Laughter and the Strong Woman- Using Laughter as a Form of Self Care

This is not a podcast about being broken, although you may have been. This is a podcast about strength for women who find themselves in difficult relationships, including that sometimes difficult one with yourself. We'll look at your relationship through a lens of psychology, faith, and a little dash of my own kind of feminism. We're not fixing them. We're fixing you. And that changes everything. Welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. Save yourself, heal your relationships. Listen in. Hey there, welcome. I'm your host, Dr. Zoe, and I'm so glad you're here today. Today we're talking about your relationship with yourself, and we're talking about why and how you can incorporate more laughter into your life. But first up, my win and my fail. My win is that I am officially moved out of my brick-and-mortar office. I am in here in my Office in my backyard. I've been working out of this for a week now, and I'm very excited. It's a little weird. My commute is super small, and I'm already seeing that it's saving me time, and I'm just enjoying being in that— in this space. So it's a super win that I was able to create this office, and this is my space. I feel like I haven't left the house in a week. That's not true, but it feels that way. My fail is that just when I got started back into my workout routine, so traveling and it's been super busy moving out of my office, all the things we've been doing recently, I've kind of gotten off of my workout routine. So this week I'm like settling in and my thought is, okay, I'm getting back on. And I had a really hard weight— free weightlifting workout yesterday and I messed up my neck. My fail is that I'm so frustrated with my body because I'm like, you betrayed me. I was just getting back into my groove and now this. So it's frustrating. My neck, upper neck, back, I don't know if I did it when I was squatting something. I was in excruciating pain. I do not like to take pain pills ever, but I took half of an Advil today. It was an extra strength one. And so, yeah, now I'm remembering, oh, this is why they make these things. It actually does help. But I will be going and getting some treatment to fix this thing. So that's my fail. I pushed too hard. I was trying to get back in and I should have just eased myself back in. Lesson learned. So up next, laughter. How can we laugh at ourselves even when we do things like jack up our necks and when we feel disappointment, all the things? How to increase your health through laughter. Philosopher and psychologist William James said, we don't laugh because we're happy, we're happy because we laugh. And he knew this more than a century ago, that laughter makes us feel good. So today we're going to look at why you should be laughing, and if you are laughing, why you should be laughing more. I put laughter as an exercise in my self-care book because my mom taught me about laughter when I was a child. She used to tell me, whenever you feel bad, Just start laughing. It may feel weird, but it'll make you feel better. I later learned in grad school the influence that smiling has on your mood, and laughter, of course, and it amazed me that my mom was right. Because they always are, aren't they? My mom knew that simply changing your facial expression can actually make you feel better. Psychologist and hypnotherapist Leslie Lyle said that one of the main functions of laughter is that it relieves stress. Which explains why some people will sometimes instinctively laugh when they hear bad news, even devastating news. It seems kind of odd. It makes you feel like, oh, they're crazy. No, their body's just trying to release all the tension that's being created in the moment. Now you may be thinking, shouldn't laughter be spontaneous? But no, it doesn't have to be. You can figure out things that make you laugh and you can start to archive them in your life. I did this without even knowing when I was in college at UCLA. I was a newly married student. It was my first year at UCLA. I'd been living in Los Angeles, I was an athlete, I was busy but not really connected with anyone. And my husband was gone for 6 months filming a movie and I was really terribly lonely and I was a bit depressed. So every weekend I would binge-watch America's Funniest Home Videos. I probably should have been connecting socially, but they made me feel better. And I never watched them before and I haven't since, but whenever I think of my lowest times in college, I also think of America's Funniest Home Videos and it actually makes me smile. I would turn them on, I'd sit on the couch, and I'd laugh for an hour. And I didn't even know that I was treating myself. I should have been thinking about what my mom said, but I wasn't. My body knew what I needed. So what kind of things make you laugh? Is it funny TikTok videos? I'm sure that's probably what I would be consuming nowadays if I were in college, as opposed to Funniest Home Videos. Save them on your phone. Keep a file of funny videos for easy access. Schedule silly time. Life shouldn't really be so serious. Even in the midst of devastating trauma, we can find relief in comedy. The cancer survivor can laugh at her futile attempt to keep her hair, maybe doing a comb-over, even as it's falling out in clumps, and she knows how this story ends. It's okay to be the first to laugh at yourself. And the