“It’s funny, because it’s true.” “Laughter is the best medicine.” The ability to generate and perceive humor is a biological process – a cognitive phenotypic trait – almost certainly dependent on a corresponding genetically based neurological substrate. Humor has certainly been around for thousands of years and possibly even a few million years (Polimeni, Reiss, 2006). Wooten (2000) provides the following definitions: • Humor: A quality of perception and attitude toward life that enables an individual to experience joy even when faced with adversity; a perception of the absurdity or incongruity of a situation. • Laughter: A physical behavior that occurs in response to something perceived as humorous, amusing, or surprising. This behavior engages most of the muscle groups and organ systems within the body. Laughter is often preceded by physical, emotional, or cognitive tension. While humor is a perceptual process, laughter is a behavioral response. When therapeutic humor is used, it may reduce stress, boost immunity, relieve pain, decrease anxiety, stabilize mood, enhance communication, enhance self-esteem, and inspire creativity. Humor as a therapy is as natural a phenomenon as using your feet is for walking. It brings balance, and best of all, for the most part, does not cost any money. The thing called sense of humor allows us to be attracted to others with similar, comedic tastes. Laughter is scientifically expounded upon in an experimental documentary film that explores the human energy field’s dynamic relationship with our environment. The Cosmic Giggle (2013) cites Terence McKenna for the theme in the opening... a randomly roving zone of synchronicity and statistical anomaly. Should you be caught up in it, it will turn reality on its head. It is objective and subjective simultaneously “Really There” and somehow sustained by imagination. The movie is psychedelic and quite serious, and it draws upon the socio-familial analogies of being totally engaged in a level of feeling, and there’s nothing else there. The connection I made between humor therapy and this film is hard to explain, but it is more a spiritual context of laughter. The person interviewing the mystic man in the shadows, Lajuan Matus, actually begins weeping uncontrollably just after laughing hysterically a second before. I have witnessed Pentecostal saints at church be full of Holy Ghost fire in reverential, emotional responses similar to that, laughing and weeping while speaking in tongues. There is a concern among the Christian religion itself that such outburst of God’s glory is really too fantastic. Apostolic patrons say that it edifies. They also will admit to being incapable of describing any similar response to this peculiar manifestation of the Spirit. There is a saying in the ancient mystery schools, “I am here, and I am there.” As Wooten mentioned earlier, humor reconciles incongruity. Humor therapy happens on the mainstream level with comedians like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert or the late George Carlin who act as commentators on the absurdity of structural violence. You kind of don’t know anything if you decide you’re going to know something, because you have then scripted yourself to see what you want to see instead of seeing what you were meant to see. The ability to laugh is to be totally engaged in a level of feeling, and there’s nothing else there. The humor therapist will allow people to see what they need to see in their own circumstances. References: Armstrong, M. (2013). The Cosmic Giggle. Retrieved from youtube/watch?v=3lhOX1aY5DE#t=1980 Polimeni, J. & Reiss, J. P. (2006). The First Joke: Exploring the Evolutionary Origins of Humor. Evolutionary Psychology. Retrieved from epjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/ep04347366.pdf Wooten, P. (2000). Humor, laughter, and play: Maintaining balance in a serious world. In B. M. Dossey, L. Keegan, & C. E. Guzzetta (Eds.), Holistic nursing: A handbook for practice (3rd ed., pp. 471–493). Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen. Ashford Student Health 101
Posted on: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 06:52:03 +0000