The Role of Humor in Mental Health
Written by Tommy Corcetti
As people grow and age, they are told “laughter is the best medicine,” but is that really true? Laughter, or humor, will never truly be the greatest medicine, but it does help with mental health in many ways. Personally, I use laughter to redirect my thought process about a situation, basically using laughter as a tool for cognitive reframing and distraction. Whenever something doesn’t go my way, I tend to just laugh about it, or crack a joke. Doing so mitigates most of the stress or anxiety that comes from a stressful experience. Research has found that humor and laughter can be used as a tool of distraction/avoidance for cancer patients and their care givers (Heinsch et al., 2022). Meaning, humor and laughter can be used as a way to distract oneself from a bad situation. So, laughter won’t completely fix the problem, but it is a great way to mitigate the stress and anxiety that comes from problems, or obstacles, in life.
There are also many different styles of humor, such as benign humor, self-enhancing humor, and even affiliative humor. However, research has found that no matter the style, the use of humor correlates to reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression in university students (Kokkinos & Koytsospyros, 2023). So, humor doesn’t necessarily heal, but it does tend to correlate to reported positive mental health. Humor shouldn’t be seen as a fix-it-all method for all mental health problems, but rather a tool to mitigate the intensity of those problems. Furthermore, research has found that individuals who score high in humor use are less affected by stressful events/situations (van Oortmerssen et al., 2020). So, incorporating humor into your everyday life can be beneficial in many ways, especially if stress is a large issue in your life. Overall, humor and laughter are great methods of distraction and avoidance that help to mitigate the effects of stressful situations. However, they are not the answer for every mental health problem.
References
Heinsch, M., Cootes, H., Wells, H., Tickner, C., Sampson, D., & Kay-Lambkin, F. (2022). 'It’s hard, but we could kind of laugh about it’: Exploring the role of humor in brain cancer caregiving. Qualitative Health Research, 32(5), 744–754. https://doi-org.proxy-tu.researchport.umd.edu/10.1177/10497323211069339
Kokkinos, C. M., & Koytsospyros, A. (2023). The moderating role of university students’ humor styles on the association between general mental health and subjective well-being. The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied, 157(8), 473–495. https://doi-org.proxy-tu.researchport.umd.edu/10.1080/00223980.2023.2244128
van Oortmerssen, L. A., Caniëls, M. C. J., & van Assen, M. F. (2020). Coping with work stressors and paving the way for flow: Challenge and hindrance demands, humor, and cynicism. Journal of Happiness Studies: An Interdisciplinary Forum on Subjective Well-Being, 21(6), 2257–2277. https://doi-org.proxy-tu.researchport.umd.edu/10.1007/s10902-019-00177-9
