Humour can make you stronger or destroy you. Find out which kind you’ve been feeding yourself with

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Norman Cousins, an editor of a magazine back in 1964 was diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis. This was a rare disease with a 1 in 500 chance of the patient staying alive. His doctor advised him to “get his affairs in order” as he had only a few months to live.

Rather than follow his doctor’s advise, cousins took a sabbatical from his job and checked into a hotel. Six months later, he reported to his doctors for a check-up and he was pronounced cured. What did he do?

Turns out that while in the hotel, coniferous spent most of his time watching funny movies to the extent that his stomach was hurting. Between that time and now, much research have proven that laugher is indeed the best medicine. It is shown that it strengthens the immune system and helps the body’s healing process in many ways.

However, we are not talking about just any kind of laughter. There are different kinds of humour with different effects. I have lined out the different kinds of humour with their individual motivation and meaning.

Enjoy!

Cruel humour

This is a bad type of humour. This kind of humour thrives on hateful comments, prejudices and calling out outcasts and scapegoats. Parody also falls under this category. This kind of humour helps release anger and gives a sense of superiority. However, it doesn’t resolve anger nor have any health benefit. Besides, it perpetuates prejudice and discrimination and should be used sparingly.

Giggles

This is the kind of ‘out-of-control humour that is common with children and teenagers but also occur among adults too. It is often contagious and helps with bonding and also relieves tension. This occurs when people find something so funny that makes them laugh uncontrollably. It could be a reaction to a tough day or difficulties experienced. Because it doesn’t tap into the tension beneath it, its effect is short-lasting.

Good old jokes

Jokes are often like social commentaries. Sometimes, they contain some level of anger with the system and a dare to break the rules. Other times, they are about imaginations of a different kind of society. They can often make us experience ‘guilty pleasure’. Dark humour also falls into this category. Jokes are good but aren’t the kind to promote long-term health benefits

Self-Deprecating humour

Ever attended or watched a comic show there the comedian/presenter makes a fool of themselves to make you laugh? That’s the kind of humour we are talking about. Here, you have ‘idiots’ who say or do stupid things to make you laugh. This kind of humour reduces tension and helps the viewers relieve tension and achieve a sense of superiority. However, this kind of humour can be very dangerous to the performer. This is because in most cases, the performers were conditioned to gain attention from their families through doing or saying something stupid. This gradually becomes a habit and is also monetised. However, the performers are never happy through their performance. The only gain is depression and the suppression of their need for dignity and self-respect.

Satire.

This is my favourite kind of humour. It is often used to reflect the wrongs/ills in the society in a way that's funny to the audience and unpleasant to the subjects. It is an indirect way of showing just how things while provoking laughter. This kind of humour has a healing quality as it digs deep into issues that causes tensions and can also be used as a tool for social transformation. It also helps releases unconscious anger.

Sympathy laughter.

What I refer to as sympathy laugher is the kind of laughter you express when you want someone else to feel funny, especially when their jokes are not funny. If you are hanging out with someone you want some favour from, you might unconscionably find yourself laughing to otherwise dry jokes. This happens between staff and bosses, youths and their crushes, etc. Despite the ‘good intention’, this kind of laugher is dishonest to both ourselves and the other person.

Therapeutic humour.

This is the best kind of humour. Here, we are not laughing at somebody’s actions or words but with them. In this case, we identify with them because we can relate to their experiences. There is a kind of connection between their situations and ours. This kind of humour has great healing properties - as seen in the case of Norman Cousins who was mentioned earlier. Laughing with other people helps us admit our inadequacies and still give us a cause to smile. This is the most healing of all kinds of humour.

What are the things that make for good humour?

Well, this is highly subjective. What works for me night very easily offend you.

More often than not, what makes some people laugh is a combination of two or more factors. I have outlined some of the general factors below…

1.Physical factor. This uses physical movements and facial expressions to invoke laughter

2.Self-demeaning. Some times, people are happy to learn that they aren't the most stupid people and this kind of humour serves that purpose. It is popular on the internet, particularly with memes.

3.Weirdness. Some people just enjoy weird illogical and absurd jokes.

4.Spontaneity. For many, the ability to create and tell jokes on the spot is a great source of humour, usually when you are already expecting the person to make a joke.

5.Depth. For some kinds of people, it is not enough to be funny, the joke must have depth too. It has to be something that’s intellectually satisfying.

6.Commentaries This kind of humour demands an understanding of topic issues and fining a humorous spin to it. This also includes making jokes from everyday living.

7.Dark humour. This involves finding a humorous spin to dark, depressing themes such as death, loss, etc....

Thanks for reading

Check out my other posts

I had help from the following sources in preparing this piece

1. Psychcentral Blog
2. Huffington Post