If you didn’t laugh at that, I got bad news for you (or good depending on how you look at it). 

Some jokes aside, the book Humor, Seriously: Why Humor Is A Secret Weapon In Business And Life (And How Anyone Can Harness It. Even you) offers valuable insight into what role humor plays in our lives and work as well as give us some humorous techniques on how we can better our lives with an even with a little chuckle. 

Benefits of Humor 

Better status. Employers prefer employees who have a sense of humor and think they are better at their job! The book brings up surveys, done by the Robert Half International and Hodge-Cronin & Associates, of hundred of executive leaders, and found that 98 percent of them reported preferring employees with a good sense of humor, and 84 percent believe that employees with a sense of humor do better work. So laugh your way to that promotion people (even if your bosses’ jokes aren’t that funny)! 

But this isn’t just to make you look better, it makes you live better. 

Better Health. When you make someone laugh or someone makes you laugh, a cocktail of feel-good hormones is exchanged. These hormones include dopamine (which makes you happier), endorphins (which makes you euphoric), and oxytocin (trust hormone). To add a kicker, oxytocin is also during sex and childbirth. All these

Helps you stay alive. A study down on patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary (lung) disease has shown that being entertained by a clown improved lung function! This is because laughter increases blow flow & muscle relaxation and reduce arterial (heart) wall stiffness in cardiovascular diseases. This sounds a lot like an exercise lesson to me. Next time, maybe I should just pat myself in the back and call it a good workout after going to an improv show.  

But also in another 15-year longitudinal study in Norwegian, found a correlation between a sense of humor and longevity. So the stronger your sense of humor, the longer you live even with the presence of illness and infection. More specifically, “women who had a strong sense of humor had a 48% lower risk of death from all causes, 73 percent lower risk of death from heart disease, and an 83 percent lower risk of death from infection.” For men with a strong sense of humor, had a 74% lower risk of death from infections. Breaking news confirmed!

Higher grades. Amazingly, students who were taught class material with humor retained more materials and scored 11 percent higher on their final exams. Wow, so Bill Nye was single-handedly carrying the whole public school system the whole time and we never knew.

Myths of Humor

There are a lot of mental barriers to bring humor into our daily lives. “My job is too serious for humor to be there”, “I’m not funny enough, and what if I fail?”, “Aren’t you supposed to be born with it?”

These are all valid, but they are also making you miss out on life-saving opportunities. Today, we, particularly the younger generation, are faced with higher levels of stress, depression. Some studies show that our lack of a work-life balance is killing us.

This book is really about how we need a bit of levity, or lightness, in our lives, and humor is the specific way we can get to that. As we knew, having humor in our lives saves lives (by decreases the risk of death). So contrary to what we believe, humor can be learned and be implemented in our lives instead of being something innate. Humor Seriously gives great tips and advice to help you become funnier.

Tips, Tips, Tips

At this point, just buy the darn book. It taught me to be funny (okay, okay funnier). 

Around school, I see that teachers are to read the same book like Focus and Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. But it’s not something that significantly bettered South High School, as far as I know of. So I highly recommend that this book be read by all teachers at South. We have already seen the amazing benefits of humor and how it can save lives and even increase student’s grades. By implementing the book’s techniques, we can start to see actual and advantageous changes around the school. 

Students, also read this book. Making someone laugh can greatly increase your chances of becoming friends with them. And you know that friends are what makes school all the better.

Overall I rate this book infinity/10.