Her repertoire was quickly depleted. To shore up her joke file, Evangelides founded the Joke Exchange, a biannual event where people from all around the city come to swap jokes. Now, Evangelides systematically works to bring more fun and humor to her job. After attending a seminar with the Carolina Ha Ha Association, she became a "certified humor presenter." She's also completing her master's thesis in public health on the "Applications of Humor in a Hospital Setting." Mean while, you can send your best jokes to her in care of St. Joseph's Hospital in Chicago.
If you're like most adults, the wear and tear of everyday life has probably taken away some of your gift for laughter. As a child, you were likely to have laughed more than 100 times a day. Sadly, research shows that by age 44, most people are down to less than a dozen mild chuckles daily, if that. Life as a grown up can be pretty much of a downer.
Denise would like to turn that around. "Humor is like verbal aikido," she says "and you can find it in everyday life."
While some professionals may look askance at her light hearted approach, there's plenty of good research to support her beliefs. You may be familiar with the story of the late Norman Cousins. While an editor of the Saturday Review in 1964, Cousins was treated for a crippling collagen illness that was excruciatingly painful and supposedly irreversible. Refusing to give up, Cousins had a movie projector set up in his hospital room so he could watch Three Stooges movies and Alan Funt's memorable television series, Candid Camera. Cousins discovered that 10 minutes of genuine belly laughing created an anesthetic effect that allowed at least two hours of pain free sleep. Eventually, he managed to laugh his way out of the hospital and a very serious illness.
For example, the human resources director of a psychiatric hospital in the Midwest was upset that patients were not adhering to hospital regulations. When she complained bitterly to the medical director about it, she was astonished to hear him laugh at her concerns. Seeing her chagrin, he hastened to explain: "We're treating psychiatric patients here. If they didn't have problems, you and I would be out of work." By mixing humor and common sense, the medical director was able to gently remind the HR director that she shouldn't expect patients to be trouble free or to behave in a totally rational manner.
Knowing your audience-as the medical director did-is the first step toward successful service delivery and your own mental health.
Laugh in the Face of Fear
Using humor to diffuse tension is a survival skill that was practiced adroitly by members of the medical team on the popular TV series MASH. Actor Alan Alda's Hawkeye Pierce is especially memorable for his ability to crack terrific one liners under pressure. Of course, he also had the benefit of great writers. This was not true for the real life Capt. Alfred Haynes, a 33 year veteran with United Airlines. One hour into a flight from Denver to Chicago one July afternoon in 1989, his plane's rear engine exploded, requiring an emergency landing in Sioux City, Iowa.
Haynes was trying to maneuver his DC 10 with 296 passengers aboard safely onto the ground using only the engine thrust. As he did so, he was in contact with an air traffic controller who advised him that he was cleared to land on any runway. At that point, Haynes was just hoping he wouldn't end up in a cornfield. So he laughed and said: "You want to be particular and make it a runway?"
When you're able to call forth humor under such dire circumstances, it provides an important emotional outlet, allowing you to retain your sanity. As Abe Lincoln once said (paraphrasing Byron), "I laugh because I must not cry."
Finding Everyday Fun
The ability to maintain that kind of heroic grace under pressure is often admired, yet seldom practiced. Even in far less threatening situations, many people have trouble lightening up and finding a bit of humor in the moment. Especially at work, people often prefer to keep a tight rein over all emotions. When Lou Ella Jackson first became a trainer, she was aware of research indicating that people learn better when they're having fun. Taking the information to heart, she realized that she'd have to lighten up her presentations to make them more effective.
She admits it wasn't easy. "I came out of the financial industry which has a reputation for being very staid," says Jackson, the former president of the Chicago chapter of the American Society for Training and Development. "I was very comfortable with my serious professional persona, when suddenly I was con fronted with the idea that I needed to make my seminars more fun."
