How Humor Helps: Dr. Lou Franzini on Laughter’s Role in Healing and Coping with Cancer

What happens when you blend together laughter with life's toughest challenges?

In this episode of Cancer and Comedy, we talk with Dr. Lou Franzini, the author of How Humor Helps, to explore how humor can become a powerful coping tool even when facing cancer, stress and adversity.

From everyday antidotes to groundbreaking research, get ready to discover why sharing a laugh can be just what the doctor ordered.

I am Dr. Brad Miller, the creator of Cancer and Comedy, along with my co host, Deb Krear.

We always like to see if we can turn the grim of a diagnosis of cancer or other adversity into the grin of a fulfilled, happy life.

In my own case, I was diagnosed with cancer and my response was to laugh to keep from crying.

And that led me down the pathway to create the Cancer Comedy Podcast, which takes my 43 years of ministry experience, along with my doctoral degree in and transformational leadership, along with my love of laughter and comedy, to create this podcast, which is here to help you to cope with hope and humor.

So let's get started.

Cancer got you down Pretty grim, huh?

How about a show that turns the grim into a grin?

Way to go.

You made it here to the Cancer and Comedy Podcast, the show to lift you up with hope and humor that heals.

Hey there, lifter uppers.

I'm Deb Krear, the co host of Cancer and Comedy, where our mission is to heal cancer impacted people through hope and humor, something we like to call turning the grim into a grin.

Well, today on Cancer and Comedy, we're going to talk about how humor helps with author Lou Franzini on laughter's role in healing and coping with cancer.

Now here is the host of cancer and comedy, Dr. Brad Miller.

Hey, hey, hey, Deb.

Good to be with you.

And all our lifter uppers.

That's what we call people, people who follow the cancer comedy podcast.

People who want to be lifted up instead of being brought low or brought down, because we know that cancer is one of those things.

And other adversities can bring us down if we let them do that.

And so we're here about having people have a fulfilled life from the beginning to the end, even if you've had something bad happen to you, like a cancer diagnosis.

We like to call this going from the grim to a grin, the grim of a cancer diagnosis to the grin of a fulfilled and happy life.

And we really like to do that by the conversations that Deb Carrer and I have.

We are both are cancer survivors ourselves, and we like to have conversations with other people can contribute to the to the cause of humorous therapy.

Hope.

Humor is helping people to cope with hope and humor.

We also really like to engage with our community of people who want to connect up with us.

And we hope that you will at our website and follow us@cancerincomedy.com follow.

Well, Deb, how about a, how about a bad dad joke today?

Let's get to get things started.

What do you think?

Oh, of course.

I can't wait.

Well, I Did you know that I used to work at a soft drink can crushing company?

No, I had to quit.

It was soda pressing.

Cute, cute, cute.

Yeah, a couple weeks ago I was privileged to go to the go to the Kennedy Space center in Florida, just a part of my vacation.

And and they're getting ready to shoot off another rocket to the moon.

And turns out one of the reasons they're going there is to help set up the new help set up a new restaurant on the moon.

I hear the food's great, but there's no atmosphere.

Cute.

I love it.

I love it.

Well, following our conversation, you're going to want to stick around because.

Yep, we've got another one of Dr. Brad's bad jokes of the day.

But then of course we turn serious with the faith it or break it segment.

Well, we would love for you to be part of our cancer and comedy community where together we crush cancer with a message of how to cope with hope and humor.

Please follow cancer and comedy@cancerincomedy.com follow hey.

Deb, recently I was just privileged to have a good conversation with a actual legit academic person in the area of humor.

His name is Dr. Lou Franzini and he has a new book book out called How Humor helps.

He's actually written several books.

He's on the topic of humor and he wrote a book prior about humor with children, for instance, and how that all helps.

He is actually retired professor of psychology from San Diego State University and he's got some serious academic chops and he's really got many, many academic journal contributions about behavior modification and things of that n. But in this book here we were able to talk about his book and about his experiences here, about really thinking about how he feels like he was born really to talk about how humor can help us cope with everything from bad hair days to cancer diagnosis and how we can help us to do that.

So what do you think about that?

Just give me some impressions that you had about getting to know a little bit about Dr. Lou Franzini.

