The Laughter Remedy

The Latest Research on 1) Humor's Impact on Health, Resilience and Happiness 2) Improving Your Sense of Humor

The Laughter Remedy
  • Home
  • About Dr. McGhee
  • Books by Dr. McGhee
    • Books Published in Singapore
    • Humor as Survival Training for a Stressed Out World: The 7 Humor Habits Program
    • Humor: The Lighter Path to Resilience and Health
    • Small Medium at Large: How to Develop a Powerful Verbal Sense of Humor (adult & teenager edition)
    • Stumble Bees & Pelephones: How to Develop a Powerful Verbal Sense of Humor (children’s edition)
    • Understanding and Promoting the Development of Children’s Humor
  • Senior Humor Training
  • Speaker Brochure
    • Demonstration Video
    • Healthcare
    • Cancer Survivors Day
    • Corporate
    • Early Childhood Educators
    • K-12 Teachers
    • Developmental Disabilities
    • Mental Health Programs
    • Aging/Seniors
    • Alzheimer’s Caregivers
    • Singapore & Asian Programs
  • Contact
  • Children’s Humor
  • Developing Humor Coping Skills
  • Humor in the Workplace
  • Physical Health
  • Humor Training Exercises
  • Resilience & Coping

Paul McGhee, PhD

The 7 Humor Habits Program. Finally! A Humor Training Program that works! See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5vAvvYY9f4 for a description of the program.

Research over the past two decades has demonstrated what our grandmothers always knew to be true; LAUGHTER really is GOOD MEDICINE! As the daily stress in most of our lives has mounted in recent years, most people find that their sense of humor abandons them right when they need it the most—in the midst of stress. Now, an exciting new Humor Training Program, called the 7 Humor Habits Program, has helped thousands learn to use humor to cope. The effectiveness of the program has now been documented in 5 countries. It boosts emotional resilience, life satisfaction and enables you to maintain a positive mood and more optimistic outlook in your daily life—and it helps you cope with any problems thrown your way. Dr. McGhee's 4-month-long series of online radio broadcasts in 2012 showed seniors how to boost their humor skills and learn to use humor to cope. (Click on "Humor Training Exercises," starting with the January 23, 2012 article, to see humor-building suggestions that accompanied those broadcasts. These will work for you even if you're not a senior.) He has shown organizations in many countries the benefits of building appropriate forms of humor and fun into the workplace. See the March 30, 2012 article (under Humor Training Exercises) if you are a non-native speaker of English and want to learn to create verbal humor in English.

Dr. McGhee’s Most Recent Books

Humor: The Lighter Path to Resilience and Health The verdict is finally in. Humor and laughter do support a healthy body, mind and soul! This book discusses in a readable fashion the latest exciting research on humor/laughter and 1) health, 2) resilience/coping with stress and 3) the brain. Special attention is given to the new research demonstrating humor’s positive impact on heart disease, asthma, COPD, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis & skin allergies--as well as to its impact on expression of health-related genes. References to the original research are provided for those who need to document claims about the health benefits of humor. MORE

Humor as Survival Training for a Stressed Out World: The 7 Humor Habits Program Good news: The program really works! You’ve all heard it: “You’re either born with a good sense of humor or you’re not.” This hands-on program for improving your sense of humor finally disproves the old axiom. It shows exactly what you need to do to build the basic foundation skills of your sense of humor and then use humor to cope with the stress in your life. Studies in five countries have documented its effectiveness from age 20 to 70. MORE

Understanding and Promoting the Development of Children’s Humor When do children first show a sense of humor? Does infant laughter = a sense of humor? How does their sense of humor change as they get older? How does humor contribute to children’s intellectual, social & emotional development? Are there things you can do to nurture their budding sense of humor? Why do 5-year-olds seem to have a “cruel” sense of humor? This book answers all of these questions, and more. MORE

Small Medium at Large: How to Develop a Powerful Verbal Sense of Humor This book jumpstarts your spontaneous verbal wit. It contains several hundred adult jokes with a key part of the punch line missing. A clue is provided to get you thinking in the right direction without giving the answer. Using the clue to generate your own funny punch line strengthens your ability to come up with spontaneous puns and other verbal humor in the midst of social interaction. As you move through the book, a generalized boost in thinking funny occurs. Coming up with your own punch lines takes real mental effort at first, but gradually begins to happen spontaneously and automatically. MORE

