How to Develop a Sense of Humor

Life is full of conflict and struggle. Gifted are those who can laugh at adverse situations and gain strength from seeing the oddities in a lighter vein. Mark Twain has described it aptly as a survival skill. A sense of humor is a trait that all of us love to have.

Everyone likes your company if you have built up a reputation as a person with a great sense of humor. It is a universal phenomenon because they find comfort and ease in interacting with you and look forward to building a rapport with you.

Being able to laugh and thereby being in a good mood paves the way to ease tension and becoming more effective in solving problems.

It does make a big difference to your life and helpful in staying emotionally healthy. Yet, on the other hand, a lack of a sense of humor is seen as a sign of low self-esteem.

A good sense of humor is the ability to laugh at oneself and not at someone else. Learning to see humor in things we see in everyday life can be a good way to develop sense of humor.

You won’t find the job of developing sense of humor to be an uphill task, but it does take continuous practice. Comedians make us laugh with their spontaneous and natural acts and words. They are so natural because they have perfected the art through prolonged practice, even running into many years.

Tips for a Developing Sense of Humor

Seek out humorous company

Try to be in the company of people who possess a good sense of humor. This will allow you to watch them and pick up a few tricks on how to develop your own sense of humor.

2. Make laughing a habit

Make a habit of laughing at least 10 times a day.

3. Make fun of Yourself

Try to make fun of yourself when you are in a group. Use parodies, pun or even gestures and expressions to their surprise.

4. Finding a funny twist to everything

Consciously observe the funny side of everything and make your own funny stories about things and events.

5. Building a fun reserve

Creating your own collection of jokes and fun stories and remember to use them at appropriate occasions.

What to avoid

Being sarcastic or derogatory when trying to be jovial.
Using jokes that the audience may have difficulty in understanding due to cultural or other differences.
Criticizing the audience if they do not laugh.
Laughing at your own jokes or announcing in advance that you are about to tell a joke.

Benefits of good sense of humor

Emotional Benefits

Humor works wonders to bind us together while lightening our burdens. All may not be lucky to have the best spouse, children or even in-laws. But being able to laugh together definitely helps us control our anger, anxiety or even resentful feelings and try to iron out the differences in an amicable manner.

Humor works well to make us feel good and more energetic and that leads to increased and quality performance. It is known to open up others and results in better understanding.

Social Benefits

Humor breaks all barriers and binds us with laughter despite being opposed to each other in many ways. A smile is known to be contagious and can reduce the mental distance to a great extent. It can help people to see eye-to-eye and bring them to the negotiating table, having reduced the tension and negative attitude.

A word of Caution

You are sure to be surrounded by people when you become known as a person with a sense of humor. But you need to exercise the utmost care to ensure that it is not at the expense of others. Poking fun at someone’s physical disability or bad situation is the least desirable.

It is always better to know the place and occasion. For example, it is in bad taste to crack adult jokes in the presence of children. A good sense of humor is that ability to make everyone enjoy and not exclude some people.