Well, first of all, who knew that there could be actual Academic humor experts.

You know, we know about the importance of humor.

We talked about it all the time.

But he has studied it and it was fascinating to hear him talk about some of the things that he discovered through his research and others.

He kind of talks about humor kind of as mental vitamins.

And I kind of like that analogy that he had about how you can use it in such a way that you or if you're intentional about it, like it's kind of the thing like with life hands you lemons, do something about it and do make lemonade, you know, kind of that type of thing.

And that he mentions a sense of humor more effective than kale and things like that that is effective in your own mental health, your own physical health, but also on such things in how you relate to people in the workplace, in your marital life, in your life with others.

He talks about even going to check out clerk at a CVS drugstore and having a humorous exchange there.

You can hear about that in our interview.

But I just think there's some practical tips that he gives that are helpful.

What did you think about that?

Oh, you know, there's definitely some practical tips.

And you know, one of the things he talks about is finding your humor.

And so I can't wait for folks to hear more about that.

Yeah, so that's what we're going to be talking about here, finding your humor.

And then just some practical tips about how humor helps.

You can find his book at Amazon and other places.

We'll put the links to that in our show notes.

But I hope that people enjoy our conversation we're able to have with Dr. Lou Franzini about how humor helps.

Hello, good people.

Welcome again to the Cancer and Comedy Podcast.

I'm Dr. Brad Miller and along with my co host, Deb Krier, we'd like to talk to people who have something to share.

Share.

In the area of helping people use humor as a coping mechanism or way to get through life, we often like to call it a coping organism and how that's a part of the living, breathing part of your life.

And today we have an author with us, Lou Franzini.

He is the author of How Humor Helps.

He's a former professor and now retired status and been writing and involved with the field of therapeutic humor.

Lou, welcome to our conversation here today, my friend.

Hi.

Thank you, Dr. Brad.

Yeah, well, Brad's fine.

And then I'll call you Lou and we'll just go from here.

Lou, what's something that put a smile on your face here recently, my friend?

What's something that made you have some humor in your life?

Well, I try to do it every day and not by until something comes up for that.

And I actually had an incident earlier today.

I had bought some things at a CVS and got home and found out that I failed to give them my coupons.

So.

Okay.

I went back and saw the clerk who had checked me out, and her name was Autumn, as it turned out.

And I said, I told her what happened.

I forgot to give you the coupons I had.

And so I did, and she was going to give me credit for it and so on.

It was all taken care of.

And I said, what happened?

It was really your fault, I said, because you distracted me.

You were so pretty.

I actually need a call for Autumn.

Wow.

She said that's the first time she heard that connection.

What's that?

Transaction smooth.

Well, there you go.

I made a long time getting my.

Coupon sound like you had a smile on your face and put a smile on her face too, apparently.

That's good.

Transaction went well.

Yeah.

Well, give us a little bit about your background, Louis.

You were a professor at a university and you kind of studied this area of you're in the psychology field, but you got involved with the study of humor.

So give us a little bit about your background and what you've been involved with.

Well, I got my degree in University of Pittsburgh, my PhD as well as undergraduate bachelor's in psychology and pre med.

And when I also did a postdoc at Stony Brook University in behavior modification, which was more into my interest as a clinician.

So I took an academic job at San Diego State University.

And I'd heard great things about California and wanted to go there.

Once I read it in a Look magazine, they did a whole article on it.

I mean, a whole issue on it.

And I wanted to go to California even though I'd never been further west than Chicago.

And anyway, during my career as an academician, of course, you need to publish and do that sort of work as well as teaching classes and so on.

And I've always been interested in humor, entire life.

Okay.

And after a while, I began to do studies on the topic.

And for example, I have an article in Sex Roles, the journal.

And.

And I've been studying humor there.

And it's kind of.

It's an.

Obviously an interesting topic for me.

And while in San Diego, I was a member in a Toastmasters International club, was the only one at the time that specialized in humor.

Okay.

So.

And I won some humorous speech contests.

Also have done some Stand up comedy at various psychological conventions and so on.

Yeah.

So I was able to combine interest in publishing and being an academician as the scientist and all that and published a number of articles on humor.

