Laugh, the Joke’s in You!

  Hi Laughter Lovers,

Before I get into the subject of this blog I really want to thank all of the people who read and enjoyed my very first blog “Put Your Laughter on the Line!” The response has been wonderful! Special thanks to those who subscribed, commentated, and shared. So let the laughter continue…

I’ve been a professional comedian now for three decades and have had thousands of conversations with audience members after live performances. Laughter is a delightfully pleasurable, liberating experience for most people and we often feel a sense of gratitude to those who deliver the gift and want to express their appreciation

It’s lovely to be told “thanks, that was great” or “I haven’t laughed so much in ages”. Professional comedy is hard and such feedback is always very welcome.

However, over the years I’ve come to identify a specific type of person who frequently makes a certain type of comment. After saying how much they enjoyed the show their smile fades and their expression becomes wistful as they say something like “I wish I could be funny.”

What they are actually saying I think is “I wish I had more laughter in my life”. They are suffering from laughter deficiency because they believe that laughter is something they can only access through an outside source. This assumption is disempowering and can really put a dampener of your laugh life!

When I give my “Laugh for Life!” seminars I always enjoy the reaction when I make the following statement – “Creating laughter is not about being funny!” The response is often a sea of quizzical expressions. But really understanding this statement is the key to increasing the amount of laughter in our lives.

It’s been proven that most laughter in everyday life is created not through jokes or witty one-liners but through friendliness, warmth, and playfulness in the context of conversation.

In his book Laughter: A Scientific Investigation neuroscientist Robert Provine examines in detail what triggers laughter between people in a social context. In one study he and his researchers recorded 1200 “laughter episodes” in everyday conversations to see what caused the laughter.

Provine found that around 90% of laughter was preceded by very commonplace comments such as “There you go!” or questions like ‘How are you?”  Not what we usually think of as funny lines. In other words it’s not about the content of what we say but the energy given out.

This is good news! It means we all have the power to create and enjoy laughter. We can in fact all be “funny” in the sense that we can all bring about laughter by just extending friendliness, by giving people our interest and warmth, by being a good humoured human.

As an experiment watch and listen for what produces laughter in your everyday conversations with friends. Do Provine’s results prove true?

And then why not see if you can warm someone’s day with laughter, maybe someone you don’t even know…

You could smile and say “how are you going, looks busy?” to the check out person at the supermarket and show them you actually care about their response.

If you’re waiting in the rain at a bus stop you could turn to the person next to you and say with a laugh “Wow, beautiful weather, isn’t it.”

The point is that we all have many opportunities to be a friendliness creator and this often leads to that wonderful experience called laughter. An experience that makes life a whole lot better not only for others but also for ourselves.

Please leave a comment below or perhaps a story about your experiences with encountering or creating laughter in your life.

And if you haven’t already done so, I invite you to sign up to LaughBites on the home page and become part of the community. Love to have you on board!

Laughingly yours, Anthony 

And if you would like to check out Robert Provine's book on the science of laughter here is the link:

© anthonyackroyd 2011