Humor Motivation
Continuing my "'Top Ten' Guide to Stress and Humor," I'll address the following question:
2. What motivates the use of humor? From readings on the subject and my experience as a psychohumorist (tm), I've come up with four motivational sources of humor: Arousal, Incongruity, Liberation and Superiority. Humor is good for what AILS you! And as humor is "the best medicine," I thought the acronym apt.
A. Arousal. We use humor to overcome boredom or monotony, to get us out of a funky mood, as well as to relieve or put the brake on accelerating tension. At a physiological level, full-throttle laughter gives facial muscles and your cardio-respiratory-musculo-skeletal systems a workout. This mind-body laughing response also raises endorphin levels. These chemicals are the body's natural pain relievers and mood enhancers. Vigorous laughing has been likened to "inner jogging." I beleive it was psychiatrist and humorist, Dr. William Fry, who observed, "Laughing with gusto is like turning your body into a big vibrator giving vital organs a brief but hardy internal massage."
From Physiology to Sociology
Laughter also works on a sociological level to affect arousal and mood. Let me illustrate with a story shared during a workshop with new information managers from the US State Department. These folks ran the in-house computer networks of the various embassies around the world. An interesting bunch; many had previous military experience. With their computer and military orientations, some were not accustomed to, nor crazy about, having a stress expert facilitate training. For example, I recall a somewhat blustery figure, in response to my presenting some warning signs, provocatively asking, "What do you call it if you don't have any stress?" Electricity was in the air. All eyes on the leader. I paused (mentally resisting blurting out, "brain dead") then innocently replied, "Denial!" The ensuing laughter broke the tension and disarmed the challenger. (I will discuss the deflating or "superiority" function of humor next time.)
But I digress from our main "arousal" story. One of the managers spoke of being in the US Embassy in Kuwait shortly before the outbreak of the Gulf War. Isolation, monotony and anticipatory anxiety clashed daily. And, not surprisingly, the tension was effecting morale in the basically sealed off compound. People were on edge. Social interaction was becoming increasingly testy. (Could this be the high test in testosterone?) The ambassador shared a plan to relieve the strained atmosphere: the staff would take a day off and go to the beach. The deputy, incredulous, exclaimed: "How can we do that? War might break out at any time. We're confined to post." With a gleam in his eye, the ambassador reassured his aide that a day at the beach was essential.
Healing Humor
And the ambassador, true to his word and flashing eyes, had several tons of sand trucked into the embassy compound. (And I don't want to hear any groaning from Libertarians or Limbaughrites about how the guy was wasting taxpayer's money.) A beach holiday was declared and the ambassador came to "work" dressed in shorts and a flowered print shirt, wearing beach sandals and carrying a large colored beach towel. Not surprisingly, the playful respite from the gathering winds of war helped the state department personnel weather the Desert Storm. Here was a leader that truly understood human and humor transformation, turning acute absurdity into the garden variety. Higher power humor has the potential to impact both individual and group arousal levels, mass moods and community behavior.
B. Incongruity. Human absurdity, outrageous or sublime contradiction, delighful surprise, novelty, escaping from the bonds of logic, turning frightening reality into fantasy or the ridiculous all have humor potential. As Mark Twain observed: "Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which before their union were not perceived to have any relation." All the above are challenges to our habitual ways of information processing, to our expectations or belief systems. If incongruous data playfully stretches our minds, hearts and actions it likely becomes a catalyst for laughter.
Incongruity sets the stage for reframing, the capacity to make perceptual- cognitive switches in frames of reference, that is, "looking at the same thing as everyone else and seeing something different." (Here I'm borrowing Nobel prize winner Albert Szent Gyorgi's definition of creativity.) Of course, this capacity can become inverted with both comic and tragic effects. For example, upon turning seventy-five, French dramatist and poet Edmund Rostand, gazing into a mirror, opined: "Mirrors just aren't what they used to be."
The ability to embrace contradiction goes beyond courageous and ironical self- reflection. You can capture some higher level, paradoxical truth. For example, to make sense of my myriad feelings over the holidays, I had to distinguish "Holiday Blues" and "Holiday Stress." Now holiday blues is the feeling of loss or sadness you have over the holidays when, for whatever reason, you can't be with those people who have been or are special and significant. And "Holiday Stress"...is when you have to be with some of those people!
I'll finish examining the last two letters of my four letter AILS acronym - Arousal, Incongruity, Liberation and Superiority - in an upcoming column. Until then, my slightly incongruous exhortation, of course...Practice Safe Stress!
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Mark Gorkin, "The Stress Doc," Licensed Clinical Social Worker, is a nationally recognized speaker, workshop leader and author on stress, reorganizational change, anger, team building, creativity and humor. He is also the internet's and the nation's leading "Psychohumorist." The Stress Doc is a columnist for the popular cyber-newsletter, Humor From The Edge -- HUMOR FROM THE EDGE HOME PAGE . Mark is also the "Online Psychohumorist" for the major AOL mental health resource network, Online Psych -- ONLINE PSYCH: THE STRESS DOC and Financial Services Journal Online -- . And he is an offline writer for two mental health/substance abuse publications -- Treatment Today and Paradigm Magazine. His motto: Have Stress? Will Travel: A Smart Mouth for Hire! Reach "The Doc" at (202) 232-8662, email: Stress Doc@aol.com. The Stress Doc's website was selected as a USA Today Online "Hot Site" and designated a four-star, top- rated site by Mental Health Net.