Humor: An Antidote to Stress
Last weekend I went to my friend's house for dinner (yes, we have all had our vaccines), where I noticed she had napkins with funny sayings about the pandemic on them. For example, one of the napkins had the message, "I got an email from my airline that said, we are all in this together. Where were they when my bag weighed 52 pounds?" And another one said, "I've gained so much weight during the pandemic that I need to go out and get new work pajamas." You get the idea.
An abundance of research establishes humor as an effective means of coping with adversity, reducing stress, and promoting a positive mood (Strick et al., 2009). So, it's not surprising that people have created and shared a wide variety of humorous memes poking fun at the pandemic.
However, not all types of humor have the same impact on our psychological well-being.
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For example, people who use humor in positive ways to amuse others or cope with adversity in a more light-hearted way can add to their psychological well-being. On the other hand, people who use humor to tease, ridicule, insult, or demean others do not improve their psychological well-being (Stieger et al., 2011).
A recent study showed that humor can be used as a conscious strategy to cope with potentially stressful events by learning to interpret a stressful event using humor (Olah & Ford, 2021). For example, a study with military veterans found that participants in a 7-week stand-up comedy class showed an increase in the ability to reframe a stressful situation in a humorous way. This resulted in an increase in their psychological well-being (McGhee, 2010).
Most of us don't have the time or the desire to take a stand-up comedy class. Still, there are things we can do to enhance our ability to reframe stressful or difficult situations. One of the most effective techniques is called cognitive reframing. This technique involves redefining a problem or challenge in a new way or context, allowing us to recognize and appreciate positive aspects of our situation. A valuable way to do this is to follow a well-established technique in cognitive therapy called the ABCDE technique.
A=Activating the event. The goal here is to see the situation as accurately as possible. Our mind loves to focus on the negative side of a problem, especially when something negative happens to us. That's why you have to take proactive steps to see both the negatives and the positives.
B=Beliefs. Our subjective reality is anchored in our core beliefs, values, life experiences, and expectations. We see the world through the lens of how we perceive life and how we react to them. While beliefs are hard to change, switching to a new way of seeing things can be a bit easier. Creating a new way of thinking or creating a new frame is like taking a snapshot of something currently happening to you and letting your mind analyze the situation. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself:
What caused the situation to happen?
What does the situation say about me?
What do I think should happen?
C=Consequence. The consequences of an event are interpreted through our beliefs. Here are three questions to help you diagnose the results of your beliefs:
What kind of automatic negative thoughts are going through my mind? (Writing them down might help you see the faulty logic.)
How do I feel about the event? Make a list and rate them on a scale of 1 to 10.
What was my automatic reaction? Describe your actual response to the situation.
D=Dispute. This step is about challenging your thoughts and beliefs to see the situation more objectively. It's about finding a new frame or angle that enables you to neutralize related emotions. Here are few questions you can use in this process:
If the same thing happened to your best friend or someone you love, how would you interpret the event?
How would your role model or someone you respect interpret the event?
What are other possible explanations for the event other than the one you have concluded?
What are the counterarguments to your underlying beliefs? You might consider your past accomplishments, the things you received praise for, or anything that proves the situation is an exception.
What difference will this one-time event make in a month, a year, or a decade?
What is the most favorable interpretation of the event you can think of?
E=Effect. At this stage, the goal is to provide a more accurate view of the situation with an alternative hypothesis that has disarmed negative thoughts and feelings and provides direction for actions. At this step, you might want to:
Write down new thoughts about the situation.
Note your new feelings.
Identify the actions you plan to take.
Keep in mind when you embark on cognitive reframing, you start from the facts. It isn't about denial or suppressing your feelings. It's not about denying that the challenge exists but acknowledging that we have a choice in how we perceive the world. It's about responding more wisely and perhaps even more humorously.
References
McGhee, P. E. (2010). Humor as survival training for a stressed-out world: The 7 humor habits program. Bloomington: Author House.
Olah, A. R., & Ford, T. E. (2021). Humor styles predict emotional and behavioral responses to COVID-19. HUMOR.
Stieger, S., Formann, A. & Burger, C. (2011). Humor styles and their relationship to explicit and implicit self-esteem. Personality and Individual Differences, 50. 747–750.
Strick, M., Holland, R. W., van Baaren, R. B. & van Knippenber, Ad (2009). Finding comfort in a joke: Consolatory effects of humor through cognitive distraction. Emotion 9(4). 574–578.