Humour is of different types:-


Diversionary humor involves doing things that create humorous distractions during times of high stress, thus giving people a break from the situation and a chance to cool down.
The logic here is that when we’re under stress, physiological arousal occurs in the body, making it hard for us to think clearly or rationally.


Because of their ability to provide a quick laugh, props play an important role in diversionary humor. When I worked at the Vancouver Crisis Centre, we had baskets containing psychedelic plastic slinkies, koosh balls, play dough, and other toys in our phone room for the volunteers to use after a tough call. Diversionary humor involving props was promoted as part of our organizational culture, because we realized it was one of the quickest, most effective ways we had to reduce stress.Diversionary humor involves doing things that create humorous distractions during times of high stress, thus giving people a break from the situation and a chance to cool down.


Having a laugh interrupts this physiological cycle of arousal, restoring our sense of perspective and ability to think clearly. And science has proven that when we’re happy, the body recovers more quickly from the biological arousal of upsetting emotions.


The logic here is that when we’re under stress, physiological arousal occurs in the body, making it hard for us to think clearly or rationally. We also tend to regress into unproductive behaviors like sulking, blaming, or running up a huge Visa bill.

When to use humour (Most Important):-


Humor is one of the healthiest and most powerful methods to help provide perspective on life's difficult experiences, and it is frequently shared during periods of crisis. However, during a crisis humor is often experienced and perceived by individuals immersed in the crisis as insensitive and even hurtful. What then, differentiates healthful and harmful humor in a crisis?
We know that, in general, humor aimed at oneself is well received by others. When we are the target of our own humor, others share our humor but are not threatened or injured by it. Humor aimed at situations is also generally appreciated by others, since it, too, has a target other than another person or group of people. Humor aimed at other individuals or groups may be harmful and not well received as it often is used to put down, insult, or degrade another.
If humor aimed at situations is generally safe, then what is it that causes some humor in crisis situations to be experienced negatively by those in crisis? The answer lies in the psychology of the human response to crisis. Psychologically during a crisis those individuals closest to the crisis are likely to integrate the crisis into their internal emotional being. That is to say, psychologically, they merge the crisis experience with their own inner emotional state. Essentially, they are unable to separate their inner emotional self from the emotional experience of the crisis. On the other hand, individuals with some distance from the crisis are less likely to experience this merging of self and crisis. Those with some distance, therefore, may be aided by humor because it reinforces perspective and creates a safe distance from the crisis. Those immersed in the crisis experience humor aimed at the crisis as directed at themselves and therefore, as insensitive.

As time passes and distance from the crisis is achieved, those who were once close to the crisis may be aided by humor. How many times have we heard the expression, "It wasn't funny at the time." It wasn't funny because the individual was too close to the difficult situation. Later as some distance is gained a humorous perspective is accepted and even appreciated.
We use humor in crisis situations to provide perspective and help us deal with the emotional turmoil. The individual who is immersed in the crisis is unable to emotionally differentiate the feelings about the crisis from internal feelings of personal identity. The individual is aware, cognitively, that he/she is distinct from the crisis, but emotionally the individual feels blended with the crisis. It is this emotional blending that inhibits the individual's ability to appreciate humor in the crisis situation. Individuals experiencing this level of crisis are unaware of the emotional blending of their inner emotional state (their individuality) with their emotional state related to the crisis (the situation). They are likely to be unaware of their heightened vulnerability to humor which is directed at the crisis situation, and therefore, using humor aimed at a crisis situation with someone closely experiencing the crisis must be carefully considered since the humor may be experienced as an attack or insensitive to the individual's plight.

One factor that influences an individual's receptivity to humor about a crisis situation is distance. As a rule of thumb, the greater the distance between the individual and the crisis the more likely humor will be therapeutic and not experienced as insensitive.
Distance from the crisis experience may be proximal, emotional, or temporal.
Proximal distance may be illustrated by the experience of being on the outer edges of the crisis but not immersed in it. Individuals who are not in the "proximity" of the crisis are more likely to be receptive to crisis humor. For example, people who felt an earthquake but did not sustain damage to self or property or who were not inconvenienced by the subsequent damage, will be more likely to be receptive to humor about the earthquake than individuals who lost property, were greatly inconvenienced, or were physically harmed.

