The Humor-Health Connection

What’s So Funny?
Comic Relief to the Rescue

By Estelle Rodis-Brown

It’s time to lighten up, my friends.

No, seriously.

If you want to make a meaningful change this new year, strengthen your funny bone. Get your sense of humor in good shape by finding joy hidden in plain sight all around you. 

A healthy sense of humor is a state of mind. If it’s weak, now’s the time to strengthen it. Laughter does your body and mind more good than you realize.

Sharpening your sense of humor can improve your quality of life and creative intelligence, neuropsychologists say. It draws people together in ways that trigger healthy physical and emotional changes in the body, strengthening your immune system, boosting your mood, alleviating pain, and relieving stress. 

Need more evidence? Laughter lights up the anterior cingulate cortex, an area of the brain associated with attention and decision-making, researchers have found. At a cellular level, laughing releases endorphins, the feel-good chemicals your body produces to make you happy.  After your heart rate and blood pressure fluctuate during laughter, the result is ultimately calming and tension-relieving… the best kind of cardio workout around. Perhaps laughter is the best medicine, a cure-all that’s easier to swallow than apple cider vinegar, and more fun, too.

Beyond improving our mental and physical health, studies have shown that a sense of humor boosts attractiveness, improves performance in social interactions, enhances leadership skills, and increases self-esteem. It makes us feel more positive, competent and less anxious.

Scientists and their research provide the facts, but how does laughter apply to real life? We’ve found two Northeast Ohio humorists who have found the funny in life and say we can, too. 

Humor writer Erin O’Brien of Broadview Heights and comedy coach Dave Schwensen of Vermillion have the magnetism, warmth, kindness, empathy, presence, professionalism, and yes—humor—that overflow with feel-good endorphins. Just talking to them cheers you up. Like cats chasing a laser light, they are agile and alert, pouncing on any mundane thing that strikes them as funny. 

Within the last year, each has developed a new vehicle to showcase their talents and share their insights. For O’Brien, it’s a blog. For Schwensen, it’s a stand-up comedy workshop for people 55 and older. 

ERIN O’BRIEN – erinobrien.us

Question: “What’s so funny about growing older?” 

O’Brien (with a hearty laugh): “What’s not funny about growing older? I mean, c’mon…”

Erin O’Brien has always been sharp and witty but she wasn’t always a writer.

After excelling at Lakewood High School then earning her electrical engineering degree at Ohio University and working eight years as a field engineer for the Standard Oil Company of Ohio (Sohio), O’Brien felt “the cloak of corporate life was lined with thorns. I started to get bitter around the edges and fell into joyless drinking,” as she explains in her memoir.

“Then one day as I sat in front of the box watching Lucille Ball and Tallulah Bankhead settling into coffee at the kitchen dinette, the perfect solution loomed. I decided to become a housewife.”

And that, according to O’Brien, is how her humor writing career was born.

“In the early days of blogging 20 years ago, writing humor launched my blog and my career in earnest,” she recounts. “I loved to muse on the ironies of being a housewife, working from home with my daughter.” 

Since then, as a freelance writer, columnist and editor, O’Brien’s work has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Plain Dealer, Cleveland Free Times, Inside Business Magazine, hiVelocity, Broadview Journal and FreshWater, among other publications. O’Brien has authored two books: “The Irish Hungarian Guide to the Domestic Arts” (2012) and “Rust Belt Burlesque – The Softer Side of a Heavy Metal Town” (2019). Her current blog, The Epistolary, is a weekly letter to whomever she pleases, written for her growing online readership. 

In her “Irish Hungarian Guide,” O’Brien’s lively prose brings a gritty, working-class, Cleveland kind of humor to an otherwise warm, witty and homey memoir reminiscent of Erma Bombeck. 

“I’m a Rust Belt old-timer,” O’Brien says. “I can always find a kernel of something that makes me laugh. Take my coffee pot, for instance. You can’t take my Polly Perk percolator coffee pot outa my gonzo-housewife hands.”

With equal measures naughty and nice, O’Brien’s Epistolary blog is dedicated to making grand things small and small things grand. In it, she employs humor to ponder the human condition in all its perplexing complexities.

If you’re tempted to assume that O’Brien maintains her hearty sense of humor because she must live a charmed life, think again.

One of O’Brien’s funniest co-conspirators in life was her big brother, John, who wrote “Leaving Las Vegas.” He committed suicide shortly after selling movie rights to his novel; the film later starred Nicholas Cage. Their father died suddenly a couple of years later. The list goes on.

“The plenum between what makes you laugh and what makes you cry is very thin,” O’Brien says. “I’ve faced a lot of tragedy. I’ve lost a lot of my family. Loss is something you carry with you. Laughter can be hard to find. Sometimes, when I do my best comedic writing, I feel like I am honoring my brother. I feel Johnny right next to me in those moments. He was such a funny guy. Humor writing allows me to revisit happy moments with my departed loved ones. Everybody’s there. It’s a way to keep them alive.”

O’Brien says laughter—even a giggle—is a celebration and evidence of inner joy. You can reframe loss through reflection and a redirected mindset. The joy is not only in there but also out there; keep going and you will find it everywhere.

So, how do you harness this ability to find the funny in everyday life?

“There’s magic all around you,” O’Brien says. “The trick is this… this is what makes it all possible: You have to believe the magic is there. I already believe the magic is all around me, so I’m good at finding it. Then when I write about it—exposing those deep human things from the details of my own experience (from a coffee pot to a recipe for a cold meatloaf sandwich or a string of Christmas lights)—it resonates with my readers. If I draw someone in, now they believe it. Now we’re getting somewhere. Therein is my success.”

O’Brien writes about real things in a fresh way we can relate to and laugh about. Her joyful expressions are the essence of a life well lived, come what may.