Lighten Up! Delaware Seniors

June 1, 2013 By Paul McGhee

The Lighten Up! Delaware Seniors initiative is a yearlong effort by Dr. Paul McGhee, President of The Laughter Remedy in Wilmington, Delaware.  Its goal is to support the use of humor as a tool for promoting Positive Aging in Delaware, beginning in New Castle County.  The initiative is taking two different approaches to helping seniors first improve their sense of humor and then learn to use humor to cope (that’s the main goal) with the challenges that often go with aging. 1) Presentations on Humor and Positive Aging to Senior Living Communities and Senior Centers Paul will present a series of talks to seniors living in Senior Living Communities (focusing on independent living residents) and (day-visit) Senior Centers in New Castle County.  These presentations—entitled Humor, Health and Happiness in the Retirement Years: So What’s do Funny about Aging?—are entertaining and fun, but also show seniors how your sense of humor contributes to physical health and gives you the … [Read More...]

Humor Supports the Body’s Battle vs. Specific Diseases: The Latest Research

July 7, 2012 By Paul McGhee

"The chemicals that are running our body and our brain are the same chemicals that are involved in emotion.  And that says to me that . . . we'd better pay more attention to emotions with respect to health."    (Candace Pert, PhD, former Chief of Brain Biochemistry, National Institutes of Health) You’ve probably heard the media reports about humor and good health for 10-20 years now—although the number of such reports on television and radio and in print media has dropped in recent years because it’s all been covered so many times.  And yet there are exciting new findings to report, so this article will bring you up to date in summarizing the new wave of research on how humor contributes to good health and physical well-being.  All of this research is discussed in detail in my new book, Humor: The Lighter Path to Resilience and Health (references to the research are included for those who want to document the evidence). The First Wave of Research In the 1980s and 1990s, three … [Read More...]

The Seven Humor Habits Program: Assessing Your Gains from doing the Humor-Building Exercises over the Past 3 Months

May 4, 2012 By Paul McGhee

This article marks the end of a 3 1/2-month long series of articles devoted to helping you first improve your sense of humor and then learn to use humor to cope with the stress in your life. The original radio broadcast series (along with these accompanying articles) was based on my 7 Humor Habits Program, published in my book, Humor as Survival Training for a Stressed-Out World: The 7 Humor Habits Program.   After finishing the article you're reading now, go back and check out the entire series of articles.  To give yourself extra motivation to boost your sense of humor starting today, you may want to first read the articles at this website found under "Physical Health" and "Emotional Resilience and Coping." If you then decide you want to boost your own sense of humor, as so many others have now done, go back to the original (January 23) article under "Senior Humor Training."  After reading that article, take the "Sense of Humor" pre-test included in the February 3 article.  You … [Read More...]

Whose laugh is this?

Clue: British comic who rarely speaks

Boost Your HQ (Humor Quotient)

[A new joke will appear here every couple of weeks or so. Practice these to build your verbal humor skills.]
The day after his return from the hospital, John says to his wife, “I have to say, I really am feeling better since the operation. But for the life of me, I can’t figure out how I got this bump on my head. “Oh,” says his wife, “Well, they ___________ in the middle of your operation.
CLUE: What do they use to “put you out” during major surgery?

[Over 500 such jokes are included in Small Medium at Large to help build your verbal humor skills. Children's skill-building jokes with 3 clues are provided in Stumble Bees and Pelephones.]

 
Click to view joke answer.

Most Recent Articles

  • Lighten Up! Delaware Seniors
  • Humor Supports the Body’s Battle vs. Specific Diseases: The Latest Research
  • The Seven Humor Habits Program: Assessing Your Gains from doing the Humor-Building Exercises over the Past 3 Months
  • The Seventh Humor Habit: Find Humor in the Midst of Stress
  • The Sixth Humor Habit: Take Yourself Lightly—Laugh at Yourself
  • The Fifth Humor Habit: Look for Humor in Everyday Life
  • English Language Humor Training (Word Play) for Non-Native English Speakers
  • The Fourth Humor Habit (Part II): Create Your Own Spontaneous Verbal Humor

Other Humor Sites

  • Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor
  • Humor Quest (Use for information on humor and education.)
  • Humor Research (A site maintained by Dr. Willibald Ruch, University of Zurich; it is used by humor researchers. Use it to connect with basic research on humor and laughter. Includes link to the International Society for Humor Studies.)
  • The Cancer Club (A site specifically devoted to coping with cancer.)

© 1999 -
Warning: Use of undefined constant Y - assumed 'Y' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) in /home/laughter/public_html/wp-content/plugins/genesis-simple-hooks/includes/class-genesis-simple-hooks.php(223) : eval()'d code on line 1
2021 The Laughter Remedy.  All Rights Reserved.

Website by Ilene Hass Creative Solutions  ·  Log in