Anybody interested and that could look me up name and so on.

Yeah, one interesting one was I did a study with.

On the.

You, you would understand university faculty offices.

Well, some people post things on their door or adjacent to their door.

Right.

I studied the kinds of postings that were humorous on doors of professors at this.

At the university.

Okay.

Yeah.

Published in Humor Humor Journal.

It's actually a very technical journal.

Okay, well very good then.

Well, tell me a bit about how you've kind of combined these worlds of research and real life for a moment.

Yeah, yeah, I think we did there.

So.

I think we'll jump back into it here.

I don't know what's going for some reason I think Internet on your end or my end might be a little weak or something.

I'm not sure why.

I don't usually have this issue.

We had it with you the other day for some reason.

But we'll charge on here.

But let me ask you this, Lou.

I'm going to do.

I'll do a clap here for my own sound Mark.

But you've kind of been involved with this world of research, which is interesting to me because I know you're involved with the association of Applied and Therapeutic Humor.

This is kind of a research organization.

I'm involved with that organization as well.

You've spent time as a professor and you've dealt with this study of humor in the academic life.

And then you talked about your real life a little bit with the CVS and so on and you even done a little stand up comedy here.

How do you think these kind of these various areas come together as you like.

In your book you say humor helps.

How do you think these worlds come together for you to be helpful to people and understanding the influx of humor to help people get by day to day?

Well, the book is up for just anybody.

It's not technical, but when you do research on humor, obviously it's got to meet certain standards to get publications.

And.

So in that sense helpful to the whole field of psychology and personality theory and that sort of thing.

And also in stress reduction, relaxation and some of the things that the clinical psychologists are especially interested in, appropriately so.

And so that part has usefulness to students and graduate students and.

And colleagues in the field.

And other than performing and talking, even giving speeches and so on, you want to use humor appropriately for the Setting, your setting doesn't want any foul language.

When I, I'm interviewed by you, for example.

Right.

That will be easy for me because I, I don't use foul language even in real life.

That's good.

All right.

With certain exceptions on the tennis court, but that's, I understand that practically uncontrollable.

Right, right.

And you have to be alert to the listener, what would be appropriate for them.

And you don't want to come on in a sexy way with some stranger and so on and so on.

So appropriate humor is what we're urging, of course.

Sure.

Rather than laden.

But it has so many positive effects and you can meet strangers easily and fear appropriate.

Well, part of what we deal with here at Cancer comedy is how cancer can help people deal with adversity.

You know, cancer and things like that being one of them.

But also you've got stresses of life, you've got, you know, relationship issues, divorce, things like that.

You've got financial pressures, you've got workplace pressures, you've got grief, death in families and so on.

And I think what your book here and what you're trying to do is try to be helpful to people in these kind of things and you image, among other things, that it actually has some physiological aspects, lowering blood pressure and so on.

But give me some of your thoughts about how humor can help people with some of these physiological things and some of the interpersonal things that people deal with.

What's your take on that?

Well, they all can be improved by the use of the appropriate use of humor.

That's always an important adjective and all that.

The evidence is getting stronger in terms of the physiological studies where the use of humor and then laughter leads to certain physical benefits straight away.

Blood pressure going down, relaxation going down, hormones, the stress hormones in the blood are less likely to be released in the face of humor and laughter.

And it's also a coping mechanism.

And successful use of humor leads people to have more self confidence and enjoy other people and other people enjoy them.

One of the most interesting things I think about that in terms of the effect of the good humor with people is that it's one of the things that they most look for when they're looking for a new friend or a mate or a romantic interest.

Yeah.

Dating sites and so on.

Right, right, right.

Yes, indeed.

And it's, it's one of the highest kind of characteristics that people are looking for in a maid or a new friend.

Yeah.

And that's also one of the highest they list for themselves.

People, people often.

People often Report, somebody made me laugh.

Therefore, I kind of broke down some barriers or kind of initiated a deeper level of conversation.

And, and I think that's when people.

Excuse me.

Once the relationship is established, and maybe they get married for a long time.

And that's one of the first things people say, well, how did you manage to live 50, 60 years together, married and, well, and they had shared a sense of humor is the first things that they say.

And my, My wife often says to people when we first meet them, how'd you get together with me?

