Why Laughter Is the Best Medicine | How Humour Reduces Stress, Anxiety & Burnout

In a world filled with stress, burnout, anxiety and constant demands, laughter is often overlooked as one of the simplest and most powerful tools for improving our wellbeing. But what does science say about humour, and why do we laugh so much less as adults?

In this uplifting episode of Ella Podcasts, I’m joined by Dr Jonathan Marshall, Dr Ronina Stevens, clinical psychologist specialising in trauma, anxiety and depression, and Sasha Frank, corporate professional and stand-up comedian.

Together, we explore why laughter helps us cope with life’s challenges, strengthens relationships, eases stress and can even improve our physical health.

Who Is This Video For?

This episode is for anyone experiencing stress, anxiety or burnout, as well as anyone looking to bring more joy, connection and resilience into their daily life.

In This Episode

* The science behind why we laugh
* How laughter reduces stress and anxiety
* Why adults laugh far less than children
* Can humour strengthen relationships and intimacy?
* The role of comedy in trauma recovery and emotional resilience
* Why funny people are often drawn to difficult experiences
* Simple ways to rediscover your sense of humour

Key Takeaways

* Laughter triggers positive physical and psychological changes in the body.
* Humour can strengthen relationships, improve communication and build trust.
* Even during difficult times, laughter can help regulate emotions and reduce stress.
* Spending time with funny people and seeking out comedy can improve overall wellbeing.
* Joy isn’t a luxury—it’s an important part of maintaining good mental health.

Conclusion

Life will always bring challenges, but laughter reminds us of our shared humanity. Whether it’s sharing stories with friends, watching your favourite comedian or simply finding humour in everyday moments, making space for laughter can be one of the healthiest habits we develop.

Keywords: laughter therapy, stress relief, anxiety, burnout, mental health, humour, psychology, emotional wellbeing, comedy, trauma recovery, happiness, resilience, Ella Podcasts

#EllaPodcasts #MentalHealth #Laughter #StressRelief #Anxiety #Burnout #Humour #Wellbeing #Psychology #Resilience

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Hello, I'm Ella, and this is Ella Podcasts. There's a saying, laughter is the best medicine. There's nothing like a good giggle, a belly laugh, and raucous banter. In that moment, your stress is forgotten. In this age of high anxiety, burnout, doom scrolling, and loneliness, finding a funny side of life is positively therapeutic. Here to talk about the science of laughter and get you laughing again are Dr. Jonathan Marshall, a Stanford and Harvard University graduate who is a leading clinical psychologist and former professor. And we also have with us today Dr. Renina Stevens, a clinical psychologist who specializes in working with trauma, anxiety, and depression. And we're welcoming today Sasha Frank, a corporate professional by day and a comedian by night. She regularly performs at comedy clubs and brings down the house. So, Jonathan, what happens to our mind and body when we laugh?

SPEAKER_04 1:04

All kinds of things. Our breath changes, our diaphragm contracts, endorphins gets released in the brain. If you're scanning someone who's who's happy, you can find different areas of their brain quickly light up. And so it's quite a dramatic change. Trouble is, adults do it one-twentieth of what children do. So we learn to stop laughing.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

That's such a shame. And then Sasha, as a comedian, which one of your jokes gets lots of laughter from your audience?

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Well, I think the thing is it depends where you are in the world, um, and even just where you are, you know, what the demographic of the audience is. So I think more broadly, it's anything that um is a specific reference to where you are, the people in the audience, people like to laugh at themselves, basically. So, you know, a local joke here in Singapore always goes well. Uh, if you're overseas, you know, you find out a little bit about the local culture and you you make a joke about that, that's always a winner.

