Humor as Survival Training for a Stressed-Out World: The 7 Humor Habits Program

The evidence is now in! Humor and laughter are good medicine. The companion to this book, Humor: The Lighter Path to Resilience and Health (2010, also published by AuthorHouse) discusses the exciting new research supporting the long-held claim that laughter is the best medicine. Humor as Survival Training for a Stressed-Out World shows how to get these benefits of humor into your own life. It contains the first-ever humor skills training program that has evidence from multiple countries documenting its effectiveness in boosting your sense of humor and learning to use humor to cope with the stress in your life. No other program for improving your sense of humor can make this claim. The basic idea is to build key foundation humor skills on your good days-when you're in a good mood. While strengthening one habit/skill at a time, you don't extend these skills to daily stressors until the habits are well developed (otherwise, your sense of humor abandons you when you're under stress). The 7 Humor Habit Program first builds the habit of becoming a more playful person in general (humor is a form of mental play), and then focuses on verbal humor skills, finding humor in everyday life, laughing at yourself and other key humor skills. Studies in the USA, Switzerland, Australia and Germany have confirmed the effectiveness of this program in boosting your sense of humor. Evidence also shows that it improves your daily mood, boosts optimism and improves your ability to cope with stress. There is even evidence that the 7 Humor Habits Program is an effective tool in reducing clinical depression and anxiety. It has been shown to be effective for all ages, from college students to seniors in their eighties. So it's never too late to improve your own sense of humor.