reality is, is that people are completely crazy sometimes, and we do the most asinine things, myself included. Pause to think how completely crazy you are sometimes and laugh at yourself. Now there is a difference between denial and choosing to influence yourself. You will never hear me say that you should just pretend to be happy when really difficult life things happen. You shouldn't. I don't ever suggest that you go straight to laughter when you're sad or angry or scared. You guys should know me better. You should know that my first response to you would be to tell you to feel your feelings. And once you're clearly aware of them and you've spent some time with them and you've honored them and you know what they're about, Then your next response can be about helping yourself to feel better in a caring way. And laughter can do that. It can change your lens, and it can influence your mood and remind you that yes, it's devastating that you didn't get that job, or that your spouse left you, or that another month has gone by and you're still not pregnant. But there is still life out there, and you won't always feel this way, and life changes. And there can be joy in the midst of disappointment. And even past embarrassing moments that can elicit shame in us can be used as fodder for laughing. When we're able to laugh at the embarrassing things that we've done in the past, then we take shame out of the memory and we replace it with forgiveness. Humor is forgiveness for our humanity. It's basically saying, yes, we're humans and humans make mistakes, and we're gonna forgive it and we're gonna laugh about it. This can actually change our memory and our experience of the event, which will then, of course, increase our mental health. When we recall traumatic or painful events, our body experiences that event to a certain degree, meaning our body starts to feel like, oh, we are in danger. This isn't good. Something bad is happening. And we can start to feel all those feelings as well. When we can reprocess this through laughter, then we get to re-experience it in a healthier way in the present. I'm gonna tell you a story. My father once accidentally left me in a parking lot of a jail when I was about 7 years old. It's a long story, I'm gonna try to make it short, but he moonlighted as a physician to the inmates there and my mom happened to be out of town, which never was the case, she always picked me up at school, and she had him pick me and my 2 siblings up from school, but he had gotten called in that day to the jail and he had to go do, I guess, a physical on an inmate or something. And so he brought He had us all with him and he didn't think it would take too long, so he left us in the back of the car. And it was like a fall day, it was a little cold. And this was back in the '80s when parents did things like leave their kids in the cars and when we didn't wear seatbelts and all of that. So he went into the jail and while he was in there, I had to go to the bathroom. So I got out of the car and I went into the jail lobby, which was— the bathroom was like right as soon as you went in there, so nobody even really saw me. And I went to the bathroom. And then when I came out, he was gone. Now apparently my cut sister had covered herself up with a blanket and she had fallen asleep under the blanket and maybe my brother was under there, I'm not sure. So my dad got back in the car and he assumed we were all there. We lived about an hour and a half away from the jail and about halfway home my sister woke up and my dad was listening to something on the radio, maybe news, something important. And she noticed that I wasn't there and she tried to tell him and he asked her to be quiet. And so she obliged. She didn't tell him. Now, I also think there might've been some sisterly rivalry going on, 'cause you'd think she'd figure out how to speak up, 'cause my sister was definitely outspoken, but she said nothing. Meanwhile, I'm walking around the parking lot for an hour looking for my dad's car and hoping he's gonna come back at any minute. And I finally gave up and I went and I sat on the steps outside of the jail lobby and I was crying. And when he got home an hour and a half later, my brother and my sister tumbled into the house and my mom said, where's Zoe? And my sister pipes up, I tried to tell you, he left her at the jail. My poor mother must have felt a host of things that women feel sometimes when they ask their husbands to do a simple task and Well, you know, it doesn't quite get done the way you ask it to be done. Needless to say, my father never picked me up again from school. But just so you know how the story ends, my dad happened to have a friend who was a sheriff at the jail who also lived near there. And he called him and he came and he picked me up and he took me to his house to wait for my dad, who drove another hour and a half back and picked me up. So I'm telling you this whole story because it was a little traumatic for me. And I don't say this facetiously because there are certainly worse traumas. My family has recounted this story over the years, and it's one of those stories that we all know, even my kids, except my family always tells it as this hilarious thing that happened. Now you might be thinking, oh, that's so insensitive, but I never experienced it that way. When the event actually happened, both my mother and my father were very caring and my father