SPEAKER_04 1:55

Do they get offended? I mean, you're not one of us and you're making a joke about us.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

It's really interesting you say that because uh people do tend to not like it if you get the reference slightly wrong. So if you're very much correct, it's great. But if you if you get it slightly off, you do get it. People come to Singapore and they make a more broadly uh Asia-related joke, and it's not very Singapore specific, for example, it falls a little flat.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

And I heard one of our jokes which really crept me up, and it was about a stalker.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Do you want to just share that funny story? So this is so I was I was a single lady at the time and uh was on the dating apps, and a lot of my comedy is about dating apps and being single, and a guy had messaged me and he it was it wasn't a particularly exciting conversation, I didn't reply. And then he found me on Instagram, I don't know how, um, and again messaged me and I didn't reply. So I was doing a show one day and I was hosting and it was the break, and he this guy had come to find me. He came down to the show to find me and he interrupted me while I was reading through some stuff for the break, and he said, Oh, you know, you didn't reply to me on the dating app, you didn't reply to me on Instagram, and so I've come down to see you in person, and I thought, oh my gosh, you know, this is like the exit. This is my my place of work. Like, what what does this guy think is gonna happen that I'm gonna like marry him? Yeah, well, I did. I married him. That's expecting that. That's just giving me how I met my husband. So the message is stalking can be. Oh well, I can pay. Encourage it, but uh on that occasion it worked. Oh, determination. Absolutely, yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:35

Dr.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Ranina, can laughter improve relationships, bonding, and intimacy? Yes, it can. I it definitely can because it's it's a sort of social bonding mechanism. We create a sort of a shared emotional experience, and then we feel closer. We feel closer to that person. So kind of think about it. Also, it reduces sort of social threat. So imagine if you're a social event and you don't know people that well, and it feels light, it suddenly feels safer and easier to mix somehow. You know, the your guard comes down, you you feel you relax a bit around people. It also sort of, as Jonathan's talked about, there's there's a whole physiological system going on, and we kind of co-regulate one another. So if my breathing is slower, I'm lighter, I'm kind of that can have a kind of an effect on the other person that I'm talking to, and the contagion piece, which is is kind of helpful, and I think we use it sometimes to repair awkward situations or a bit of tension, a bit of conflict, humour, not with everyone, but with some people, it breaks the ice on something a bit awkward, so that can improve intimacy too by kind of lightening it.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

Yeah, definitely. I'm a big believer in that, and we're gonna share now some comical incidents and stories that make us laugh every time we remember them because you know we're trying to get everyone, including you, the listener, having a laugh. So I'm going to relay a story from my school days because I I feel like school days there was a lot of humor, and maybe because I went to schools with lots of naughty kids who are highly entertaining, but there's a story that happened to me that every time I think of it absolutely cracks me up. So um, I was on a school coach, we'd been on some sort of day trip, and uh there was a naughty kid, I only remember his surname, so he's called Curry, and uh he was just outrageously naughty, and he came up to me and said, Ella, uh, get off the coach when I tell you to. And I was thinking, oh god, what's happening now? So, anyway, for some reason the coach stopped the door open and out I get, and then Curry's been having an argument with the coach driver who's a middle-aged man and Curry's like 14. I don't know what they had to argue about, but anyway, they've had this argy bargy, and uh and Curry he grabs the fire extinguisher, sprays the driver head to foot. I swear to God, he looked like a snowman by the time you finished with him. Oh wow, and then he sprayed the whole of all the kids in the bus with this fire extinguisher, and the doors of the coach closed, off it went, and there was white billowing clouds coming out the back of it. And I I've never forgotten it because it was like one of the funniest moments of my life watching all that. And I'm so glad he had the hot smakes. I wasn't trapped in a coach full of fire extinguisher, but it absolutely makes me wear myself whenever I think about it.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

I'll tell you what makes me laugh. I um many years ago I was in Disney World, one of my favourite places, and I um we were queuing up to take a photo. It was me and my sister and my daughter queuing up to take a photo, and for some reason I had an absolute brain malfunction, and instead of standing behind the people in front of me in the queue, I stood behind the people having their photo taken. I did a complete brain malfunction, and I stood there for a really long time before they kind of looked behind them as if to say, What on earth are you doing, stranger?

SPEAKER_02 7:12

But that's my it makes me laugh every time. I love going to Disneyland because I always say I feel very thin when I'm there. Pretty much everyone's a beast, like severely, but when it makes me feel my tickets fantastic. If you're feeling shabby and you're going there, it's like I'm so svelt.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

I love this place. The food is fantastic, so that you know.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

Yeah, and then there's so many people in wheelchairs who look at the the front of the line in wheelchairs, and you're thinking, Oh, poor love. And then they get up and they're fine. And they're using wheelchairs just as transport around Disneyland because it's so much walking. So every time you're like, Oh, it's a miracle, they can walk.

