Daniel Leffingwell MS.RN
Updated April 24 2014
1. HUMOR IN "FOLKS"
WHY HUMOR?
- Use of humor as a defense mechanism that
allows someone to cope with difficult situations (use death and dying examples)
-Increasingly, health care
professionals have studied humor as a therapeutic intervention.
- Norman Cousins attributed humor as
responsible for curing his collagen disease in 1977 (The healing heart).
How does a good belly laugh affect you physically?
Ask the group…
1.
You’re Pulse? (answer=it raises it)
2.
Your blood pressure? (answer=it raises it)
3.
Your temperature? (answer=it raises it)
What if you told your doctor that you use humor to keep
healthy and that it did all these things to you?
Initially the laugh raises all the above, but the sustained
effect of using laughter is that your pulse, blood pressure and temperature all
come down and stay down (sustained effect).
Catecholamine’s are released, and there is an initial rise in pulse, blood
pressure and temperature generated by laughter (sympathetic response), followed
by a relaxation phase (parasympathetic response).
Research with adult subjects has demonstrated a positive correlation between
humor and increased concentrations of secretory immunoglobulin A (S-IgA),
It improves oxygen usage and energy levels
Stimulates skeletal, thoracic and abdominal muscles.
It releases endorphins (Cousins also believed
this before research studied this effect), establishing a sense of well-being,
which can
also allow one a heightened ability to deal with stressful situations.
This is a similar role that exercise plays on
the body. Use the gym and
running examples.
2. PSYCHOLOGICAL RESPONSES TO HUMOR
AB - Human creativity uses what is already available,
changing it in unpredictable ways. Creativity is an option to client,
caregiver, and institution. It is likely to occur in the open mode of thinking,
where alertness, relaxation, and playfulness
coexist. Humor is a desirable
avenue to creative thinking for health promotion. The release and relaxation of
humor benefits client and caregiver both physiologically and psychologically. Tension eases for
patients, while nurses gain a new sense of control through the use of their own
sense of humor.
Fifty
preoperative patients were surveyed on the use of humor education as a form of
stress reduction. After surgery, the patients were told one-liners prior to
administration of potentially painful topical medication. All perceived less
pain. Humor rooms are spaces in hospitals which encourage the therapeutic use
of humor. This is a unique holistic option to promote creative thinking of the
staff while it enhances the healing of the patient.
A.
GOOD AND BAD STRESS – The balance
Humor to break the ice COMMUNICATION
Discharges tensions associated with fear, anger and grief
Humor to establish the bond in therapeutic relationships
Humor to cope with stressful situations: A DEFENSE
MECHANISM
Humor as a distraction
You will worry yourself sick
- The use of humor in therapeutic groups - one needs to know
when it is appropriate or not. The main effects are cohesion and symptom relief.
- Humor can be a useful treatment technique in the hands of some psychotherapists. It may help the patient to see painful life events and situations from less
threatening perspectives, and can take the anxiety and guilt out of many difficult circumstances and incidents.
Life review and the humor associated with it
-Comedy routines Who is your favorite
comedian?
- Use of videos and
films in the CDTP, Laurel and hardy, the Marx Brothers Etc. also reminiscence.....
George Burns and
laughing with aging;
-“I’m glad to be here at 80 – I’m glad
to be anywhere at 80.”
-Reporter to
George; “George, you smoke cigars, drink and chase women. What does your doctor
say? George responds “my doctor is dead!”
- Humor can have a message: use the Romeo example
Romeo, who is 85 years old, goes to the doctor because his
left knee is bothering him. His doctor looks at him and states “Romeo, you are
85 years old, you have to expect this.”
Romeo replies “my other knee is 85 years old and it feels fine.”
- Mother- in- law example
- THE SUICIDE ARTICLE JOKE
B. HUMOR IN FAMILY CAREGIVERS
- “I told you she could hear.” Use
the example of Debby’s grandmother in the hospital and seemingly unconscious
and not able to hear anything.
-How stress can take its toll - use the example in the Alzheimer’s article:
A woman cares for her mother who has memory problems. The
time comes where mother needs to go to the nursing home, as her daughter can no
longer care for her. The social worker picks up the daughter and her mother to
take them to the nursing home. Mom is sitting in the front seat and seems to be
talking and making no sense in her verbalizations. The daughter, visibly
distraught and seemingly in an attempt to validate that she can no longer take
care of her mom at home, blurts our “see all she does is repeat herself all the
time.”
The mother, in a period of lucidity, blurts back “you
better be glad that I repeated myself or you would not be here!”
C. HUMOR IN PROFESSIONAL CAREGIVERS
-As a method of communicating ones feelings
- To reduce stressful aspects of a case
-To deal with one’s own fears of illness and disability
ALL THE ABOVE APPLIES
D. HUMOR IN PATIENTS WITH ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE
AND OTHER HEALTH PROBLEMS
-Humor and longevity: studies suggesting that
those individuals who have an appreciation for humor may have a longer
lifespan. In the journal Psychological Reports (1995, June) a study was
done where individuals used a Multidimensional humor scale to rate their
perception of humor
appreciation compared to a deceased relative. They consistently rated their sense of
humor appreciation
higher than the
deceased relative.
-Humor in the depressed: a study was reported
in the Gerontologist (1995, April) which described situations where
laughter or
humor occurred during therapy with depressed and suicidal patients.
Humor was associated with five principles;
(1) a positive
doctor-patient relationship
includes
the freedom to be humorous
(2) the humor is life affirming
(3) the humor increases social
cohesion
(4) the humor is interactive
(5) humor reduces stress
When is it appropriate to use humor?
Not during an acute crisis
As a "debriefing after a crisis
To laugh at the "system" (use the managed care
social work joke).
How can we gauge that humor is appropriate?
When it is in good taste
Follow the patient's lead
Laughing with rather than at a patient
Explain the role of humor to the patient
Extreme humor in professionals may deal with the stress
that each of us face in difficult situations
Humor and the self (use my examples when I was ill).