A Person Without a Sense of Humor is like a Wagon Without Springs

"A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It's jolted by every pebble on the road." - Henry Ward Beecher (Liberal US Congregational minister, 1813-1887)

Beecher's quote was way ahead of his times. Humor is indeed an emotional shock absorber! Humor changes your very traumatic emotional moments by helping you experience the funny side. You are able to see mirth in every situation. Unhealthy feelings can be eliminated through alternative thinking process. Humor always let's you view a situation from another perspective or angle. It points out the ludicrousness of your emotional state and helps you alter it. You cannot experience mirth at same time as anger, anxiety or depression. You can only be in one state or another. If you are in a hilarious mood all your negative thoughts get abeyance and you get charged with the positive energy.

Uses of Humor

Suffering and depression are mainly the result of your helplessness, inability to control or lack of power over the situation. With humor you can be in charge of the situation and not let the situation get to you. A funny incident will enlighten you on this. An aged person was walking along the road when a young cyclist collided with him sending the man down on the ground. As the man was trying to get up he was asking the young biker to stay. Few people had gathered by then. The boy still on his upright bike was looking fearfully at the man expecting a tirade of rage. The man searching for something in his pockets came up with a coin. Without any outburst calmly held out the money to the boy. Seeing the quizzical look on the boys face the man just said, "It is charity to help the blind." His sense of humor put him back in control! Mark Twain once said, "The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter."

Kinds of Humor

Humor is almost always aimed at oneself, another person, or a situation. Healthy humor is usually aimed at oneself. Humor aimed at others is likely to be harmful. Humor aimed at the situation can either be healthy or harmful. If you laugh at yourself and not at others the possibility of others joining you is greater as they don't feel offended or threatened. When humor is directed towards others through insults or mocks, it does more harm than good. A joke on the target group, made even by a member of the group, can offend others as they may feel insulted or put down. The safest humor is one directed against .oneself

Humor directed against the situation is relatively safe but it too can depend on the ground reality at that time. Something funny at a particular time need not be funny at a different time.

Therapeutic Benefits of Humor

What physical exercise does for our body, mirth and laughter can do for mental, emotional and physical well-being. Laughter is indeed 'the best medicine.' Laughter releases 'Endorphins,' a natural pain killer that our body produces. It helps a person to cope with pain. To a cheerful person everyday is a sunny one. span.jajahWraper { font-size:1em; color:#B11196; text-decoration:underline; } a.jajahLink { color:#000000; text-decoration:none; } span.jajahInLink:hover { background-color:#B11196; }