happiness

A sense of humor can create a remarkable feeling of control. Learning to use humor as a lens for life challenges can increase your confidence in your own internal ability to adapt. The optimistic energy comes from humor will enable you to embrace difficulties with resilience. Some people purposefully use laughter to ease pain and promote physical healing. There is some experimental research indicating that laughter and humor might actually cure illness and provide effective therapies for numerous disorders. Some claim that laughter relieves pain, reduces stress, and improves the immune system response (Harvey, 1998). Although these studies are preliminary and no firm conclusions can be made yet, many of the findings are encouraging about the benefits and applications of positive humor.

Got stress? The purposeful use of humor can help you feel more optimistic about your life, knowing that you can choose how to respond to stress. Humor elevates mood and has been known to be a deterrent to depression. Stress reduction is considered one of the most important benefits of humor. A little humor will go a long way in helping educators balance the current focus on accountability, testing, standards, and unfunded mandates.

Look for laughter, joy, spirit, and enthusiasm in both the school and in the classroom and you'll find an environment in which learning thrives. Humor contributes to that optimal learning environment. It is brain-compatible both in creating an enriched context for learning and for assisting individuals in the

learning process. When you find fun, laughter, and teachers with a sense of humor, learning thrives.

Excerpted from Using Humor to Maximize Learning by Mary Kay Morris

on, 2008