How does laughter help our health?
Studies have shown that a sense of humor can improve your mental and physical health, boost your attractiveness, and improve your leadership skills.
There are a variety of theories and styles of humor, each of which can improve your understanding of the subject.
Humor may be a critical life skill, but can it be taught?
Mark Twain said that “Humor is the great thing, the saving thing after all. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations, and resentments flit away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.” He’s certainly not wrong. Humor may very well be the great thing. It touches upon nearly every facet of life—90% of men and 81% of women report that a sense of humor is the most important quality in a partner, it’s a crucial quality for leaders, and it’s even been shown to improve cancer treatments. There’s no doubt that humor is a life skill that everybody needs. But how do we define humor, and can it be taught?
What is humor?
The best way to kill a joke is to explain it, but psychologists have tried to do so anyhow. There are three main theories on what humor is and where it comes from. Relief theory argues that laughter and humor are ways of blowing off psychological steam, a way to release psychic energy. That’s why jokes told at funerals are often met not with the silence that a somber occasion like that would merit but with uproarious laughter instead.
HUMORS
1
A man comes to a pharmacy and asks for a remedy for worms.
The pharmacist asks: Are you for adults or for children?
“Unfortunately, I don’t know how old the worms are.
2
A little boy and girl are talking.
He: — I love you!
She: — What, just like adults?
Him: No, really.
3
The boy drew something round. He walks around and asks everyone what it is. Well, who says that this is the sun, who sees an apple, who — a tomato. The kid comes to his mother and says:
“Adults are so stupid!” It’s just a circle!
4
— Mom, dad, I thought so, I’m already an adult, I want to live alone!
— Well done, son, I’m proud of you!
— Thank you, your things are at the door.
5
Father, after the Christmas tree in kindergarten, says to his little son:
— Son, you’re already quite an adult. I want to tell you that there is no Santa Claus. On the Christmas tree, in the garden, I was Santa Claus. Understand?
— Yes, dad, I understand … Were you a stork too?
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