8 Ways to Find Humor in Your Everyday Life

If you think your life is too boring to be funny, joke’s on you: Humor is all around us. Cultivating more humor in your everyday life is “one of the fastest and most powerful ways to increase overall health and wellbeing,” says Steven M. Sultanoff, a clinical psychologist and professor at Pepperdine University who’s a past president of the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor, a non-profit focused on the study and use of humor. He doesn’t consider himself a particularly funny guy; he wasn’t his high school’s class clown and would never call himself the life of the party. But he’s dedicated more than 40 years to helping people benefit from the healing powers of humor. “The experience of humor and distressing emotions can’t occupy the same psychological space,” he says. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Adding humor to your daily life can lead to a wide array of benefits. Research suggests that it sparks energy, boosts brain power, improves immunity, curbs stress, and enhances mood. Some of those benefits stem from laughter, which is the physical response to humor, Sultanoff says. But not everyone laughs when they’re amused—and you don’t have to in order to reap benefits. Experiencing humor also has less visible effects; it shifts thinking in healthy ways and provides new perspectives. Plus, it leads to what Sultanoff describes as “relational fusion,” or the soci...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate Mental Health TIME 2030 Wellbeing Source Type: news