Humor as a Response to Trauma

"Humor is a must-have… Humor gets people to listen, it increases long-term memory retention, it improves understanding, aids in learning and helps communicate messages. It also improves group cohesiveness, reduces status differentials, diffuses conflict, builds trust and brings people closer together… The reality is that humor is a skill, and if it's a skill, that means we can learn it," says Andrew Tarvin, Humor Engineer, in a TEDx talk.

Humor also plays a role in healing from trauma. In the Ed.Flicks video "Avoiding the Impact of Trauma," Holly Elissa Bruno remarks, "I find that there are three factors that are crucial. The first one is to never lose my sense of humor. It’s so easy to lose humor. You’ve probably felt that yourself, and what does it feel like when you lose your sense of humor? Things get terribly serious and if we look at the brain, we’ll see that what happens is under trauma, under pressure, under pandemic, our brain goes back to the primitive state, which is controlled by …the amygdala. The quickest way to reset — and go into that part of ourselves that is called the executive function, with good reason, because that’s where we can see the bigger picture, we can be the problem-solvers we were meant to be, that’s where we can get our sense of humor back — the quickest way to get out of that traumatized state ourselves as the adult in the room is to laugh at ourselves… I don’t know about you, but I have a zillion things to laugh about when it comes to myself!"

Bruno will join Crystal Sanford Brown, founder of Emerging Young Leadership, as guests in an Engaging Exchange on "Naming Secrets, Claiming Courage: A Brave Conversation on Trauma in Early Childhood," Tuesday, July 12, at 7 pm Eastern.

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