SPEAKER_04 7:55

Yeah, Jonathan, anything that makes you laugh. I was at a a party two nights ago. Uh it was a big gala boring thing, and um somebody got up to dance. It was the uh an orchestra fundraiser, and the cameras were on him, and everybody was getting up to dance. I just turned to the person next to me, and she eventually agreed. We were going up. And by the time we got there, I realized nobody but the original couple was there. So all of a sudden, television cameras on us, and I'm I'm not a skilled dancer at all.

SPEAKER_05 8:24

So I was like, oh, this was a terrible, terrible mistake. So in my anxiety, when I think about it, I can't help but laugh because I don't want to feel anxious.

SPEAKER_02 8:34

Well, I think that makes you laugh or like cringe.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

I'm like you, Eller, it's lots of school memories that make me laugh. And I can remember when I was about 14 that my friend Tracy and I wanted to buy cider. This is uh, you know, this is a passage, it says and we wanted to drink this Merry Down cider. And uh I was in a play at the time, and I got this special stuff that kind of wrinkles up your skin and it creates these sort of false wrinkles, and then I put on my grandmother's clothes and boots, and I got into a roll and I put talc on my face to whiten it. I mean, I was 14, I mean, how? And I went up to the corner shop and I took a stick and I really got into the whole vibe and a scarf and everything, and she's my friend's waving at me because she's a neighbour, and I go up and I'm slowly going up, and then I get into the off licence, and it's the same old man that sees us every day going by in the school uniform, you know. And I buy the bottle of cider and then I come out the shop and I start running and I'm waving. And now as an adult, I think, really? Did that just give me the cider, sent me the cider for the effort? He appreciated it. At the time I thought I'd really got one over on the adults in a kind of way, I'm so smart. And he probably tells that story as well. She deserves the cider. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Yeah, I definitely think school stories. Maybe, as you said, that's a time we used to laugh a lot as kids. But um, there's so many funny memories. And I remember I had a German teacher called Herr Schwabby, and he was a really odd character. His shirts were always like super old, he had rips under his armpits, and he had all his black hair coming out, and it was all sweaty and his shirts would be covered in sweat. And for two years, the only German we learnt were Beatles songs in German. No, I swear to God, two years. Is it Andy now? I mean, it's like, how can that prepare you if you're going to a restaurant in Germany and you're like, come give me a diner? That's all you've got for two years of learning German. And you look back at that and think, that was actually quite comical learning German Beatles songs.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Do you hear that when you listen to the Beatles now? Does it automatically translate?

SPEAKER_02 11:03

And everything's in German when it comes to Beatles songs. Yeah, I was even singing in German, it just came back, and my friends look at me like, Are you singing in German? I'm like, Yeah, I learned them in German. Yeah, that's a funny one. So, which comedians' films or TV series make you laugh hard and get you through stressful or hard times?

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Do you know? I was thinking about the answer to this, and I've got a terrible answer, Ella. I I like people's comments on social media more so than what's out, you know, TV film. I'm not a big TV watcher. I love to, because people are so sharp.

SPEAKER_03 11:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

And I that's what I find so funny is you know, people post things on social media and people who wouldn't have a platform to be funny otherwise. I mean, first of all, people on social media are hilarious if you look for the comedy, but also the people that comment are just people have got really brilliant minds if you look for it. Yeah. So that's what makes me laugh.

SPEAKER_02 12:00

Where where do you look for it typically?

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Oh, I'd love to give you an intellectual answer, but it's TikTok, really. But I I do think as a comedian that TikTok is an amazing platform for people to put themselves out there.

SPEAKER_03 12:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

You guys?

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Any anyone you follow that always makes you laugh? I follow this lady called Clara Batten. She's English, and she does a lot of just finding hilarious videos of other people. They send people send her stuff in, and it's often um shocking uh food videos from the US that is not food as we might know it. And they are taking it seriously and doing this cooking show, and she's going, doesn't that look lovely? So she does a like a commentary over it, and the other thing that she does that's quite funny is she finds autocorrect fails, people send those in and they are hilarious, you know, like people who've text their boss something really inappropriate with the auto auto. So I I kind of like her stuff, but I I also think that I but this might be a reminiscent stuff. I like slapsticky kind of old-fashioned English comedy, you know, 40 towersy kind of stuff. That old stuff is a good oldie bigies.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

I don't think it matters if it's old. I mean, I always like I liked Chris Farley and uh John Candy. I mean that's very slapstick, but they they make me laugh a lot. And I I like a lot of the American TV series like Arrested Development and 30 Rock. Barry's the most recent one that really made me laugh. But um yeah, for me, if you don't have some laughter in your life, it can be very bleak sometimes, and it is a great way of escapism. And I think even if you're going through a really rough time, if you can still maintain your sense of humour, that's everything sometimes.