Emotional distance may be embedded in how individuals view or place meaning on the crisis situation. The emotional reaction to any situation will be influenced more by the meaning an individual places on the situation than on the situation itself. All those in a crisis are likely to feel pain, however, some will also suffer excessively based on the meaning they place on the crisis. For example, two individuals who lost their homes in a flood may each respond differently to this catastrophe based on the meaning they place on their loss. That is, both individuals are likely to view their situation as difficult and painful, however, the individual who perceives the loss as devastating and permanently damaging will be less receptive to humor than the individual who sees the loss as temporary and as an opportunity for change and therefore growth.

Therefore, when using humor in crisis situations it is important to note that individuals sharing the same crisis (e.g. a natural disaster) are likely to react differently depending on meaning each one places on the emotional experience of the crisis. Identical humor about the crisis might be helpful to one individual and harmful to another.
As an individual in crisis gathers new information about the impact of the crisis on his/her life he/she begins to change the meaning of the crisis for his/her life. Early devastating thoughts are replaced with more realistic ones. As this process progresses the meaning of the crisis to the individual's life changes, and therefore, the emotional impact changes. As the emotional impact lessons the individual becomes more receptive to humor about the crisis.
Temporal distance is illustrated by the passage of time. We all know that crisis situations become less potent as they become more distant in our past. The expression, "Time heals all wounds" illustrates this point. As the crisis fades more and more into one's past, its potency is diminished, and the individual separates the emotions connected with the crisis from their inner emotional being.

Humor helps place crisis in perspective and helps to make the crisis more manageable.
However, the timing of humor for those who are immersed in the crisis must be chosen carefully. As humor promoters, we must be sensitive to the inner emotional struggle of the individual with whom we choose to share our humor.

For those of us outside the crisis, humor helps us to internally say, "Thank goodness it didn't happen to me." At the same time we must be sensitive to those to whom it did happen. Humor about the crisis, for those in the crisis, can be a welcome diversion and stress reducer, or it can alienate, antagonize, and hurt the individual in crisis. As we choose to share humor with those in crisis, we must be sensitive and attempt to use humor about the crisis when we believe the individual experiencing the crisis is receptive to our humor interventions. Then at those times when our humor is received negatively, it is our responsibility to sensitively "repair" the interpersonal damage that may result. One way to repair the damage is to listen carefully to the upsets and pain of the person in crisis, and demonstrate to that person that we, do indeed, understand his or her pain.

In summary, humor can be both healthful and harmful when offered to those in crisis situations. As humor distributors, we must be sensitive to the potential benefit and harm of our humor. We must also be prepared to repair any emotional damage that may result from our attempts to relieve another's pain through the use of humor.

This is all about Humour :-



Humour (also spelled humor) is the ability or quality of people, objects, or situations to evoke feelings of amusement in other people. The term encompasses a form of entertainment or human communication which evokes such feelings, or which makes people laugh or feel happy.The origin of the term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which stated that a mix of fluids known as humours controlled human health and emotion.A sense of humour is the ability to experience humour, a quality which all people share, although the extent to which an individual will personally find something humorous depends on a host of absolute and relative variables, including, but not limited to geographical location, culture, maturity, level of education and context. For example, young children (of any background) particularly favour slapstick, while satire tends to appeal to more mature audiences.
Though humour fulfils such a valuable role in experience, its facility as a creative mode of understanding remains greatly under-appreciated


IMPORTANCE OF HUMOUR: -


How serious can we be about humor in the workplace, and how humorous can we be about the seriousness we often find there? According to a Robert Haft International 1985 survey only 15% of workers are fired because of lack of competence. The remaining 85% are let go because of their inability to get along with fellow employees. When asked about the qualities of an effective employee, senior administrators and human relations personnel check humor as one of the choice attributes of a desired employee.

