An Ongoing (February-June, 2012) Weekly Series of Live Radio Broadcasts devoted to Learning to Use Your Sense of Humor to Promote Greater Resilience, Health and Happiness
Every Friday, 11-11:15 a.m. (Eastern time in the USA)
February 3 – May 25, 2012
Weekly Humor Skill-Development Exercises Posted after each Show at www.LaughterRemedy.com.
WNZK (690 AM) & WCXI (1160 AM) in the Detroit, Michigan area & on the Internet at www.birach.com (or directly at http://wnzk.birach.com:9000
This series of broadcasts marks an innovative breakthrough in radio broadcasting. A weekly live radio show will be used as a vehicle for actively engaging listeners around the world in working on improving their sense of humor and learning to use humor to cope with the stress in their lives. This will occur in the first 15 minutes of the popular weekly show, The Bright Side of Aging, hosted by Ike Englebaum in Detroit, Michigan.
The featured guest for these programs is Dr. Paul McGhee, President of The Laughter Remedy in Wilmington, DE. Dr. McGhee is internationally known for his own research on humor and has published 15 books on the topic. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award for his research and active promotion of therapeutic humor from both Oakland University (Rochester, MI) and the American Association for Therapeutic Humor.
The Bright Side of Aging is broadcast live every Friday from 11-11:30 a.m. (Eastern/New York time in the USA) on WNZK (690 AM) and WCXI (1160 AM) in the Detroit area and on the Internet at www.birach.com for everyone else in the USA and abroad. This address puts you into the Birach Broadcasting Corp. website. On the right side of the Home Page, you will see 9 or 10 buttons. Click on either “Listen to WNZK, 690 AM” or “Listen to WCXI, 1160 AM”. You can also get directly to the broadcast by going to http://wnzk.birach.com:9000.
* * Note: If you miss the live broadcast, you can listen to any prior broadcast in the audio archives for the program at www.americanseniorgazette.org. Just click on “Paul McGhee on Humor” to get to them. Archives will be posted a week or so after the original show.
* * Note: While these humor programs occur in the context of a radio show on aging, all of the humor training ideas presented work for adults (and teens) of all ages.
The Health and Happiness through Humor series of shows began on Jan 13, 2012. The Jan. 13 – Feb. 3 shows discussed the physical health benefits resulting from humor and how humor helps cope with the stress in one’s life. (See articles at this website for a discussion of these benefits.)
The Feb. 10 – May 25 shows focus on Dr. McGhee’s 7 Humor Habits Program. Each show offers listeners guidelines for improving a specific component of their sense of humor. More detailed skill-developing exercises and activities are provided after each show at www.LaughterRemedy.com. Listeners spend the next 7 days practicing these exercises to cultivating the Humor Habit of the Week before moving on to working on the next Humor Habit. Tune in the week following the initial discussion of a specific Humor Habit for a discussion of progress in improving that part of your sense of humor. To allow adequate time for build the Humor Habits between radio shows, a total of two weeks is spent on each.
This is the first time anything like this has been done on live radio. Participants around the world, listening via the Internet, will spend a three- or four-month period building the basic foundation humor skills needed to boost emotional resilience and use humor to cope with the stress in their daily lives.
Research in university settings in 4 countries has documented the effectiveness of this 7 Humor Habits Program. The Program has also been shown to work with seniors (average age in their 70s).