SPEAKER_04 13:51

And I think of a couple I know where she's always complained from day one. The thing we don't have is laughter, like we don't have they don't have the sense of humor, and and now, eight years later, it's still the big sticking point.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Really?

SPEAKER_04 14:03

Yep, and the guy who works at her workplace does make her laugh. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

I mean, I had a boyfriend who used to say to me, I laughed you into bed. And it's quite true.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

I mean, humour's attractive, yeah. I mean, male comedians, not less so female comedians, but male comedians are very popular. Are they? Oh, yes, absolutely, with uh on the dating scene and yeah, very, very much. It's it's kind of widely known, widely known that a funny man is a very um a popular man.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

Yeah, I've always gone out with guys with great senses of humour because I just I can't take it otherwise. If you can't have a really good laugh, and it's you know, it's too boring.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Too boring, too intense. Yeah, so so interesting though that you say that. I mean, my my husband, my husband makes me laugh every day, and I do think it's what you know makes us so happy with a lot of laughter in the household. I think it's really important. Yeah, I totally agree.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

And why do anxious or depressed people often have a great sense of humour?

SPEAKER_01 15:09

I don't know if they do more than anybody else. But um, I think it's a coping strategy. It makes difficult emotion perhaps more manageable. You know, I think it creates a sort of psychological distance sometimes that's helpful. And I'm just thinking about it in my own life that um at one point in my career I was working in this medium security unit and it was quite tense. There was a lot of violence, a lot of sad stuff, people with sad lives who'd committed serious crimes. And but we would actually, as a team, giggle quite a lot about all sorts of things. We would turn some of that emotional intensity. It was a bit dark humour, but I think it was a bit of a coping, you know, to kind of get us through something that actually, if you sat and really looked at that distress, that was that was quite hard. I think going back to the emotional regulation thing, we shift mood, that can be quite helpful. There's that sort of self-deprecation kind of pattern, which can be quite nice because you see that people aren't are human, they've got imperfection, but I guess taken too far, that's that's a bit problematic. That's a bit more like taken too far, that's a bit like low self-esteem that can be kind of a bit negative. So I suppose it's it's balancing those coping mechanisms, really. That makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

And do you have to tone down your sense of humour at work in your corporate job?

SPEAKER_00 16:36

I probably do, yes. I mean, obviously, there's a huge difference between how I would behave on stage and how I would behave in a corporate job, but I do keep um that part of my personality with me, I think. You know, like I think my boss gave me some feedback once that I was funny, and I thought, well, that's that's I should hope so. Um, but yeah, it's really important, I think, to be lighthearted because corporate world can be so very dull otherwise and serious.

SPEAKER_02 17:05

And that's one thing I did enjoy working in London. There was just such terrific banter going on. So I used to work on the trading floors, and you know, just terrific banter, like outrageous, rude, risque. I mean, it was the days before woke, so anything goes, you could insult as many people as you liked. It was tough if you were insulted. And it, you know, it just made for great comedy and uh a great time. And uh, you know, I always find it hard now if I say I have team members and they don't really have a sense of humour. You know, the day seems longer if you can't have a good cackle during the day. And I've actually took it upon myself to kind of develop that side, and it sounds a bit arrogant, but you can actually, I think you can get it out of people if you make them relax or see the funny things or make a joke about someone and and they all appreciate it. So by the time I left my last company, they were they were great on the humour stage. Yeah, but it's it just added to the team. It was so much better, having a sense of humor. And uh Jonathan, why do we sleep better after emotional release through laughter?

SPEAKER_04 18:13

I think a whole body does better. I think every that there's actually a laughter yoga movement, and you can dial in at certain times of the day to this Zoom room where everybody is there simply to laugh. And after 30 minutes, the zoom room closes. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

Just half an hour.