And she says, I'm a sucker for a goofball.

And so I'm her goofball.

And so.

And she makes me laugh by other ways as well.

But it has to do with your mood and things like that.

And, and.

But, you know, we live in a world, Lou, where people can be overwhelmed by all kinds of things.

You know, we can be overwhelmed by.

Sometimes it's by something of the initial stressor, or sometimes it could be the caregiving stressor.

If you're trying to care for someone else and things like what I'm trying to get at, you say something in one of our conversations.

Everybody has a sense of humor, even if they think they don't.

So how do you think people can kind of dig down and find their sense of humor when they've been kind of in, you know, kind of stress and pressure has kind of got the best of them?

Any way people can kind of dig deep for that.

Well, they can familiarize themselves.

And that's like funny movies, funny books, comedy shows on tv.

And then we have great variability whether somebody likes somebody's comedy.

But usually be something in a.

In a whole performance that you're really going to react to and to just maybe think of that.

That funny comment one of the pro comedians made.

Right, right.

That can help you distract yourself a little bit.

And I, I saw you may have seen this yourself.

We talked about the Comedy Cures Foundation.

Oh, yeah.

Suggestions from them was that even if you have cancer, you want to try to diminish that influence on your life.

And then the humorous response is, I can't do that.

I have cancer.

Right, right, right.

So some things are easier to overcome than another.

If a kid says a funny thing, humor can help you overcome it and enjoy joint laughter with your child.

It's not the same as having cancer, but there's lots of positive things still safe.

And if you have questions, you're alive and well and not well, but you're alive and still coping.

Yeah.

Hey, my friend, I Just wanted to share with you that here on Cancer, on Comedy, we have a special gift for you that's going to help you if you're impacted by cancer in your life and you want to do something about it.

It's our free course.

We call it the HHH or Triple H course, which stands for Healing through Hope and Humor.

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It's a free course, just takes you, it's five short sessions.

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Well, I think part of this is making connections.

And humor can be one of those ways that we can make some connections that may not have been naturally there.

You know, it could be a generational thing, it can be a lifestyle thing, it could be your career type of thing.

And you can kind of cross boundaries or make connections that people can deal with this.

And you've been doing research on this area about the power of humor for some times, especially how humor can be helpful over harmful.

So say a word about that.

So what do you think are some of the boundaries of humor?

What are the ways that humor can be harmful?

And then how can we really lean into being helpful?

Well, some of the easiest answers to that is what's inappropriate socially.

You don't want to use humor that's racist or sexist or ageist unless the joke is about the humor that gets a little complicated.

But obviously you don't want somebody you don't even know very well.

And you say some joke that would fall into those categories, no sense doing that.

That's not going to facilitate your relationship with anybody.

And you don't know, particularly a new person, their values and customs and what's important to them and so on.

So avoid, you want to avoid all of that, possibly off color or off appropriateness.

Right.

And some people say that.

Well, you can say, here's one that's kind of controversial, the use of the N word.

Right.

And the N word is not in my view, appropriate for anybody to say, including African Americans.

All it does is, and I'm thinking African American comedians particularly, all it does is desensitize people to the use of that term.

And it's a, it's a, a terrible term.

Nobody should use.

It doesn't matter who you are or whether you're even mixed race for that matter.

And that's complicated picture.

It's just a word they shouldn't use.

It's not Necessary.

And even still some of the.

A lot of people have cut it out, professional comedians, some are still doing it.

Right.

Dave Chappelle, who's really a talented guy, for example, but he uses it every other word almost.

Yeah.

And I. I don't think that's a good idea.

Yeah, it's not my style either.

And so I want to make sure we lean into how humor helps her in a second.

But I am just aware that Al.

I think it's kind of a contextual thing too.

Lucy, what you think about this in the sense of if we use humor to be depreciating someone else, that's one thing.

If we use it for kind of self deprecating, that's another thing.

I'm a retired guy and I can talk about aging and health matters that affect me, but maybe not be the appropriate thing to say that about someone else.

You know, that kind of thing.

You make a joke at someone else's experience.

If I do it my experience, that's a different thing.

I'm not sure how you feel about that, but I wanted to mention that I think that makes a difference then.