Why has humor become a recognized asset in the workplace? Humor facilitates communication, builds relationships, reduces stress, provides perspective, and promotes attending and energizes.

Humor Facilitates Communication :-

Humor provides a non-threatening medium through which an employee or employer can communicate with others without intensifying the emotional temperature of the relationship. Consider the frazzled secretary who posts the sign "I have only two speeds, and if this one isn't fast enough then I'm sure you're not going to like my other." Or the somewhat scattered boss whose messy desk is complimented with a note that says, "A Creative Mess is better than Tidy Idleness." The message is clear, yet the communication is done in a light and, therefore, less stressful way. The secretary's sign pokes fun at the situation, and the boss's note pokes some fun at himself.

Humor Builds Relationships :-

The development of staff cohesion and a sense of team effort in the workplace can be effectively facilitated by the use of humor. Bulletin boards, electronic mail, intra-office memos, voice mail, etc. all offer mediums through which we can share humor with co-workers. Office jokes taking the seriousness of work lightly provide us with the opportunity to become more connected with others.

Humor Reduces Stress :-

Work is often associated with stress, and we know that stress is one of the main causes of illness, absenteeism, employee burn-out, etc. Humor is a great stress reliever because it makes us feel good, and we can't feel good and feel stress simultaneously. At the moment we experience humor, feelings like depression, anger, and anxiety dissolve.

Humor and, its partner, laughter also reduce stress by activating the physiological systems including the muscular, respiratory, cardiovascular, and skeletal. In fact, we may even lose muscle control, as many of us have, when we laugh so hard that we fall down or wet our pants. Laughter has been labeled a jogging and juggling of the internal organs. When we laugh we feel physically better, and after laughter we feel lighter and more relaxed.

In addition, humor provides a psychological stress reducer as it snaps our thinking to another channel. Norman Cousins called it trainwrecks of the mind. One of the characteristics of humor is that it involves incongruity. We find things humorous when they are incongruous or mismatched. Good jokes guide us down one path only to suddenly track us onto another. The tracking is what we call the punch line. As we are tracked over, our thinking shifts and, in fact, breaking the mind set of the thinking leads to increased creativity.

Consider the story of the midwestern farmer crossing Harvard square searching for the library. He approaches a stately looking gentleman, who happens to be a Harvard English professor, and he asks, "Excuse me sir. Can you tell me where the library is at?" The professor looks somewhat disdainfully and replies, "At Harvard we do not end sentences with prepositions." After a pause the farmer turns back to the professor and asks, "Well then, can you tell me where the library is at...Asshole." In this joke we are guided down one path and suddenly tracked over to another. The incongruity is what we experience as humorous.

Humor Provides Perspective :-

Another way in which humor oils the gears of the workplace is by providing perspective. Ashleigh Brilliant (known for his one- liners often found on postcards) says, "Distance doesn't really make you any smaller, but it does make you part of a bigger picture." Consider the Ziggy cartoon where Ziggy is lying on the psychiatrist's couch and the psychiatrist is saying, "The whole world isn't against you...there are BILLIONS of people who don't care one way or the other."

Humor Promotes Attending and Energizes :-

We know that all good lecturers have many jokes, stories, and anecdotes that are shared in order to command attention and energize the audience. Humor wakes us up and increases our attending. An office bulletin board loaded with cartoons, one liners, jokes, pictures, etc. is one way to invite humor into the workplace. A few moments of humor at work can lead to increased productivity as the newly energized employee returns to his or her task.
In working environments where humor is supported there develops a culture that utilizes the humor to reduce stress and provide perspective. We have all heard humor directed at lawyers, medical personnel, scientists, engineers, business persons, educators, etc. Learning to laugh at ourselves and our work lightens the load.

Humor is a major career asset, so let's be serious about humor and use humor to lighten our seriousness in the workplace. As we increase our personal humor quotient and spread our humor contagiously to others, we will begin to see the "lite" at the end of the tunnel.