This Month from the Kid Clinic: Using humor to fight depression

With the increase in the cold weather and less hours of sun every day, many people may notice that their depression gets worse. Some people may even only experience their depression in the cold, winter months. Others struggle with how to help their loved ones when depression takes hold.

One way—and I’m really stressing that this is only ONE of MANY ways—to may help all of the above is humor. Humor is a great coping skill for many reasons:

• it can help a person feel happier unexpectedly,
• it can break tension,
• it can help people feel connected, and many more reasons.

When someone is in a depressed mood, it is very difficult to find amusement in many ways on their own. If another person cracks a joke, or tells them something funny, it is an unexpected moment that helps relieve their mood. Other times, especially in families, when a person is in a depressed mood everyone around them has a hard time because they are unsure what to say. Tension arises and everyone in the house gets irritable.

A moment of humor in this situation can break that tension if done appropriately.

The last point I would like to stress is the feeling of being connected. When someone in a depressed mood can laugh at a joke, they feel connected to the person who told it. The person who told it, in turn, feels connected to the other as well because they got that person in a depressed mood to laugh.

Humor, if done appropriately, can help so much with depression.

The Campbell County Medical Group Kid Clinic is a school-based pediatric clinic offering medical care and counseling services for Campbell County students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade and their siblings ages 2 weeks and up. It is located at 800 Butler Spaeth Rd., across from St. Matthew’s Catholic Church. The Kid Clinic is open Monday-Friday from 8 am-5 pm. For more information, call 307-688-8700 or visit www.cchwyo.org/kidclinic. The Kid Clinic is a collaborative effort between Campbell County Health and Campbell County School District.

This blog was written by Brianne Wooldridge, LPC, Kid Clinic Counselor