So you mentioned how humor kind of is hurtful.

Let's talk about how it can be helpful.

It's kind of the theme of your book there.

How can it be helpful?

Yeah, it could be helpful in lots of ways.

And one way we haven't talked about that's appropriate to your question is humor in the workplace.

Okay.

Some workplaces have historically been straightened, straight and narrows.

I don't know if that's the right word, but no humor is appreciated there.

Right.

And it found out where you work in say an office that does appreciate humor.

Not that anybody's telling jokes all day long or something, but when an office is a place, friendly place to go, absenteeism is less in that office.

It also helps in the interview when you're applying for a job.

It helps in sales.

People are able to use humor as part of their sales.

Talk to somebody increases their sales.

Many, many advantages.

People like to be people like, like people who are funny and humorous and without losing sight of the reason you're working together.

So if I'm hearing you correctly, humor in the business context can actually impact the bottom line.

It can be a helpful thing to your business or to your engagement.

Networking is another thing I think can be a part of that.

Yeah, yeah.

And people like to come to an office where they're going to be able to make a joke about somebody or with somebody and then get on with the work.

I mean, it's not like somebody's chatting all day.

Right.

It just makes a better atmosphere.

And there are studies that support that.

You know, the profits go up and people make more sales than they do the sourpusses and so on.

So that, that itself is kind of an innovative idea to some people.

Not.

Not to me or not to some of the researchers.

There are some important books out on the area on the successful use of humor in the business world.

And that's something we wouldn't even think of probably in first.

And of course there's the obvious physical benefits of the blood pressure and some of the physical advantages to the use of humor and laughter.

Humor and laughter.

One of the people that I think I quoted in the book was a guy by the name of Brad Montgomery and he says humor and laughter will not only change your day, they will change your entire life.

There you go.

There you go.

I made that decision because I appreciated what he said in one of his articles.

Sure.

Well, let's get, let's get very practical for a minute here, Lou.

Let's just.

Given your experience, your teaching, your research and your observing people, what do you think are some really practical actions that somebody can take?

Maybe one or two simple everyday things.

People can use humor to help make their day better or maybe a coping strategy, if you will, for dealing with the bad things that happen to them, especially if people aren't naturally, you know, the joking type or whatever it would be.

What are some, some strategies people might use?

1 or 2.

Well, you want to expose them to humor and the TV now gives you many, many opportunities to watch.

Now even I and other people don't like everything that's supposedly presented by professional comedians.

Stand ups that go on and just expose yourself to humor.

And if you find a particular person, male or female, that you don't really care for, they're getting into things you don't want to advance to, then switch it off on another channel, there'll be somebody who's doing it.

And so exposing yourself to humor will get you laughing and if it's not tasteful for you, do move on to somebody else.

I saw Tom Papa recently in, in, in person and he says we, a lot of people take all these medications to be happy.

He said, well, it's not natural to always be happy.

Right, right, right.

Yeah, so much the better.

And he'd rather say, okay, this isn't so funny and so on.

But expose yourself to humor things on tv, it's easy, it's cheap, you don't have to Spend money going to a show.

But the more you do that.

And there, there are books on humor, on all sorts of things.

How to.

How to make people laugh.

And not only my books, there's some other books apparently out there, no?

Apparently so.

Yeah.

Well, there's lots once you're finished with mine.

There you go.

Well, the.

Just I think what you're saying is be intentional about it.

You know, you got you.

We can spiral into a dark place, right?

People can easily spiral psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, every way people can spiral into a dark place.

And you kind of have to be intentional about getting yourself out of that.

And one aspect of that is humor.

And to be the intentional part of maybe even physically.

I know some of the people I've talked to here on this podcast talk about physically forcing yourself to laugh is a good thing.

Just kind of an exercise, as it were, is to do that.

So, yeah, that would help.

That would do some of the advantages to it.

But it shouldn't be hard to find something that you laugh at without having to be forced, right?

That's right.

That's what's fun.

Yeah.

You'll get the benefits in spades, so to speak.

Well, one of the things that makes me laugh a lot is my.

Is when I'm around kids, especially my own grandchildren, they make me laugh a lot.

They are natural giggle boxes.

