Article: Here’s How Humor Helps Grief.

"There’s a science behind why laughing can help us during painful times. “Laughing helps us complete our stress response, so it provides some relief from the tension we carry around our losses,” said Lauren Appio, a New York-based psychologist, executive coach and consultant.

“You know how therapists often say you can’t selectively restrict your emotions, so if you try to avoid the painful emotions, you also risk numbing out the pleasant ones? The reverse happens too –– we can experience a wider range of emotion when we’re open to it,” Appio continued. “And grief breaks us open. So we may be feeling intense sadness or anger at a funeral, and then we can’t stop laughing if we hear a funny story about the person who died. The feelings are flowing and ideally, they are all welcome.”

Angel Thomson, a Washington-based grief therapist, said humor could also bring shifts in perspective, especially with topics like grief that tend to have a lot of silence around them.

“It’s a common misconception that grief is just feeling sad all the time,” she said. “The emotional experience of grieving is wide and nuanced. In grieving, we need to be reminded that we can continue on, that we can carry our grief and continue to feel joy in life.”

Ultimately, everyone will have their own grieving process, so laughing about death may not feel right to you, but what these comedians and people on social media each show is that you’re not alone in feeling gut-wrenching grief and a need to laugh during and sometimes about it."

Read the full article on The Huffington Post

✨Takeaway: Humor can be a helpful tool in coping with grief and loss, and it's not uncommon to find moments of laughter even in the midst of mourning. Laughing can provide relief from the tension and stress associated with grief, completing the stress response.

✨Reflection: What do you think about using humor to cope with grief and loss?

#Grief #Loss #MentalHealth #Coping #Humor

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