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Therapeutic Laughter

Humor in the Healing from Trauma

By Stacy DavenportPublished 4 years ago 3 min read
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Laughter is the best medicine.

I don't think I would've survived the years of abuse I went through if it wasn't for humor. Humor throughout the healing process is incredibly important. It not only lifts the spirits, it also helps with the physiological response of stress relief. One of the major symptoms of PTSD is hypervigilance. With hyper-vigilance comes the inability to calm oneself down because the body is reacting to what it perceives as stressful stimuli. Those with PTSD can live on-edge for months or even years without even realizing how stressed they actually are. This is why giving ourselves time to laugh is so important.

By Ben White on Unsplash

According to Helpguide.org, laughter “strengthens your immune system, boosts mood, diminishes pain, and protects you from the damaging effects of stress. Nothing works faster or more dependably to bring your mind and body back into balance than a good laugh. Humor lightens your burdens, inspires hope, connects you to others, and keeps you grounded, focused, and alert. It also helps you release anger and forgive sooner.” (https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-health/laughter-is-the-best-medicine.htm).

Sometimes it may be difficult for you to find ways to laugh. You may need to learn to create opportunities to laugh to get you out of swirling negative thoughts. You can try any of the following: watch a funny movie, TV show, or YouTube video, follow a funny facebook group, invite friends or co-workers to watch a comedy show with you, read the funny pages, seek out funny people, share a good joke or a funny story, check out your bookstore’s humor section, host game night with a friends, play with a pet, try “laughter yoga,” goof around with children, do something silly, and make time for fun activities. Doing things to help you restore your sense of humor will provide you tremendous relief when times feel especially tough.

By Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash

According to the National Cancer Institute, laughter therapy is a very real thing. They describe it as “a type of therapy that uses humor to help relieve pain and stress and improve a person’s sense of well-being. It may be used to help people cope with a serious disease, such as cancer. Laughter therapy may include laughter exercises, clowns, and comedy movies, books, games, and puzzles. It is a type of complementary therapy. Also called humor therapy.” (https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/laughter-therapy). This type of therapy became widely known in the movie Patch Adams where the main character is played by Robin Williams. The way that laughter touches the lives of so many people is known to be extremely therapeutic. A bad day can be turned much better with a good laugh.

I can remember some of my worst times where I was sobbing uncontrollably. It was so weird because just as soon as I got control of myself, something really funny would happy, and I would be bursting out into laughter instead of crying. It’s like even when the body knows it’s “hysterical” it truly turns into hysterical laughter sometimes. The body naturally wants to receive itself of the burden of the mental stress so it takes the energy we have stored inside of us and creates spontaneously laughter sometimes even when we’re sad. This is good because it means that we can rely on our bodies to inform us of what we need to more of. Sometimes your body will help you along and you’ll find yourself having spontaneous fits of laughter, but to avoid this, you might want to plan a good night of getting some frustrations out through good laughs.

It may feel or sound counterintuitive to allow yourself to laugh through the worst times of your grief but trust that you need it. You can’t stay tormented forever inside of your grief with a break so remind yourself to release it when you can to enjoy some scheduled laughter. You deserve it. You really do!

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About the Creator

Stacy Davenport

I own Serista Wellness, LLC and feel passionate about topics related to health and wellness, politics, women’s rights, the LGBTQ+ community, chronic illnesses and social change.

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