DAVE SCHWENSEN –  thecomedybook.com

If you want to let loose and have a good time, call Dave Schwensen.

That’s what program directors at senior centers say. 

After a long and storied career as talent coordinator and manager for the legendary Improv Comedy Club in New York then Hollywood and on to the Flats in Cleveland, Schwensen has been on the cutting edge of comedy “from coast to coast to coast,” as he likes to say. In his heyday, he was rubbing shoulders with the likes of Rodney Dangerfield, George Carlin, and up-and-comers Dave Chappelle and Carrot Top.

He also was a talent coordinator for the television show “A&E’s An Evening At The Improv,” discovering new comedians and getting them on national television.

Since returning home to Northeast Ohio, he has leveraged his know-how by writing six books on comedy and The Beatles. This led to him providing educational programs, intensive three-week comedy coaching workshops, and Beatlemania programs… often to audiences that are 55 and older.

So last year, he started providing one-hour comedy workshops for lifelong learners. This fast-paced interactive program encourages audience members to bask in the stand-up comedy spotlight as a star of the show, telling their jokes and favorite funny stories. Schwensen leads novice comics through the paces, each telling stories through a funny lens; a script with blanks in it, reminiscent of Mad Libs.

Participants love it, whether they take a turn on stage or soak it all in as part of the audience. Jennifer Yoo, program planner at Westlake Community Center, booked Schwensen for a comedy workshop last fall as part of a calendar of events the city provides to help combat the isolation and loneliness many people 50 and older have been experiencing, especially since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

She says, “I can’t say enough good things about Dave. He’s very engaging. You instantly like him, you laugh and have fun. I wouldn’t hesitate to have him back again. The seniors came out of his workshop saying, ‘We need more programs like this to make us laugh,’ ‘It’s so nice to have a diversion like this because we are bombarded with negative news stories all the time,’ and ‘That’s just what we needed right now. He made us laugh.’”

Last January, Schwensen provided his first one-hour comedy workshop at Pioneer Ridge retirement community in North Ridgeville. His calendar is filling up this year with shows for audiences 55 and older throughout Northeast Ohio, New York, Florida, Chicago and Los Angeles.

What kind of hunger is Schwensen tapping into? Why all this funny business when we’ve got grave issues to grapple with?

It’s simple. It’s about reclaiming joy in the journey.

“I encounter these old grumps who look and act miserable,” Schwensen explains. “What’s the point in that? Let’s laugh. Let’s have some fun. Because when you laugh, you feel better. 

“When I put in a funny movie, laughing clears my mind; it refreshes me and takes my mind off whatever was bothering me. It’s good for people to laugh.”

“I have dealt with people who have their arms and legs crossed; they’re closed off,” Schwensen says. “Listen, I’m getting older, too. I’m not going to waste my time on them. There are others capable of finding joy in life. I’m hanging out with them. I don’t have time to sit around the house and be depressed. When we share our humor and laughter, we all enjoy a mental recess. We get to take a break from all the bad things in the world and enjoy the good.”

To live fully, Schwensen says we need to switch from being passive to active. Practice looking for humor in daily life, whether it’s something unexpected someone says or a crazy situation that pops up without notice. What is funny? Make a note of it. Hold onto it. Stretch it out. Share it.

With each passing year, Schwensen is more convinced that laughter is the key to a long and happy life.  “I’m old enough now to know there’s no turning back,” he says. “I’m going full speed ahead.”

And he’s laughing all the way.

 

Power Up Your Humor Potential
Erin O’Brien and Dave Schwensen say these habits stir their pots of laughter:

• Take long walks – Get outside, move around, breathe fresh air, observe the details along the way, wander off course.
• Be authentic – Tell your own story, your way, honestly. If you have conviction and believe your own words, you can discuss anything and stand firm. You are free.
• Laugh at yourself – Don’t express humor at someone else’s expense. Don’t take yourself so seriously or try to justify yourself by putting others down. Laugh at yourself first.
• Get busy – Get out there; get involved in something bigger than yourself. Volunteer.
• Don’t waste time – Laugh when you have the opportunity. Look for those openings and seize the day.

 

Where & When to Find that Mic
Dave Schwensen’s full-length Comedy Workshops at The Cleveland Improv in The Flats were sold out, December 2023-January 2024.

His one-hour Comedy Workshops for Lifelong Learners 55+ were scheduled throughout January 2024 at various venues, including Western Reserve Masonic Community, Brooklyn Senior Center, Vitalia Active Adult Community Solon, and Cardinal Retirement Village. 

After spending February and March in Florida, Schwensen will return to Northeast Ohio  and offer more one-hour Comedy Workshops as follows:

April 24, 2024 – Danbury Senior Living, 73 East Avenue, Tallmadge. Program at 3 pm. For more information, call 330-247-1875.

TBA 2024 – Willoughby Senior Center, 38032 Brown Avenue, Willoughby. Program at 1 pm. For more information call 440-951-2832. To be rescheduled from earlier date.

June 24, 2024 – Donna Smallwood Senior Center, 7010 Powers Blvd., Parma. Program at 1 pm. For more information, call 440-885-8143.

August 26, 2024 – Donna Smallwood Senior Center, 7010 Powers Blvd., Parma. Program at 1 pm. For more information, call 440-885-8143.

October 28, 2024 – Donna Smallwood Senior Center, 7010 Powers Blvd., Parma. Program at 1 pm. For more information, call 440-885-8143.

TBA 2024 – Willoughby Senior Center, 38032 Brown Avenue, Willoughby. Program at 1 pm. For more information, call 440-951-2832. To be rescheduled from an earlier date.

You can email Schwensen at [email protected] or visit thecomedybook.com to find out more about how to plug in to his Comedy Workshops.