The Healing Power of Humor
The Healing Power of Humor is a must read for anyone who has ever faced life’s challenges. Allen Klein shows you how to use humor effectively even in somber moments because laughter helps lighten the load.
Allen is no stranger to pain; he gained his inspiration from losing his beloved wife in a three year battle with a rare liver disease . He discusses how it is not always easy to laugh away your troubles and it can often take work to find the hilarity on the really difficult days. However, once you can find the humor in your situation, it suddenly feels less daunting. As Klein
The healing power of humor is an easy read with 14 small chapters, one lesson for each day. Each of these details a technique and ends with a ‘learn to laugh’ exercise giving you a practical way to incorporate laughter into your life. Having tried a few of the techniques, I can say that Allen isn’t kidding when he says that “in two weeks you will have shed some pounds of excess gloom”. Try the joke-jitsu exercise, which like jujitsu the martial arts form, allows you to gain advantage over your opponent, or in this case the bad situation, by adding humor to it. For example “The bad news is that we had a flood at the warehouse. The good news is that the water is being diverted into the new employee swimming pool”
For those with demanding jobs and personal lives, these techniques will help improve your ability to deal with stress. As Allen said, “By focusing our energy elsewhere humor can diffuse our stressful events. It releases built up tension and pops the cork off such things such as fear, hostility, rage and anger.” In addition to being good for your health, the stress busting abilities of a good laugh can make you a more patient manager