SPEAKER_04 18:30

You just show up and laugh.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 18:31

And and and like, you know, somebody can try and tell a joke or something, but the whole point is simply to laugh. And so I spent two days at one of these laughter yoga workshops, and I was like, this kind of works. Like I found myself the rest of the week. Like laughter was closer to me, that I I had more fun. Um, I you know, the taxi driver and I would would have a better time. And I'm like, yeah, this this needs to happen. Like it's it's a muscle, you gotta exercise it. You sound like exercise it all the time. But uh for people who don't, and I think as adults we often don't, we miss out on all these positive effects.

SPEAKER_02 19:05

It's better to have a good joke, though, isn't it, Sasha, to laugh at?

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Well, yeah, I mean I think yeah, but I think it has to be natural, you know, it has to be um it has to be something that you genuinely find funny. I think I would find it hard to laugh. It sounds like the yoga so surprising.

SPEAKER_04 19:20

It's like somebody just starts it off.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

It's contagious.

SPEAKER_04 19:23

It's contagious and just belt it out. So actually, when I was teaching at the university during my breaks, I would say, you know, uh, me and the guy next door, we have this rivalry. He thinks he's the better professor, but obviously I am. So at the count of three, I'm gonna open the door without any joke. I'd say, I'm gonna open the door, I'm gonna ask everybody to laugh as loudly as possible to make his class jealous. And we would do this time and time again, and my class would love it because like start laughing too much.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

The idea was just ridiculous.

SPEAKER_04 19:50

If somebody laughs, it's like we're doing it to make I mean, it was a great way of just sort of adding a bit of ridiculousness into what is otherwise a very serious topic.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

Yeah, I mean, interestingly, that's really how comedy audiences laugh. Of course, you laugh at the comedian, but if everyone around you is not laughing, people don't laugh. And if everybody, you know, it it is that contagion is how you end up with a very quiet comedy room versus a very uh raucous comedy room, and it doesn't necessarily reflect on how funny the comedian is, but it's the participation of the audience. And sometimes you get hecklers who are equally f as funny, aren't they? Well, yes, we yes, and sometimes you get hecklers who think they're equally as funny. But maybe that's funny too. It is if you can handle them. Yeah, yeah, and I host a lot, so that comes with the territory of hosting hosting shows.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

Can laughter help trauma survivors regulate emotions, Dr. Ranina?

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Yes, I think it can, but it would you'd have to be quite gentle and quite, you know, safe with how you kind of applied it. And then maybe you'd have to kind of let the person lead with that a bit rather than than you. I mean, I think it's back to that nervous system thing. It can give relief from a, you know, if people are struggling with trauma, they may be in a hyper-vigilance sort of state. And so that's a moment to step out of that state, break it, you know, it can restore a sense of control, you know, back in your in your life and a bit of normality. But obviously, you can't be laughing at things at the wrong time. That would be really invalidating, and that would be a really horrible experience. So, and not to be sort of too dismissive of someone's distress, but I think the humour and the kind of pain can sit alongside each other. But it's just about being careful with that.

SPEAKER_04 21:32

I was thinking of uh a client who I've been working with uh with a very traumatic background, and whenever you do trauma work, you you kind of have to move close to the experience of the trauma at least a little bit. Yeah, and it can make the client feel very disempowered, they remember being a victim. It's tough. Like a machine after doing any trauma work. I can be sure she's going to make some cutting remark. I mean, recently it was like, Jonathan, you really do have a face made for radio. I mean, I can't. Come out with one after another. It's just like every time. Every time. So just say you need new glasses.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

I think I sometimes I'm not necessarily with trauma, clients with trauma, but sometimes I want to make an observation with somebody and I think that they are going to find it quite difficult. The interpretation that I'm going to make. They might land badly. And if I know they have humour, sometimes I will use humour a little bit to kind of point out the pattern or point out something. And then once we've got used to it and we can, you know, bring it back and forth between us, then we might be able to talk about the really hard thing seriously. And I think for teenagers particularly like that, that can be quite helpful.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

Yeah. Yeah. I have a teenage daughter and we really communicate in humour. That is that rings so true to me. I also think parenting struggles as well.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

I I find that that can be quite helpful to use humour some because sometimes the kids are doing you know just observationally really silly things. And it can be helpful to just call it out for what it is with parents because they can feel really overwhelmed. But actually, if you can see the funny side of it, it's not so stressful. Yeah. Not so lonely as well. Makes total sense.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

And then Sasha, when you have a room full of people at one of your gigs, and they're a bit of a quiet audience, you know, how do you pull them out of their shoals and get them laughing?

