How does humor heal?
Humor is one of the strangest medicines we have. It doesn’t cure the wound, but it loosens the muscles around it so we can breathe again. It doesn’t erase grief, but it gives grief a place to sit that isn’t quite so sharp. Humor is the tiny crack in the wall where light gets in — not enough to blind us, but enough to remind us that we’re still here. I’ve come to believe that humor heals because it interrupts suffering. Not by denying it, not by minimizing it, but by breaking its hypnotic hold. Pain can be consuming; it wants all our attention. A single laugh — even a small, surprised one — is a moment of reclaimed agency. It’s the psyche saying, I can still move. I can still respond. I can still choose something other than despair. Humor also reconnects us to each other. When we laugh with someone, we’re acknowledging shared humanity. We’re saying, You see it too. You feel it too. In moments of crisis, that shared recognition is a lifeline. It’s why families tell absurd stories at hos...