Catching up with Karyn

I'll be the first to admit it: while I have many great skills, present wrapping really isn't one of them. There's the paper, there's the present, there's the bow, there's the tape, there's the tag, there's me: that's at least one too many moving parts for this to end well.

The situation gets even worse when I rush. And it seems like at this time of year, I'm always rushing. One of the reasons I'm rushing is it seems like every night, there's a holiday party.

(I know: first-world problems!)

I love parties, and I love my friends, so when my friends have a party, I want to go. However, if I'm trying to keep stress levels manageable, sometimes I have to be realistic and say "As much as I'd love to, I just can't tonight."

Holiday parties tend to descend all at once. Don’t feel obligated. Go to those you want to attend and regret the rest. Can’t think of a good excuse? Don’t give one. If it’s a true friend, she won’t need one and if it’s not a good...

At this point in the Christmas Countdown, I'd like to stop and say "AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH! One week until Christmas! What are we going to do?"

There's a reason for that. And the reason is that no matter how good your stress management skills may be, there is going to be a time when you just go to work. We fight stress, and frankly, sometimes stress wins.

Have you ever had the experience of knowing you were just stressed out to the max? That you knew, with absolute certainty, that while you could easily handle everything that was going on in life right that minute, the addition of any additional bit of pressure to your life would push you right over the edge?

That is the moment your child will discover he is virulently allergic to fruitcake - having 'sampled' some he found in the box of last year's holiday decorations. You can imagine the mess. We're talking ho-ho-oh no vomit here - a sight that sends your Very Helpful Mother-in-Law into overdrive, with ginger ale...

The holiday police will not arrest you for not having all your decorations up. Remember less can be more. If you spend less time putting decorations up you’ll have more time to sit back and enjoy.

I know, I know. This goes counter to all of the conventional wisdom you've heard. We're supposed to Decorate All The Things. There are even TV shows now like The Great Christmas Light Fight, where families compete to see who can create the brightest decorations - and the biggest light bill!

But I'm here to suggest to you that maybe what we need this holiday season is not more fighting - even good natured fights! - but less. Let someone else have the victory. You can opt out, conserving your energy and focusing on those things that you find more meaningful.

Besides, think about it this way: the fewer decorations you put up, the fewer you have to take down after the holidays. Pick your very, very favorites and display them. You'll find you get all of the joy -and a lot less holiday...

Do you really need to send all those holiday cards? Be honest. Many folks on your list are too busy to read your card and won’t remember a week later if you sent one or not. Clean out your holiday database by at least 25%. Here's a tip to make it simple: if when looking at your list of names, you have no idea who the person is, chances are you don't need to send them a card.

Struggling with the fact you haven't sent a card to Aunt Rhoda? Here's a nifty fact: Aunt Rhoda will (we all hope!) still be here after the holidays. A card from you - with or without Santa but featuring a hand-written note about how you're thinking of her! - will still be welcome in January, February, or at any time of year. There's no time that people *dislike* being cherished and thought about!

I work in a neurologist’s office. We try to get really complete histories from every new patient but the patient I was working with, Mr. K, hadn’t checked anything on his intake paperwork. No history of heart disease, no high blood pressure, no cancer scares – not a thing. That’s so rare among our patients (Average Age 78!) that I had to ask him about it.

“Medical history?” He shrugged. “Can’t say there’s much. Of course, I’ve had amnesia as long as I can remember.”

This little grin pushed up the corners of Mr. K’s mouth, and his eyes suddenly started twinkling. I burst out laughing, and so did he. It turns out he did have a little bit of medical history, and he shared that with me after our laugh.

I was dropping off the file when one of the other nurses stopped me. “What was going on in there?”

I shared Mr. K’s joke. “I hate it when they try to be funny,” she said, rolling her...

There’s absolutely nothing funny about the BP oil spill. No one would argue that – yet people are still laughing. (For example, see BP Spills Coffee)  If there’s one lesson we can take away from this entire tragedy, it’s that humor can fill numerous roles, some of which aren’t immediately obvious.

Humor Provides a Framework for Processing Tragedy

“The oil spill is getting bad,” David Letterman said, “There is so much oil and tar now in the Gulf of Mexico, Cubans can now walk to Miami.” Confronted with an environmental disaster of unimaginable scope, we reach for ways to make sense of it all. Letterman’s joke captured the scale of the spill in an unexpected way – weaving in some social commentary guaranteed to get a laugh from his audience -  deftly informing and assuring his audience that the situation was indeed that bad.

In a similar vein, we see the quips about BP’s new bio-degradable oil...

Answer: Pink slip… Bonus….

Question: What’s the difference between anxiety and excitement?

Seriously, though, what is the difference between being anxious and excited?

When you think about it, the two are closely related, but they differ by a degree of perspective. What is your mindset? Are you envisioning the situation you’re thinking about coming out with a positive outcome or with a negative outcome?

We know from studies that a little stress, sometimes known as eustress, can be a good thing. A little stress causes us to be alert, to be ready, to have our “game on.” To have absolutely no stress results in you being the equivalent of a puddle of protoplasm on the floor—no energy, no movement, static—not dynamic. No matter how tempting it may sound, it’s not really good to have no stress in your life!

Too much stress, however, clouds our thinking, muddles our memory, and causes us to make dumb mistakes—not to mention,...

The economy is on its wildest ride in decades. The line waiting for a government bail-out is almost as long as the line waiting to check out in stores this holiday shopping season. And, you’re simply at wit's end in trying to deal with it all!

Fear not – there’s humor to be found amidst all of this chaos and confusion. So says Karyn Buxman, Publisher of The Journal of Nursing Jocularity, from San Diego and past president of AATH – the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor. The mission of this growing, international community of professionals, founded in 1987, is to study, practice and promote healthy humor and laughter.

“The great thing about humor is it’s FREE and available to everyone,” says Buxman. “It’s sugar-free, fat-free, salt-free, and tax-free!  It’s available 24-7 and you don’t need a prescription!  There’s no assembly required and you don’t need batteries!  It’s...

There’s no one coping mechanism that will work for every stressful occasion. People need a variety of skills to stay healthy. These could include deep breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation, and meditation just to name a few.  But the benefits of humor and laughter are so plentiful, so convenient, and so cost-effective that people would be foolish to leave these awesome coping tools out of their coping toolbox.

Here are a few quick stress busters. Try one the next time your energy level drops and your attitude is sagging:

Call your own answering machine or voice mail to leave a humorous message that you can enjoy later. Bonus—you get to laugh twice: Once when you leave the message and again when you play it back.  (For example: “Just calling to remind you to be careful when you go by the post office to pick up stamps and be sure to wear clean underwear because you never know when you might be in an accident!”)

Keep a file folder at your...

Following the events of September 11, 2001 and the terrorism that ensued, I continued traveling around the country, addressing groups about the healing power of humor and laughter.  I heard a variety of comments:
“I really want to laugh, but I just can’t bring myself to do it.”
“I can’t bear to watch another news report—it’s sucking the life right out of me.”
“I feel like laughing, but I’m afraid other people will think I’m being inappropriate.  Is it really okay to laugh yet?”

Abraham Lincoln may have said it best: “With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.”

Now more than ever, we, as individuals and as a country, need the healing power of humor and laughter to deal with the tragedies we experience.  Reports showed that the country is in poorer health overall than it was prior to September 11th.  Accompanying the levels of higher anxiety...