My two granddaughters are.

And I know you've done some writing and some research about humor with kids and humor with adults.

I'm just really kind of interested in that.

What have you learned about that?

About kind of the.

How humor is helpful to kids versus adults and so on, that type of thing.

Can you just speak to that for just a minute?

Yeah.

It so happens that I have another book called Kids who Laugh, and that's for parents to help develop their child's sense of humor.

And historically, a lot of parents did not appreciate funny things from child.

Children are speaking up and so on.

And if you can encourage your child to tell you a joke, you may have heard the joke a hundred times, but go ahead and laugh and praise them for that.

Oh, that's funny.

And so on.

And that other book, Kids who Laugh, gives lots of tips to parents and the value it will be to their child to have an active and successful sense of humor.

So.

So parents shouldn't turn the child, oh, I'm busy, dad, tell me later or something.

Listen to it.

And it may not be funny to you, but it's funny to the child and you want to encourage them to do it.

And the kinds of things children find funny varies as they get older and older.

And so that book I recommend for anybody that has children or nieces and nephews that are under 12.

So from 0 to 12, 12, that's the book.

When you get to be 12, they get into a little more similar to some adult humor.

Right, right, right.

But encourage a child to tell you the knock, knock joke.

That.

Sure.

You know, usually quite innocuous.

So.

Sure.

Yeah.

Well, I think that's helpful and I know it's helpful to me, you know, to have those just silly, you know, toddler type humor and that kind of stuff.

Just being silly and that, that's kind of a thing.

A thing too.

And so get around to one thing here.

Just.

Do you think there's any certain things that we, you know, we deal here with cancer and other illnesses and that kind of thing and how people can do that?

And some people say that if you use humor during illness, you're not taking your matters seriously enough and how it's kind of a concern type of thing.

So how do you respond to that when people, whatever it is, whether it's cancer or something else, when people say you need to take what is happening to you seriously and joking about it's not taking it seriously, how do you respond to that type of criticism?

Well, you want to be sure to cover that if you're, you know, if your doctor says, you know, take this or that medication or whatever, so you want to respond to that.

And if you make light of it in some way, don't lose sight of the serious element of the interaction.

Sure.

And with children, with children, they, you want to, to keep them appreciating humor and using humor as best they can, but not to lose sight of the fact that they still have to do their homework for whatever the issue is.

There's a time, there's a time to laugh and a time to get to work.

And so.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah.

And you can combine them a little that, I don't know, in your example, the child, he has to do chores or do his homework or so on, and you could see, say, all right, you can do that.

Then I won't have to contact the child labor laws, whatever you might say, in that way, they're going to do the task and you could make it light and, and sure.

And everybody's happy.

Their blood flows.

Let me bring it around to one more.

I'm sorry, go ahead and finish your thoughts here.

I just, you know, you get an old professor talking, you're gonna need a Stop button or a shotgun.

Well, you're a professor, I'm a preacher.

So we both are used to talking.

Right?

So there you go.

Yeah, yeah, same problem.

Yeah.

Well, the, what I was going to ask you about, just kind of bring our conversation around to this is this kind of, if you were to say, let's just say, you know, you are a doctor as a PhD and I have an academic degree as well.

But let's just kind of put ourselves in the role because we both have studied humor and we both have used it in some sense to be trying to be helpful to people.

But if you're going to sort of write a prescription to someone about how to apply humor to your life, let's talk about that.

What would be the dosage or the timing or the warnings about applying humor to your life?

What would a prescription look like to someone, especially someone who's kind of, you know, in the dumps?

Well, okay, when you, when you're down or in the dumps, one good way to do it is to seek out some humor.

Okay, where do you get that?

Well, TV is a good source.

There's all sorts of things from romantic comedies and stand up comedy on some of those presentations.

Seek out some humor and maybe do it with a friend as well.

And people are less likely to complain when they're with somebody else, even a spouse or friend.

So seek out some humor and then even try some yourself.

That's appropriate for the setting that you're in.

Yeah, well, you mentioned you've tried to, you've done some stand up humor of your own and that was, I'm sure that was a challenge for you.

Oh, no, sure.

And you don't have to be in a formal auditorium to do it.

