Of course your fuckingly incompetent doctor has ignored laughter for well over a decade! And you haven't gotten her/him fired for incompetence yet? How hard is it to get a few comedy DVDs and play them for stroke patients? Anyone with two neurons to rub together can figure that out, but your doctor can't!
- laughter
(13 posts to September 2011)
Mel Brooks just turned 100—and his No. 1 habit for longevity is not what you think
A massive 15-year study reveals the unexpected daily habit that lowers mortality risk by up to 83 percent.
If you’re ever having a bad day and feeling down on the world, I have a suggestion for you. Find an 8-year-old and watch Mel Brooks’s Star Wars spoof Space Balls together. I have many happy memories of my daughter’s early years. But one of the most uproariously joyful is her doubled over in hysterics at the antics of Dark Helmet, Princess Vespa, and Yogurt.
The hilarity was great for the family mood, of course. But according to Brooks, the creative force behind a string of goofball classics including The Producers and Blazing Saddles, laughter does more than entertain us and lift our spirits.
Reflecting on his life ahead of his 100th birthday this week, the comedy legend credited his long life to so much laughter.
“I think laughing keeps you healthy and happy,” he told People. It’s a heart-warming sentiment. But science shows it is also a medical fact. Studies link more laughter to more years alive—and business leaders should pay attention.
50,000 Norwegians can’t be wrong
The classic study on the connection between laughter and longevity came out a decade ago, and the researchers took the assignment of investigating the health effects of humor seriously. The team of scientists followed more than 50,000 Norwegians for 15 years to see if a sense of humor actually adds years to your life.
Related video: Mel Brooks' secret for living to 100 is a guaranteed smile (Health Digest)
Why does humor seem to help us delay the inevitable? A well-developed sense of humor “may influence the way individuals attribute meaning to everyday experiences,” a study co-author suggested to Scientific American. “In this way, it may buffer against conflict in social interactions and overall stress, preventing the escalation of stress hormones” like cortisol that have been shown to suppress our immune system.
You probably didn’t need 15 years’ worth of data to tell you that cracking jokes is an effective way to keep perspective and blow off steam. But now you know one has confirmed your intuition and the intuition of centenarian Mel Brooks. Laughter really does seem to help keep you young … as well as happy.
The business case for having a sense of humor
Which is a charming tribute to both the power of everyday humor and the good work of comedians like Brooks. But this is a business publication. Entrepreneurs want to live as long as possible just like everyone else, but is there a business-specific case for more laughter?
Turns out there is. Laughter won’t just help you live longer, it will help you succeed professionally, too. A pair of Stanford professors wrote a whole book, Humor, Seriously, to round up this evidence and convince skeptical leaders to crack a few more jokes.
They point to research that shows bosses with a sense of humor are 27 percent more motivating and their employees are 15 percent more engaged. In another study, adding a single bad dad joke to a sales pitch increased customers’ willingness to pay by 18 percent. (Though women might want to be cautious. An annoying line of research shows people respond to people’s jokes differently depending on their gender.)
An ability to laugh at yourself can be especially powerful. In Psychology Today, psychotherapist Charles Harper Webb explained that self-deprecating humor “is especially good at shrinking the shoulder chip many of us lug around. Counterintuitive as it may seem, laughing at oneself can increase self-confidence, too. People who present themselves to the world, weaknesses and all, with no apology, show strength that perceptive others notice and respect.”
Psychologist and best-selling author Adam Grant was more blunt on LinkedIn: “A sign of emotional intelligence is the ability to laugh at yourself.”
Take Mel Brooks’s advice
So, yes, you’re a serious professional with a serious job to do. But that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a juvenile Mel Brooks-style joke about light sabers or “combing the desert.” In fact, you should probably try to make as much space for humor of all kinds in your life as possible.
Both Brooks and 50,000 or so Norwegians show cracking up more just might help you live longer and get ahead at work, too. And even if it doesn’t, it will certainly help you enjoy however many years you do get.
This post originally appeared at inc.com.
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