SPEAKER_00 23:27

It's such a tough one. Um for me, it's audience engagement. And uh, you know, I I run a show every week, and sometimes the first half can be a little bit quiet. We talk to the audience, we tell some jokes, and sometimes it's it's still because it's not contagious around the room, you know, we're struggling to lift it. And in the second half of the show, we bring someone on stage um every week. And for some reason, without fail, and I'm gonna do that show tonight, so I hope I'm not jinxing it. Uh, without fail, that real human interaction when there is a person on stage with me and we're talking to the audience, without fail, that works. You mean like a volunteer in general? It's a volunteer, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:04

So is that because we're all anxious because we empathize with a poor fellow who's out there?

SPEAKER_00 24:07

I think it is, and you know, and I do a lot of um, you know, taking the Mickey out of them and you know, we we talk more to the audience, and it just works. And again, I hope I'm not jinxing tonight's show, but it works every time to change the energy in the room.

SPEAKER_04 24:22

It's funny how anxiety and humour are so closely related.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

Yes, yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 24:27

I never sit in the front row of I'm going to a comedy night.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

I do not want to be that person that's my husband gets called out with the relief. He thinks he's the bald head. We were we were at a pantomime and my daughter was having a sulk with us, and we were there with the Cubs group, so she went and sat with the Cubs groups and left us on our own. And then when they asked for a volunteer dad, she got up and just started and he was going, no, no, no. And before you know it, he was up on that stage really and having to do a TikTok dance in. My older boy was crying till tears were coming down. But then he was also like dying, and something was like that anxiety, that embarrassment also for dad, you know.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

Absolutely. Maybe that is why. I've never thought about why, but quite possibly that is exactly why.

SPEAKER_04 25:15

And I think like trauma is an extreme form of anxiety. So I think it's be that client sort of moving towards sort of a hostile humor or seeing someone on stage and that uncomfortable feeling that can be released by a bit of nervous laughter.

SPEAKER_02 25:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:29

I think it's related.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

Ah, interesting. Yeah. So for our final round thoughts, what are the daily habits that can help people rediscover their sense of humour? Let's start with Sessha.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

Gosh, I mean it's easy for me to say because I'm wired like this, but I would just say exactly what you said: interact with people in a funny way, add some lightheartedness to it, test the waters, of course. You know, in your interactions, be a funny person. Aim to be someone that makes people smile and laugh. Great. Ranina?

SPEAKER_01 25:56

I think you could uh sort of be a bit playful, go back to things you used to do a bit, kind of maybe be intentional at looking at things that are funny, watching things that are funny, maybe don't always go for hanging out with the heavy friend. Yeah, like maybe sometimes just have a more spontaneous, silly night, yeah, and just be a bit intentional about it, I guess. Yeah, a bit of alcohol always helps.

SPEAKER_03 26:23

Of course.

SPEAKER_04 26:26

I think, yeah, listening to my favourite comedians, but also I think trying to laugh more helps build the muscle of laughter, and then it comes more easily. So I think you can be a bit forced about it and it can help. But I personally enjoy watching listening to Robin Williams and other favourite comedians.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

I always say make an Irish friend, because of all my friends, oh my god, they've got the best sense of humor. I mean, we do drink lots of bottles of wine to get there, but just the level of humour is off the charts and just such a lot of fun, all the all the anarchy and just larking about, getting thrown out of bars at the end of the night. Fantastic. Yes, an Irish friend never lets you down on the humor stakes. Well, thanks so much for joining today. It's been a lot of fun and hope you enjoyed the episode. Laughter is a form of medicine for the body, mind, and soul. For many people, going through challenging times, it helps keep us going. Having a good laugh makes us human and reminds us that we're still alive beneath the stress and strain of daily life. So ensure to have a good giggle with your friends and family or watch a comedy TV series and find joy where you can. If you want to suggest a topic for our next episode, please join our Facebook group at Ella Podcasts and message us. Please subscribe, rate, and share this podcast, sending you a big hug and lots and lots of laughter.