Hello, dear Stemian friends! This is the next part of the sequence about stress and how to handle it. Last time we talked about different coping strategies which would help you deal with emotions and reduce stress. We discussed the benefits of sharing emotions, reappraising the current situation, doing sports, having a hobby, practicing meditation, mindfulness and progressive muscle relaxation. So far, we have also covered what is problem-focused coping and how to oppose irrational thinking and cognitive distortions in times of distress.
Wow, what a list! And the best is yet to come! So, in this article, we will observe the next bunch of stress hacks.
This time we will discuss the positive effect of social support and… wait for it… humor (OK, just pretend that you didn’t see it in the headline)! It turns out that fooling around may actually make you a lot happier and healthier than you have ever expected!
But one step at a time. Let’s begin with the support from others.
Social Support aka Friends, Family and Your Pet
Seeking social support is another coping mechanism which helps you reduce the emotional impact of a problem. Friends and family are a great resource of strengths in a difficult moment. However, when it comes to mental health it is all a matter of perception. One may have the whole social support in the world and still feel lonely and abandoned.
On the other hand, there are those lucky fellows who have only one friend and still feel that the love of the world is pouring right on top of their heads. When it comes to human psychology it is never a matter of what is out there, but how you see it.
Maybe some of you remember that in the last article I mentioned a research on breast-cancer patients. It regarded the benefits of emotion sharing but also had some very interesting additional findings. Those women, who perceived their social environment as supportive recovered better! (3)
Zimet et. al. found that perceived support by friends, family and the significant other were associated with low levels of depression and anxiety. (5)
In 1976 C. Sidney argued that social support could be a stress moderator and may protect people from a wide variety of pathological states such as arthritis, tuberculosis, alcoholism, and low birth weight. (6) To be honest, this sounds a bit exaggerated to me and there is little later evidence to confirm it. The reason why I bring this study to your attention is that it is important to state that even if the love of our friends and family is unlikely to be a cure for everything, it surely buffers stress and all the consequent health issues which stress triggers.
Maybe some of you remember, but I confessed in a previous post that sometimes I find it difficult to ask for help or support in moments of despair. The truth is that I feel very comfortable in the role of “the helper” and at a high unease in the role of the “support-seeker”. There were plenty of times when I was in a bad place and my friends and family didn’t have a clue. This is quite unhealthy, though. As a consequence of it, I had a funny situation in a hospital some time ago. I was admitted for a small surgical procedure. I was a bit nervous in the waiting room because the procedure required general anesthesia… and it was freaking me out a bit. But then two other women came for a similar procedure. Both of them were really scared. It didn’t take much time until I sniffed their fear like a good dog and fully abandoned my nervousness, putting myself at my favorite role of the “supporter”. I felt much better and so comfortable that I completely forgot what was the purpose of my visit there. I even forgot to come back and take my results later!
This is the good side of it, but as Sidney and Zimet pointed out, there is a very bad side, too: poor and slow recovery, a greater risk of anxiety and depression. I am forcing myself now to call my friends and family when I am not feeling well. And it makes such a big difference to have someone just to hear you. I guess you know what I am talking about.
A little note: In case that the funny pictures which I inserted didn’t make you laugh, that’s mainly because my sense of humor is in recovery and is a bit slow. However, if yours feels the same, hurry up and perform some CPR, because it turns out that humor is essential when it comes to dealing with stress.
Humor
Humor has proven to be one of the most beneficial coping strategies that increases positive physical and mental health outcomes (15, 2).
A study led by M. Abel showed that individuals with a high sense of humor experience less current anxiety compared to individuals with a lower sense of humor despite having a similar number of everyday hassles in the last few months. The study revealed that people with a high sense of humor tend to use problem-focused and appraisal coping styles more often. On the other hand, participants with a lower sense of humor reported greater stress perception at a low and average number of everyday difficulties than the higher sense of humor group.(1)
Let’s emphasize it a little more:
More Humor = Less Stress
Less Stress = Health + Happiness
The ability to laugh about your own misfortune is one of the most rewarding acts you could do in order to cope with difficulties. It is never a bad idea to try having more positive emotions and be more optimistic.
Just a quick example of its benefits is a study amongst athletes at the Olympics. Those athletes who were more optimistic were also more effective in coping with obstacles. This appeared to be a predictor to better objective results in the competitions. Thus, optimism and positive emotions were related to better sports outcomes for the athletes. (7)
However, sometimes finding a thing to laugh about seems impossible when one has the blues. Don't worry about it, there is a solution. In his book “Thinking. Fast and Slow” D. Kahneman describes a famous experiment in which participants were divided into two groups. The first group held a pencil between their teeth so that they imitated something similar to a smile. The second group held the pencil in a way that required a pouty face. In the end, the “smile group” laughed more to cartoon series compared to the “pouty face” group. So they seemed to be somehow happier even though they just pretended to be smiling during the experiment (14).
Although there is an open debate whether the results of this study are confirmed by later research, it never hurts trying. You could actually feel happier.
A surprising prescription: Laughter
Have you ever heard of laughter prescription? Although there is no satisfying evidence that laughter could cure you of a physical illness, scientists agree that it definitely could promote recovery and health. There are some research findings showing that laughter reduces stress and improves natural killer cell activity. We discussed the natural killer cells last time – they fight for the better working immune system and protect us from unwanted cells e.g. cancer cells. (4, 9, 8).
