科学家说，当你感到生活艰难时，幽默可能是一种缓解压力的应对机制，为你提供继续前行的喘息空间。

三位心理学家走进一家酒吧为幽默的力量干杯。好吧，其实是我分别打电话给他们畅聊这个话题。（我特别喜欢开玩笑。）但是，这些心理学家确实希望人们理解幽默在帮助你应对压力、愤怒、恐惧、焦虑及其他困难情绪时能够起到的作用。有时，这意味着顺境时有意识地拥抱幽默，增强未来抵抗逆境的力量。有时也可能意味着你想哭的时候会自然而然地放声大笑；或者是当你感到要天崩地裂的时候，讲一个荒诞的笑话。

临床心理学家、佩珀代因大学副教授史蒂文·苏丹诺夫说：“很多人具有这种自动驾驶般无意识、不假思索地运用幽默的能力。这是一种策略应对机制，但不是有意识的。”

心理学家、格林内尔学院荣誉退休教授珍妮特·吉布森说，在心理学家看来，一种应对机制就是人们用来应对压力的任何一种行为或想法。她指出，并非所有这些策略都是有益的，比如饮酒或暴饮暴食就是比较危险的应对机制。

但是，苏丹诺夫说，幽默确实是应对紧张性刺激的有效方法，紧张性刺激“激活我们的感受、思维和行为方式以及生理机能”。幽默确实可以起到完全相同的作用，只是方向不同。

压力可能会让人感到焦虑或愤怒，幽默则以片刻欢乐、轻松、意外或关联的方式代替焦虑或愤怒。苏丹诺夫说，很多情况下，“当你体验幽默时，你就不会感到痛苦的情绪”。压力也有可能导致人们思维受限，而幽默则会激发出能够带来视角转变的创造力。

当然，幽默还可以体现在行动上：放声大笑。大笑有助于呼吸顺畅、肌肉放松和增强耐痛力，这可能是内啡肽释放引起的。吉布森说：“压力仍在，你只是没感觉到而已。”

此外，幽默天然具有社会性。瓦萨尔学院心理学家米歇尔·图加德说：“我们渴望与他人建立联系，特别是我们感到高度紧张时。”

当然，幽默并非完全可靠：以不恰当的方式开不恰当的玩笑同样可能加剧紧张并切断联系。图加德说：“心胸狭窄或蔑视他人的幽默实际上会导致人们进一步分离，加剧分歧。”

幽默可在压力之下自然而然地出现，无需刻意为之，或者甚至不必理解它来自何方或原因何在。但是，苏丹诺夫说，幽默也是可以培养的。他还说，他本人会有意识地用幽默来放松情绪，与身边的人建立联系。他说他会假装快乐出门旅行，以便在生活平凡的时刻找点乐趣。他说：“快乐地运用幽默可以建立心理抗体。”

尽管偶尔假装快乐，可是拥抱幽默的力量并不意味着认可有害的积极性。图加德说，关键是不要永远不去感受困难的情绪。她说：“感觉到压力是有原因的，它是为了引起你关注你需要解决的问题。当你经历诸如悲伤、愤怒或沮丧的负面情绪时，重要的是，理解为何会这样。”

When life feels difficult, humor can be a coping mechanism that relieves stress and offers the breathing room to keep going, scientists say

By Meghan Bartels edited by Tanya Lewis

Three psychologists walk into a bar to compose a witty toast to the power of humor. Or rather I picked up the phone and called each of them about the subject. (I’m just terrible at telling jokes.) But these psychologists do genuinely want people to understand the role that humor can play in helping one deal with stress, anger, fear, anxiety and other difficult emotions. Sometimes, that means purposefully embracing humor when things are going well, shoring up defenses against hard times to come. And sometimes it can mean spontaneously laughing when you want to cry or cracking an absurdist joke when it feels like the sky is falling and Earth is on fire.

“There is this autopilot, unconscious way that many people engage humor without thinking about it,” says Steven Sultanoff, a clinical psychologist and an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University. “It is a strategic coping mechanism, but it’s not a conscious one.”

To psychologists, a coping mechanism is any kind of behavior or thought someone uses to deal with stress, says Janet Gibson, a psychologist and a professor emerita at Grinnell College. Not all of these strategies are beneficial, she notes: drinking or binge eating, for example, are more dangerous coping mechanisms.

But humor is indeed a powerful way of handling stressors, which “activate how we feel, how we think, how we act—and our physiology,” Sultanoff says. Humor does exactly the same things, just in a different direction.

Stress may make someone feel anxious or angry; humor replaces that feeling with a moment of joy, lightness, surprise or connection. In many situations, “when you’re experiencing humor, you cannot experience distressing emotions,” Sultanoff says. “These emotions dissolve.” Stress may also narrow someone’s thinking about a situation, whereas humor taps into creativity that can enable a perspective shift.

And of course, there’s the physical embodiment of humor: laughter. With it comes better breathing, muscle relaxation and a higher pain tolerance, potentially caused by the release of endorphins. “The stress is there; you just don’t feel it as much,” Gibson says.

Humor is, moreover, inherently social. “We crave connection, especially when we are feeling heightened levels of stress,” says Michele Tugade, a psychologist at Vassar College.

Of course, humor isn’t foolproof: making the wrong joke the wrong way is just as likely to increase stress and disconnection. “Mean-spirited or disparaging humor actually causes people to be further apart and increases division,” Tugade says.

Humor can arise during stress without a person making any effort to evoke it—or even necessarily understanding where it is coming from or why. But humor can also be cultivated, Sultanoff says, adding that he himself uses it as a conscious way of lightening the mood and building connections with people around him. He says that that he travels with a clown nose to facilitate finding fun in life’s mundane moments. “Joyful use of humor builds psychological antibodies,” he says.

Notwithstanding the occasional clown nose, embracing the power of humor doesn’t mean subscribing to toxic positivity. The point is not to never feel difficult emotions, Tugade says. “Stress is there for a reason, and it’s to call your attention to a problem that needs to be solved,” she says. “When you experience a negative emotion like sadness or anger or frustration, it’s important to recognize why that’s there.” Turning to humor too soon may prevent someone from processing emotions in a healthy way, increasing stress rather than decreasing it, she adds.

Instead consider expressing humor in moderation and as a moment of relief amid a seemingly constant onslaught of grim headlines and hard feelings. “You’re not denying that there is some trouble in the world and there’s great despair and grief,” Tugade says. “It’s giving yourself a break. And we all need a little break.”