Laugh it up!

While I was eating a salad at my desk yesterday afternoon, I read this article called Why You Need a Humor Audit: the Benefits of Laughter. I like humor and I really do love to laugh, so it was intriguing to me.

Two “humor experts” are interviewed for the article, and the main premise is that humor and laughter are really quite essential for “health, creativity, relationship building and negotiating power”.

One quote stood out to me:

The average 4 year old laughs up to 300 times per day. The average 40 year old laughs that many times in 2.5 months!”

-Naomi Bagdonas

I can TOTALLY see this being true!! I think back to when the boys were little and they would just laugh and laugh and laugh about the goofiest things. Those hilarious, all out, cackle type laughs that are just infectious! I’m pretty sure there are soundtracks out there on the internet of “babies laughing” because that sound really is just so great. 🙂

I took the “Humor Audit” offered in the article (because online quizzes are the perfect stalling tactic to not start working after your lunch break 🙂 ).

There are apparently 4 “types” of humor:

1. Stand-Up = bold, natural entertainers, often lean toward “teasing/ making fun” type of humor
   
2. Sweetheart = subtle, uplifting humor, earnest, honest and under-stated
   
3. Sniper= edgy, sarcastic, nuanced. They often joke to make a point (not to simply “uplift” people) and sometimes cross the line.
   
4. Magnet= affiliative and expressive, big personality that gets everyone laughing, outgoing, warm, charismatic, avoid controversial humor.

Here were my results:

Humor Type= Sweetheart. (Though I scored fairly high on the Magnet type as well.)

• prefer to plan out humor in advance vs make it up on the fly
• can get behind a good natured prank as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone’s feelings
• emotionally aware and will carefully consider how humor will land on others
• prefer your humor to fly under the radar. You don’t need the spotlight.
• However, you differ from most Sweethearts in that when telling a joke, your delivery is vivid and full of emotion.
• You are generous with your laughter.
• You aren’t afraid to lean into humor in high stakes situations to alleviate tension
• You’re quick witted and great at coming up with humorous quips on the spot.

I think it’s pretty accurate!! I especially agree with the part about me NOT needing the “spotlight” (NO THANK YOU) and trying to always be careful about how humor will land on others. I know I have a tendency to try to use a little humor/ quips to lighten the mood if a situation feels tense or awkward, too. It’s a pretty comprehensive quiz (they use it for a course on humor at Stanford).

One final tip I liked from the humor experts, was to “let yourself laugh if something is even remotely funny.” They said to “push” yourself into full out laughter every chance you get, even if you normally might just kind of say, “Huh!” about something.

It’s kind of like gratitude + the priming effect- the more you practice laughing and being light hearted, the more you start seeing things as funny and life as more light hearted. There are actual chemical and physical benefits in our bodies to laughing more too!

The time in my life I think I laughed the most was during my middle school years with my two best friends. We used to laugh so hard about who even knows what until we had tears streaming down our faces and we would do what we called the “silent laugh”….laughing SO HARD we couldn’t even make a sound and our stomachs hurt. Oh….I miss those days. 😊❤

Check out the humor audit!!

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful for a strong internet connection at our house! Those days that there’s ever a hiccup with the internet are brutal and it makes me realize how dependent we are on it.