What a comedian can teach you about managing stress

We all know that laughter is the best medicine. We know this to be true because healing humour has been shared in Reader's Digest for the past century.

Not only that, but there is also much scientific research to support the claim that laughter does more than cheer you up. It creates physical changes in your body that accelerate healing and protect you from harm.

Probably the most dangerous illness that faces us in our lifetimes is stress, because stress can be persistent. It can be caused by the simple struggles of everyday life, and it can have a very real effect on your body which adds up over the years to shorten your lifespan.

We often accept stress as part of the cost of modern life, but it really doesn’t have to be. Some people seem to live a carefree life where they go with the flow, accept what they can’t change and yet still achieve a lifestyle of comfort and happiness.

Scientists tell us that people who can laugh at their own misfortunes bounce back faster and stronger.

If you have trouble seeing the funny side of your own failures, then you might find some useful advice in the story of a friend of mine, who developed an unpleasant reaction to garlic for which his doctor prescribed a short course of ointment and suppositories.

He took the prescription to the pharmacy and waited patiently. After a few minutes, the pharmacist, standing at the far back of the shop, shouted at the top of her voice, “I’ve got your ointment, but I’ll have to order in your suppositories!”

Following a short yet intensely uncomfortable silence, she came forwards to the counter and said, “Sorry, I shouted that, didn’t I?”

“Yes. Yes, you did,” was my friend’s quiet reply.

I asked him how he was able to see the funny side of such an embarrassing incident and he said, “If I was standing in the shop and this had happened to someone else, it would have been hilarious. So it’s no less funny, just because it happened to me.”

The feeling you get when you feel bad about a mistake is embarrassment, a feeling that you know perfectly well what you could and should have done, but you didn’t. A feeling of being judged. The humiliation of being laughed at.

But if someone else had done it, would you have laughed too? If yes, then it’s funny. It’s funny regardless of who it happened to.

Comedians reframe difficult experiences to find the humour in them onstage

Laughing at yourself doesn’t make you a fool. It makes you strong, confident and self-assured. We all make mistakes, we all forget, trip, take wrong turns.

When someone denies a mistake, they become arrogant. They cannot learn and they are doomed to repeat the same mistakes, over and over again. I’m sure you can think of someone who does this.

What’s much harder to accept is that you do it too. But don’t worry, your secret is safe with me, and the other eight billion people who do exactly the same as us.

There’s no doubt that, together, we’ve come through a period of great uncertainty, worry and anxiety. We’ve all been personally affected, in some way.

You might not have felt like laughing at the time but now, looking back, you could consider all of the strange aspects of the experience and all of the things you did to keep busy, keep active or simply stay sane.

When you share stories with your friends and your colleagues, you can choose to share stories of trauma and pain, or you can choose to lift their spirits with stories of hope and growth. You can do what comedians do—take the exact same story and change the focus from "feel sorry for me" to "laugh with me".

The secret is to think about why you’re telling the story. Why are you telling someone about your experiences, how you were treated, the sacrifices you made? Are you seeking pity? Approval? Empathy?

When you are honest with yourself about what you’re expecting people to do for you, you might decide to change the story you tell, and you can change it just as easily as you hit "next" on your playlist.

You don’t like this track? Skip to the next. You don’t like what this story says about you? Change it.

You can do what my friend does: step back, think from someone else’s point of view, let the story be funny. What could the punchline be? What’s the lesson to be learned? How can the story help someone?

Once you realise that we’re all in this together, that we all share the same ridiculous experiences, that we can laugh together at whatever life throws at us, you can make a simple choice.

You can tell yourself that you failed, or you can tell yourself that you learned and had fun along the way. It’s your choice.

Paul Boross is a business psychologist, performance coach, podcast host, keynote speaker and author of new book Humourology: The Serious Business of Humour At Work

Read more: Reshaping perspectives of life for the better

Read more: How saying "no" can improve your life

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