Hi. Welcome to Bloom Anywhere. I'm Gwen Moran, a writer, editor, author, and problem-solver. My goal is to share information, ideas, and resources to help you overcome obstacles, reach your goals, and get more joy out of life, even when things are messy. Thanks for joining me. (If you got this from a friend, subscribe here: Bloom Anywhere.) I'd love your feedback and suggestions for future topics. Send me an email: connect@bloomanywhere.com.
If you cannot stop doomscrolling, you're not alone. Looking away from what's going on around us can feel like we're ignoring it or, worse, condoning it. Some of our inherent biases and tendencies, like negativity bias and a need for control, may make us feel that it's our duty to "stay informed" and look for bad news.
When the Great Recession hit, my husband and I were both self-employed. As we stayed glued to the television each night, watching the stock market crash and real estate values plummet, the feelings of helplessness and fear were paralyzing. What would happen to our businesses?
At the time, everything felt heavy. People around us were losing everything. While my default coping mechanism is humor, I couldn’t think of a thing to laugh about. Feeling anything other than worried and morose seemed like I was tempting fate to make things worse.
During lunch with a friend, she said something that made me giggle. I immediately stifled my laughter.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“It just feels wrong to laugh right now,” I replied.
She sat back and looked at me. “Do you really think laughing at a joke will make anything worse? I have news for you: you aren’t that powerful,” she said.
Of course, she was right. I had no duty to observe a mourning period for circumstances over which I had no control. Sharing a few moments of humor wouldn’t incur some karmic retribution because I wasn’t taking current events seriously. My refusal to laugh or even allow myself to feel any positive emotions was some misguided sense of control, as if my solemn vigil was warding off hardship. That was, of course, silly.
Rx: A Good Laugh
When we’re feeling grief, fear, anxiety, or other difficult emotions, laughter really can be the best medicine. It can alleviate the stress of the negative emotions and even provide physical relief. Journalist Meghan Bartels interviewed Steven Sultanoff, a clinical psychologist and an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University, for her Scientific American piece, “How Humor Takes the Edge Off Hard Times.” Sultanoff told her that distressing emotions “dissolve” when we experience humor. She also wrote that humor can help us tap into creativity to find solutions and that laughter can even help us breathe better and increase our pain tolerance.
When I interviewed her for Fast Company, behavioral scientist Jennifer Aaker, professor at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and co-author of Humor, Seriously: Why Humor Is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life, told me: “Humor and levity get you through the hard times that are part of a meaningful life. Humor and levity actually connect people much more quickly.” Plus, laughing helps depress the release of cortisol, which can help us feel less stressed.
Finding Your Funny
And if nothing feels funny, you can practice “priming.” In other words, get into the habit of finding funny things in your daily life. Doing a “humor audit” can be helpful. “ . . . go through your day, and you jot down any moment when you laughed or any moment when you had shared laughter,” Aaker told me. Typically, her students report experiencing much more joy and laughter by the seventh day of this practice.
"Practicing" finding humor? Making lists of funny things? Doesn’t that seem a little excessive?
Well, maybe. But if you’re stuck in a place or head space where funny stuff is hard to come by, you might have to do some legwork to find it again. Think of it like eating kale for many of us: It’s a bit more work (so chewy!), but you know it’s good for you, so you do it anyway.
Give yourself permission to find joy and laughter, even in the toughest times. That's not to say that you should ignore what's going on around you, but your life is ticking by whether or not you seek out happiness and joy. Don't deny them out of some false sense of vigilance or duty. Plus, that laughter and levity may open you to helpful new ideas and solutions.
Have you found ways to laugh when it's hard? Drop me a note at connect@bloomanywhere.com. I'd love to hear about it.
Bloom Drops
Bits of everything I want to share with you.
Remembering: Some key dates are coming up, folks. Ramadan ends on April 10. Tax Day is April 15 for many of us in the U.S. Easter is April 20, and two days later is Earth Day. Passover begins April 12 at sundown and ends at nightfall on Apr 20. Oh, and don’t forget that REAL ID or your passport will be required to get on airplanes in the U.S. starting May 7.
Reading: James by Percival Everett is a brilliant reimagining of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through the eyes of Jim, an enslaved man and Huck’s companion on his travels. Highly recommend.
Loving: When I need a giggle or a daydream, Zillow Gone Wild never usually delivers.
