Deliberate laughter practice: A better tool to destress and change your mood than meditation?

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By Duncan Anderson. To see all blogs click here.

Reading time: 6 mins


Summary: One should eat well, sleep well, exercise well… and laugh well. I’ve heard a lot about the value of ‘daily meditation practice’, I’ve not heard much about the value of ‘daily laughter practice’, for me the ‘laughter practice’ has been more beneficial.  

  • Jingle: Mediation Practice * Laughter Practice = Calm * Happy mood! 


Meditation practice vs Laughter practice

  • Mediation practice = Focusing on your breath for 10-20 mins.

  • Mediation practice = Can wipe away the day's stress, bringing with it inner peace.

  • Laughter practice = Doing something that makes you laugh/chuckle for 10-20 like watching a funny lighthearted TV show.

  • Laughter practice = Can wipe away stress, change your mood to be jovial and help you let go of whatever is on my mind better than meditation can (well for me anyways). 

  • I do both Mediation practice * Laughter practice. 


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Details


Meditation practice

  • Mayo clinic: “Meditation can wipe away the day's stress, bringing with it inner peace. See how you can easily learn to practise meditation whenever you need it most.”

  • A way to visualise what meditation can do (this is an oversimplification, and misrepresents part of how I think meditation works but also hopefully it’s helpful). 

    • Possible mindstates

  • What can happen if meditation is done well. 

  • One of the most common forms of meditation is focussing on your breath until you let go of any emotions and thoughts you have. After you have hopefully been able to let go of emotions and thoughts you are left with ‘nothing’ or ‘calm’. Practising being good at ‘calm’ (levelling up your ability to be calm) I think is a very useful life skill.

  • What I also find can happen. 

  • Meditation can get you to calm momentarily but then the previous feelings and emotions can come back.

  • Other things I’ve found meditation can help with beyond increased calm skills:

  • Increased self awareness of thoughts and emotions you have = After you have hopefully been able to let go of any thoughts and feelings you have often you are able to realised what they were. I am not my thoughts, I am the observer of my thoughts, I am not my feelings, I am the observer of my feelings. 

  • Increased regulation of thoughts and emotions you have = The more aware of what thoughts and feelings you have normally the more you can regulate them. 

  • Increased ability to direct your attention how you want (e.g. stay focused on one task) = Getting better at ‘letting go of thoughts and feelings’ AKA increased calm skills is normally also meaning you are better at not letting things come up and distract you from what you are focussing on right now. 

  • Increased awareness of others = Increased awareness of your own feelings and thoughts normally also provides some insight to be aware of others too. 


Laughter practice

  • What is laughter practice? 

    • More details below. 

    • Instead of ‘meditating’ and focusing on your breath / body scan / matra (IMO they are different strategies for the same end goal of stopping thinking about what you are thinking and / or feeling), you do something that makes you laugh for 10-20 mins. Eg watch a TV show that is light hearted and laughy EG Young Sheldon or some standup for me currently. 

  • I’ve found the outcomes of ‘laughter practice’ more beneficial than meditation practice.

    • But I still do both, and think both have a place. 

  • What can happen with laughter practice:

Laughter practice > Meditation practice? 

  • There were many people I admired who talked about the value of mediation 10+ years ago like Ray Dalio and Naval Ravikant. So I thought ‘I should give meditation a go’. Honestly I’ve found meditation great and highly recommend it. It’s helped reduce stress and bring more inner calm. 

  • I didn’t think of doing ‘deliberate laughter practice’ in the same way I was thinking about doing ‘deliberate meditation practice’, a daily ritual. 

  • I’ve personally found ‘laughter practice’ better to ‘wipe away stress, not just bring inner peace but also good energy’, than ‘meditation practice’.

  • Mediation practice = Can wipe away the day's stress, bringing with it inner peace.

  • Laughter practice = Can wipe away stress, change your mood to be jovial and help you let go of whatever is on my mind better than meditation can (well for me anyways). 

  • I’ve found ‘laughter practice’s' ability to lighten my mood a friggin mind trick for the ages. 

  • Note I still practise meditation, I’ve just got a new tool in my repertoire, a laughter practice. 


What does my ‘laughter practice’ look like? 

  • Type one (where it started): After work in the evening watch something ‘laughy’ for 20 mins. 

    • After finishing work at night I used to meditate, then try to wind down into bed by watching something. But I wasn’t deliberate about what I watched. I could be watching something dense like a talk on AI, or Four Corners, or some gripping but dark TV show etc. 

    • If I had had a particularly stressful day then meditation wouldn’t work. I’d still be holding onto whatever was happening at work. Meditation couldn’t ‘nuke’ the thoughts and feelings out of my mind to let go and sleep. 

    • Then I noticed a pattern, if I watched something ‘funny’ for 20 mins, almost always at the end my mind had wiped and was clear to let go of things for the day. 

    • I started to make this a deliberate habit and it’s been epic, so thought I’d share. 

    • I try very hard at ~9pm to watch something ‘funny’ for 20 mins.  It gets my mind to let go, for things to be not just not stressed, but light hearted.

    • Examples of what I consume for ‘daily laughter practice’. 

      • Certain TV shows (I’m sure you are all different), for me right now it’s Lego Masters, Young Sheldon and Brooklyn 99. Much standup can be great. There also seems to be endless amounts of it. 

  • Type two: quick 2-3 mins during the day or after a tough meeting. 

    • The benefits of deliberately watching something funny at night gave the idea to systematically try it during the day. 

    • What I used to do to fill in breaks was walk to get coffee, just go for a walk, make a tea, do a quick breathing meditation. I’d also read emails during this time. 

    • I tried 1-2 times a day consciously looking at certain ‘funny’ things like Betoota Advocate (website not instagram as can get stuck in a spiral), Babylon Bee (again website), or you can train TikTok to feed you funnies (I don’t get in a spiral). 

    • A long time ago I used to feel guilty about ‘not doing work the whole time’, then I let myself do short breathing meditations during the day and found it helped. 

    • But looking at a funny like Betoota Advocate during the work day, don’t be absurd, that is slacking off. 

    • Now I see ‘laughter practice’ as a great strategy to lift my mood, destress me, or just change what I’m thinking about. Just like meditation can be a great strategy to de-stress. 

    • But I think ‘deliberate laughter practice’ should be done on good days and bad days alike! 

    • I try to do this a 1-2 times a day. 

  • Type three: while commuting, driving, walking to get dinner

    • Again I used to struggle to not work, or listen to an educational podcast etc. 

    • But now I’ll listen to something like Hamish and Andy for 10 mins and my headspace can be so much better! 

    • I try to do this once a day. 

  • Jingle: Am I a Type A personality having three types of ‘laughter practice’? 

If you only take away one thing

  • I don’t think time is not the only non-renewable resource, and therefore the most important resource. I believe energy is the most important resource as your energy levels normally determine how you spend your time. Good energy levels = Good times. Bad energy levels = Bad times. 

  • For managing my energy levels (eg stress, mood, etc) I’ve found: 

    • Meditation practice = Good

    • Laughter practice for me = Even better

  • Consider trying deliberate laughter practice. 


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