourselves and life serves to help us detach from our ego, and rising above the small individual “self.” Remember “Annie Hall” with Woody Allen? They took serious relationship issues and made them comical and light-hearted. At times, the characters even turn into cartoons, talked to the camera and had humorous flashbacks to when they were children. How fantastic is that? It personally provided me with a lot of food for thought, and also with a way to depersonalize and laugh at severe relationship issues that might otherwise bring me down.

I’ve spent countless hours researching the effects of humor on psychological health, and the research seems to be piling up. I even discovered that Sigmund Freud, who many consider to be the founding father of psychotherapy, said that humor is “a means to gain pleasure despite the painful affects which disturb it.” Two existential psychologists, Rollo May and Viktor Frankl, believed that using humor with clients increased their self-awareness, allowing them to decrease their anxiety and accept themselves and others more. May also saw humor as a way to distance oneself from their issues, giving and the individual a different perspective on it. What I found most fascinating is what May words, “people cannot laugh when anxious or panic-stricken.” You can’t laugh and feel bad at the same time, so laugh away! Have some fun.

I have to say, with all of the personal and professional evidence I’ve accumulated on the importance of humor for psychological healing, I know this will be an important part of my private practice in the future. I even try to use small bits of appropriate humor when supporting a struggling friend or when going through my own issues. I urge anyone reading this article to experiment with being a silly fool next time you’re are feeling sad, anxious, angry or stressed out. Pop on a stand up comedy CD, rent a Woody Allen movie or a season of Sex and The City, get together with a friend and make weird faces in the mirror, or simply sit back in a comfy chair and laugh about the sheer silliness and absurdity of being human, because after all we are quite the zany species!