Play :: Using Humor to Deal With Stress

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Working at a large company gives you the benefit of having a lot of people to talk to and release some pent up emotions. But I did not want to become the person in the office that everyone ran from when they saw me coming because I was always full of bad news so I turned it into humor. Most of the time I know people were trying to figure out if I was just making up a good yarn or this was the truth about my life.

I would begin by telling about a difficult situation at home with immediate or extended family or something that happened in traffic or at the grocery store to someone at the coffee bar or that I passed in the hall. After a few minutes I would have five, six, or more people standing around laughing so hard they were in tears, me included. What a stress reliever that was for all of us. It did not change the situation but it took a lot of the stress off.

I realize you are thinking that you have to be a certain kind of person to pull this off but that is not always true. I somehow have passed this down to my daughter who is a very quiet and controlled individual in her late twenties. She said she was talking to someone the other day about some issues that were concerning her and they commented on how good it was that she could look at it all with a good sense of humor. She told me she did not even realize she was but she guessed I had rubbed off on her.

My mother who is also a very controlled and serious type of person used to ask me all the time why I make light of some very serious situations; she would actually get put out with me. She said that they were not funny. I replied that no they were not funny but if I made them sound funny it would make me feel better and allow other people to let me vent. She still does not get it but she has grown accustomed to it.

Do not get me wrong I do not make light of death, illness, or someone else’s heartache, just minor family conflicts, traffic situations, grocery store trips with the kids, in-law problems and the like. And the real names are concealed to protect the innocent….joking.

Do you find humor helps you deal with stress?

Author Bio:

Rachel is an ex-babysitting pro as well as a professional writer and blogger. She is a graduate from Iowa State University and currently writes for www.babysitting.net. She welcomes questions/comments which can be sent to rachelthomas.author @ gmail.com.