apologized, and I felt very validated for all the feelings that I felt in the moment. But after that, It became a family joke. If someone wants to get a good laugh in my family, all they have to say is, I tried to tell you, and everyone's just going to start bursting out laughing. And I believe that the humor in which the story has been couched my whole life has been protective for me because my brain doesn't recall this as a traumatic event. I don't have PTSD. I don't have a fear of being left or abandoned because your brain believes what you tell it. Now, this can actually happen In a negative way, when you're gaslit as a child, your brain believes things that aren't true, right? But that wasn't my experience for this particular event. And that's important because that also means that you have the ability to influence how you experience life, even how you experience the negative things that happen to you. Now, laughter is not the panacea for everything, of course. And for really severe traumas, laughter is not The avenue, although we can figure out how to find joy in pain, how we can learn how we've benefited— the gifts, I should say, we can get from pain. But laughter is a very useful tool, and I encourage you to use it as much as you possibly can in your life. And I hope that this episode has been a little nudge, and my story has just encouraged you a little to make sure you're incorporating it into your life. More. But just in case it isn't, here's some evidence that proves that you should incorporate laughter into your life more. This is from helpguide.com. Laughter relaxes the whole body. A good hearty laugh relieves physical tension and stress. It leaves your muscles relaxed for up to 45 minutes afterwards. Laughter boosts the immune system. Laughter decreases stress hormones, it increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, and it improves your resistance to disease. Laughter also triggers the release of endorphins, which is that body's natural feel-good chemical. Endorphins promote an overall sense of well-being, and they can actually temporarily relieve pain. So I need to be laughing a lot right now for my neck. Laughter protects the heart. Laughter improves the function of blood vessels and increases blood flow, which can help protect you against a heart attack and other cardiovascular problems. Laughter truly is medicine. Laughter burns calories, so it's not going to replace your morning workout, but it does burn more calories than just sitting there. And if you're laughing for at least 10 to 15 minutes a day, you can burn enough to lose 3 or 4 pounds over the course of a year. So I am prescribing 15 minutes a day of laughter. Laughter lightens anger's heavy load. So how can laughter improve relationships? When we are having difficulty or conflict in relationships, nothing can diffuse anger and conflict faster than a shared laugh. It doesn't mean you're always going to deflect to laughter, right? We need to deal with our issues. We need to deal with our emotions. But laughter can help us move forward in being able to do that. And laughter can even help you live longer. A study in Norway found that people with a strong sense of humor outlive those who don't Laugh as much. And I have seen that in my family. So how can you incorporate laughter into your life other than watching TikTok funny videos? When you hear someone laughing, ask them what's funny. People love to share the funny stuff and then they get to retell it and then you get to experience it. My friend Rosie cracks me up. She will call me and she'll tell me, she'll call me to tell me that she's telling me something funny. And then she starts laughing so hard she can't get the story out. And I'm sitting there on the phone with her laughing at her laughing, and I don't even know what's funny yet. I'm laughing just thinking about it. And she could hang up at that moment, and I've already gotten the benefit of laughing, and I haven't even heard the story. Another tip is to just start laughing. Remember what my mom said? Made-up laughter is contagious, even to yourself. So you can start smiling, and before long, you can be laughing for real. And go ahead and watch the America's Funniest Home Videos. You actually can still find them out there. Just saying that now makes me want to go Google. And I, I know my— I shared them with my daughter. Maybe, I don't know if it was YouTube or, you know, you can go online and find America's Funniest Home Videos. They might even still be syndicated. Read a funny book. I love watching my daughter read joke books and just sitting on the couch and laughing out loud. It just warms my heart. Oh, tickle a child and try not to laugh. I dare you. The giggle from a kid is so beautiful. It's like music and it's so contagious. Go to a comedy club with friends. When's the last time you went to a comedy club? Go laugh for a night. Try something new like rollerblading or painting even. And don't allow your first attempts to frustrate you. Instead, choose to see them through a lens of humor and laugh at all of your clumsy, embarrassing first attempts at So in closing, don't go a day without laughing. An easy, free self-care tip. Laugh more! Thank you for listening to Stronger in the Difficult Places. New episodes go out on Tuesdays. Connect with me on Instagram and sign up for my mailing list so you can get some weekly encouragement from me. Have a strong week.