Opinion: A good laugh might be best medicine for what ails us

Trump. Climate change. Liberals. Conservatives. Socialists. Capitalists.

Bet you don’t think any of these charged-up words are funny, but maybe you should.

“All comedy starts with anger,” Jerry Seinfeld once said, explaining that stand-up comedy turns anger into laughter.

But of course, it’s not just anger that generates laughs. It’s also pain, insecurity and other human frailties. And as it turns out, one of the most therapeutic approaches we can take in dealing with our problems is by laughing about them.

My brother Don, a psychiatrist by trade and columnist by dark of night, has written about what he calls “insensitivity therapy,” in which he encourages people to laugh at their problems.

One story he has told among our family but not in print (leaving me to tell the dirty little secrets) is of his daughter as a teenager, when she was facing a big school day with a big zit on her face. She was stressing out over it, and as Don watched his wife at the breakfast table trying to calm her down — it’s not that bad; we’ll get it covered up and nobody will notice; etc. — Don interrupted.

With exaggerated concern, he screamed out that it was the biggest pimple he’d ever seen, that it would never ever go away and she’d never be able to go out in public again — until his daughter, stunned at first, finally laughed.

I’m guessing that a lot of therapists would criticize the insensitivity of his approach, but it does demonstrate how laughter can be a remedy for our everyday woes and worries.

Of course, there are limits to humor. Cruelty is not good humor. Blackface, gender-based harassment, and bullying are three things that used to be funny to the privileged crowds, but they’re certainly not funny to those targeted as the butt of the jokes.

My father, a minister his entire adult life, used to apply humor to win over people, almost to a fault. I heard him say things in jest that were wholly inappropriate, especially for people’s stereotypical perception of how a preacher should behave, but he got away with it anyway.

“It’s amazing what you can get away with when people know you love them,” I heard him say at least once, and he demonstrated that just about every day.

But there was more to it than that. He would tease you, but he was never mean-spirited about it, and somehow it made you feel special, in a good way.

He let his humor bear witness to his deep and abiding faith in people and in God.

Maybe it was the Irish in him, since they’re known for their sense of humor. The Irish have been described as a people who laugh easily, don’t take themselves too seriously and recognize that their point of view isn’t the only one out there. That describes my family to a tee.

In my father’s final months on earth, when he knew he was dying, I remember visiting him as he lay in bed. I teased him, saying he ought to quit being so lazy and get up and go back to work (or something like that). He feigned a hurtful look and said, “Tom, I’m dying. You have to be nice to me.”

I can laugh and cry at the same time remembering that one.

Human emotions are complicated, but I suppose they’re all related. When it comes to pain, anger and frustration, a good laugh might just be the best medicine.

Tom McDonald is editor of the New Mexico Community News Exchange. Contact him at:

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