You can do it around, do it.

Around the dinner table or whatever it would be.

Right.

Yeah.

The living room and so on.

And when you use humor successfully and you get somebody else responding positively and with a smile and so on, then that builds your own self confidence and reduces any stress you may have in a situation.

It's good for you as well as the listener.

Listener assuming it's appropriate.

And that's always the issue.

Be careful not to offend.

And a white person saying, you know, a racist joke to a black person ain't gonna come out.

Well, no, that's an obvious thing.

But it can have benefits to yourself.

You, you feel good and confident and any problems you have with your own self esteem go down the drain too.

Yeah.

Well, appreciate what you're sharing then about kind of a prescription for people to be intentional about it, about humor in your life.

And that can help because the whole theme of what your book is all about is how humor helps.

And you talk about it in terms of your emotional life and your relationships and other things of that nature.

So the book is how humor helps tell our audience how people can get a hold of the book and find out more about you.

Well, it's available on Amazon and as I say, probably in other fine bookstores.

It's just, just out, just became available.

The warehouse is full.

So we want to empty that warehouse and make so there's room for other people's books.

Right.

So I hope you enjoyed everybody that I've talked to and we're talking to the author, so they're going to be praiseworthy.

There you go.

Bias there.

But I, I'm proud of the book and I, when I reread it, I was impressed to you tell so and I was totally objective about that.

Of course.

Of course.

Of course.

Well, that, that's awesome.

That's awesome.

Well, his name is Louis Franzini.

Lou Franzini.

And the book is How Humor Helps.

And I am big believer in this as well.

And we'll put connections to how to get a hold of the book at our website, cancerincomedy.com Lou, thank you for being our guest today on Cancer and Comedy.

Wow, what a fascinating and fun discussion.

You know, he really does just seem like somebody that it would be fun to know because his life focuses on humor.

But, you know, some of the key takeaways were the things like, you know, they think maybe now humor increases our longevity.

Right.

We all want to live longer.

And part of that is because.

Because we want to be around people who have a positive outlook on life.

Right.

You know, and, and, and that's where humor comes in.

And I thought that was a very key point.

Yeah.

He also talks a bit.

Charisma.

Humor is an everyday tool for coping.

You can use it every day just into finding humorous moments in your life.

But to be.

Use it a.

Use the tool appropriately, you know, use it in the ways that it's essential tool.

But you need understand that there are some aspects of it that you can use to coexist and kind of go hand in hand with the serious parts of life.

Humor and seriousness can coexist.

And I was thinking in terms of this, but there's some people, you know, who can't ever have a serious moment.

You know, they crack a joke all the time and they can't take anything seriously.

And that didn't work either.

That doesn't work either.

And so the humor helps with coping, but it's kind of used in terms of a balance of your psychological makeup.

What did you make about that?

Yeah, I mean, you know, I think one of the things is, like you said, we've all been around people who are always making the joke.

And I think what that shows is that there's something else going on.

They're hiding something.

Pain, grief, fear, whatever it is, by always being funny.

You know, I've known people who, you know, they're the life of the party, and then you discover they're also very depressed.

And so I think that's the thing that we all kind of need to keep in mind is, you know, do you need to reach out to them and say, hey, is there something going on?

Yeah, just recently I was at an event where I participated in a stand up comedy show.

And one of the comedians I was talking to very the hit of the evening.

Anyhow, he's saying how his mother had cancer and he had to move home from wherever he lived before to Chicago to take care of his mother.

And so he had to deal with that real life stuff.

And he was talking about some of the humor that came with out of that experience.

But the idea here, and I just think what.

What Dr. Franzini, Lou Franzini, gives us is you have to apply it.

You have to apply it just like medication you take every day or something like this.

You have to apply it in the right.

In the right dosage, as it were, or it's going to be harmful to you and to others.

And I think his central message was humor, when applied thoughtfully and appropriately, is a vital resource in your personal health.

We talked about the psychological and the physiological things, your relationships, your parenting, your spiritual life, and even your professional success.

And I thought that the application of humor appropriately was the key thing I picked up with Dr. Lou Franzini.

Right, right.

You know, and he did point out, go and find it.

You know, we can.