While researching for this article I stumbled upon a very interesting case that I wasn’t familiar with. Back in 1964 the adjunct professor of the University of California-Los Angelis, Norman Cousins, who was researching the biochemical impact of emotions on the human body, was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, a degenerative disease causing the breakdown of collagen. The diagnosis came with constant pain and suffering. The prognosis was only a few months to live.
Norman Cousins believed that just as negative emotions and stress could hurt the body, so positive emotions could promote health. He included laughter as part of his day-to-day treatment. He watched humorous TV shows and movies every day and said that 10 minutes of laughter gave him 2 hours of pain-free sleep. He not only survive the next few months but lived for another 25 years! (10)
Of course, we cannot jump to the conclusion that the only two things which extended his life were positive emotions and laughter, but the fact is that he included them in his daily routine. We could all do this simple experiment and see the results, right? It wouldn’t hurt for sure!
There is something else you can do to make this laughter prescription work, besides joking and watching comedian shows. What about laughter yoga? Yes, you read it correctly, this is laughter and yoga combined.
Laughter yoga is a 20-minute extension of what an occasional laugh can do. Such constant laughter increases blood flow through the body, lessens the amounts of stress hormones released by creating a non-stressful environment and aids depressive symptoms. (11)
Generally speaking, when you attend a laughter yoga class you only mimic the act of laughing at the beginning. First, you pretend to be laughing but in the end, you start to laugh for real. I have participated just once in such a class and it was quite an experience. At first, I felt weird and uncomfortable. In the end, I was relaxed, positive, and optimistic. In a matter of fact, the class happened during a very intense one-month work training and aimed to reduce participants’ stress. I must admit that although I was skeptical at the beginning, I benefited from taking part in the class.
There are several studies on laughter yoga indicating that it improves the perceived sleep quality and subjective well-being, as well as reduces depression and anxiety. (12, 13, 15).
If you are already intrigued and ready to experiment, you can try some Laughter Yoga exercises here. Let me know how did it go! :D
The Good Old Folks and The Good Old Jokes
Well, dear Steemian friends, that was a short promotion of the good old folks and the good old jokes. Don’t forget any of them, even in the darkest times. They will certainly help you!
Now, promise me that you will have a nice evening with a lovely company and a well-deserved laughter.
Thank you for spending your precious time reading my article. I hope it was helpful and informative. I will appreciate it if you share your thoughts and experience on the subject!
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References:
(1) Abel, M. (2008). Humor, stress, and coping strategies. Humor – International Journal of Humor Research, Volume 15, Issue 4, Pages 365–381
(2) Dowling, Jacqueline (2002). Humor: A Coping Strategy for Pediatric Patients. Journal of Pediatric Nursing, March-April, 2002, Vol.28. No 2, p.123-131
(3) Stanton, A., Danoff-Burg, S., Cameron, C., Bishop, M., Collins, C., Kirk, S., Sworowski, L., Twillman, R. (2000). Emotionally expressive coping predicts psychological and physical adjustment to breast cancer. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Vol 68(5), Oct 2000, 875-882
(4) Wang, K., David, F., and Jerome, R. (2000). Interleukin-2 enhances the response of natural killer cells to interleukin-12 through up-regulation of the interleukin-12 receptor and STAT4. Blood Journal, Vol. 95, Issue 10, p.3183-3190
(5) Zimet, G., Dahlem, N., Zimet, S., Farley, G. (1988)The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. Journal of Personality Assessment. Vol. 52, Pages 30-41
(6) Cobb, S. (1976). Social support as a moderator of life stress. Psychosomatic Medicine, 38(5), 300-314.
(7) Pensgaard, A., Duda, J. (2000). Sydney 2000: The Interplay between Emotions, Coping, and the Performance of Olympic-Level Athletes, Volume: 17 Issue: 3 Pages: 253-267
(8) Bennett MP, Zeller JM, Rosenberg L, McCann J. The effect of mirthful laughter on stress and natural killer cell activity. Altern Ther Health Med. 2003;9(2):38–45.
(9) William B. Strean. (2009) Laughter prescription. Can Fam Physician. 2009 Oct; 55(10): 965–967.
(10) Brandon, S., Lujan, H., Thipparthi, R., DiCarlo, S. () Humor, laughter, learning, and health! A brief review. Journal of Physiology Education, Volume 41Issue 3, September 2017
(11) Woodbury-Fariña MA, Schwabe MMR (2015) Laughter Yoga: Benefits of Mixing Laughter and Yoga. J Yoga Phys Ther 5.
(12) Weinberg, M., Hammond, T., and Cummins, R. (2014) The impact of laughter yoga on subjective well-being: a pilot study, European journal of humor research, vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 25-34.
(13) Mohsen Yazdani, Mojtaba Esmaeilzadeh, Saeid Pahlavanzadeh, Firouz Khaledi
Iran J Nurs Midwifery Res. 2014 Jan-Feb; 19(1): 36–40.
(14) Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking fast and Slow. Macmillan.
(15) Memarian, A., Sanatkaran, A., Bahari, S. (2017). The effect of laughter yoga exercises on anxiety and sleep quality in patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Journal of Biomedical Research and Therapy. Vol.4, Issue 7
(16) https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/arts-and-health/200806/humor-the-human-gift-coping-and-survival
Images (under cc0 Creative Commons):
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https://pixabay.com/en/dog-sniffing-search-tail-paddy-142328/
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https://pixabay.com/en/bordeaux-mastiff-dog-animal-white-869020/
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