Find Your Funny Bone
/Recently, I heard the comedian Aparna Nancherla interviewed on NPR. As a therapist who’s worked with people processing deep pain and loss, going to the depths comes easily to me. But one thing Nancherla said stayed with me as an important reminder about the healing power of humor:
from the book, “you can only yell at me for one thing at a time: rules for couples,” by patricia Marx & roz chast. i highly recommend it for belly laughs!
“Sadness and laughter, to me, feel linked in a weird way in that it almost feels like once you get to the logical end of one, you sort of start entering the other one. And I feel like comedy is sort of questioning things with adding a little dose of hope…you're sort of like, this is ridiculous. Let's laugh about it. So it adds that levity to take some of the burden off.”
Think about it: When was the last time you laughed—I’m talking belly laughs—with your partner? Every relationship has serious issues to work on. However, many couples find themselves working so hard on their relationship that they can forget to prioritize having fun together. A couple’s ability to bring humor and joy into their relationship is essential to their happiness.
“People say they want a sense of humor in a mate, but that’s a broad concept,” says Jeffrey Hall, University of Kansas associate professor of communication studies. He published an article in the Journal of Personal Relationships, surveying the findings of 39 studies, involving more than 15,000 participants, on the importance of humor in relationships. “That people think you are funny or you can make a joke is not strongly related to relationship satisfaction. What is strongly related to relationship satisfaction is the humor that couples create together. If you share a sense of what’s funny, it affirms you and affirms your relationship through laughter.”
Here are some ideas to bring more humor into your relationship.
Make a game out of learning new jokes, memorizing them, and sharing them with each other. You can even involve the kids and make it a dinnertime ritual. (In our family, Laugh Out Loud Jokes for Kids has become a shared favorite.)
Watch funny movies or TV shows together. You may need to experiment with a few comedic styles to find something that you both find hysterical. (My husband and I swear by “The Office” when we need to laugh.)
Enjoy a round of jump-start deep belly laughing. This is a practice that comes from the ancient Chinese healing art known as Chi Kung. Facing your partner, place your hands on your diaphragm (belly), open your mouth, and say, “hah, hah, hah,” until you erupt in peals of laughter. Yes, you’ll feel ridiculous, but there’s medical science behind this. Laughing stimulates the movement of the abdominal muscles, which calms the nervous system, lowers stress levels, and gives you energy. The body does not know the difference between fake and real laughter, so you still receive all the same benefits.
Invest in clown noses or Groucho Marx glasses. Take a tip from my mentors in couples’ counseling, Harville Hendrix, Ph.D., and Helen LaKelly Hunt, Ph.D. In their book, “Making Marriage Simple: 10 Truths for Changing the Relationship You Have Into the One You Want,” they discuss how they realized they were “fun-impaired and humor-deficient.” So one night, they made dinner wearing Groucho Marx glasses and kept them on through the entire meal! This is another exercise where I could see little kids playing along. (But if you have tweens or teens, you may want to save this one for when they’re gone on a sleepover.)
Keep in mind—stretching into some of these playful practices can feel uncomfortable. That’s normal! This kind of discomfort is actually good. Think of it like working out at the gym, in the sense that you’ll feel some discomfort while building new muscles and capacities. Being fearless about leaving your comfort zone will ultimately lead to growth.