There's YouTube, there's Comedy Channel, there's all sorts of things.

So go and find that humor, you know, and laugh.

Things are pretty serious in the world right now, so we might need to be watching a little bit more of those things that make us laugh.

Absolutely, absolutely.

His book is How Humor Helps.

His name is Dr. Lou Franzini, and we'll put in our notes ways that you can get connected to him in his book.

Well, speaking of laughing, we do have another one of Dr. Brad's bad jokes of the day.

So there's A story about the federal agent, the DEA agent who is inspecting farms in the community.

And he goes up to this one farm and he tells the old farmer, I'm here to inspect your fields for marijuana.

Okay, says the old farmer, but don't go in that field over there.

And he points to a location to the east.

The agent explodes, waving his badge and shouting, listen friend, this badge means I could go anywhere I want.

I choose going any land.

And no question asked you guys it.

The farmer kind of nods politely and apologizes and returns to his chores.

And a short time later he hear he.

The agent heads out towards the field to the east.

Short time later he hears loud screams and sees the agent running for his life being chased by a huge bull.

The farmer throws down his tools and runs over to the fence and yells at the top of his lungs, your badge.

Your badge.

Show them your badge.

Well, lifter uppers.

It's now time for us to turn serious with Dr. Brad's faith it or.

Break it segment in our Faith it or Break it segment.

Let's just focus for a minute on the connection between faith, healing and hope, based on our conversation we had today with Dr. Lou Franzini.

A scripture tells us in Proverbs 17:22 that a cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit, spirit dries up the bones.

We're on a journey in life together and especially when faced with adversity, illness or uncertainty, it's really easy to feel the weight of the world kind of pressing down on us.

But I really believe that God and God's wisdom creates us not only to endure but also to experience joy, even in the darkest moments.

And today in our conversation with Dr. Franzini, he reminded us how humor can be a sacred gift, a way to reconnect, to find relief from stress and to even bring about physical healing as a part of that process.

And science shows us, and his research shows us that laughter can lower blood pressure, reduce stress, bring people closer together.

As people of faith, we know laughter goes even deeper.

It's a tool for connection, restoration and renewal.

Sharing a light hearted moment or a general joke can break down walls, heal relationships and bridge gaps between generations.

Maybe you're facing today some big challenge in life.

Maybe you're having someone you love, maybe struggling with illness or disappointment or loss or even cancer.

And I just want to encourage you just to give yourself permission to laugh, even when things are dark.

Seek out a funny story, watch a comedy show on tv, maybe let your grandchildren or some of their loved one tell you a silly joke.

Or just embrace a joyful moment or a story to help you to deal with the sorrow.

Laughter is not about ignoring our troubles.

It's about trusting that God is with us in every season, through our tears and through our delight.

So even if we're in the dumps or as Dr. Franzini said, choose to engage with uplifting, Humor can be a spiritual practice, reminding us that light shines in the dark and the darkness cannot overcome it.

So today I just ask that the Lord grant you a cheerful heart and use humor as a tool in your life to reach out, to cope, to heal.

Remember from Ecclesiastes 3:4 There is a time to weep and a time to laugh.

Let us not neglect the time to laugh, not just for ourselves, but for those around us who need to see hope and joy.

That face, that's our Faith it or Break It Segment.

Well Lifter Uppers this brings us to the close of this episode of the Cancer and Comedy podcast with Dr. Brad Miller.

Cancer and Comedy is all about telling uplifting stories of people like you who are kicking cancer's butt with healing through hope and humor.

You can join those of us who are turning the grim into a grin by telling us your uplifting story.

Just go to cancerincomedy.com well, that's it for now.

Please join us next time on Cancer and Comedy.

And if you like what you hear, please pass this podcast on to someone in your life who needs to turn their grim into a grin.

For Dr. Brad Miller, I'm Deb Career, reminding you that a cheerful heart is good medicine.

Hey, thanks for joining us on the Cancer and Comedy podcast with Dr. Brad Miller.

Make sure you visit our website cancerandcomedy.com where you can follow the show and get our newsletter.

Like what you hear?

Then tell a friend about Cancer and Comedy, the show that lifts your spirits with hope and humor that heals.

Until next time, keep turning the grim into a grin.