Laughter is the best medicine, and nobody know the healing powers of humor more than an accountant…Well, maybe not all accountants. But checkout this story of how an accountant changed careers and has become a speaker on how comedy cures.
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By ELLYN COUVILLION
Originally found on 2theadvocate.com
Kent Rader likes to make people laugh.
A standup comedian and professional speaker, Rader found his career only after first working in public accounting and as a hospital chief executive officer.
“If you find accounting exciting … you’re doing it wrong,” Rader said as he spoke to cancer patients, caregivers and health professionals at Woman’s Hospital’s 12th annual “Women Living with Cancer” program.
“Every year, we bring in an outside speaker. We focus on inspirational speakers” who can help patients “stay motivated and stay strong” as they go through cancer treatment, Jodi Conachen, public relations manager for Woman’s Hospital, said.
Rader’s Sept. 22 presentation, “Let It Go, Just Let It Go,” was based on his book by the same name, which he wrote in 2002 as a guide to reducing stress — with humor being one of the tools that helps.
The winner of the 2007 Branson Comedy Festival, Rader, a native of Oklahoma, performs “clean standup comedy” in clubs across the country.
For two hours one evening, he seemed to transform a conference room at Woman’s Hospital into a comedy club.
Cell phone technology, telemarketers, airport screeners, school parent meetings and home repair were all fodder for his presentation on how to use humor to deal with life’s stresses.
Stress, he said, has physiological effects on the body, as the body prepares for “fight or flight” in stressful situations.
“Seventy-five to 90 percent of all physicians’ calls are related to stress,” Rader said.
“Before we have feelings or emotions, we have thoughts that preceded those feelings or emotions,” he said.
Those thoughts are a person’s “attempt to interpret that situation,” he said.
People, he said, can learn to change the way they’re thinking about a situation.
“Your stress comes from your thoughts. They’re simply thoughts. It doesn’t mean your thoughts are based in reality. They’re simply thoughts,” Rader said.
“Begin to recognize that you are the architect of your stress.”
Humor is one way to “rebuild” one’s reaction to a stressful situation.
“When we experience laughter … it changes our thoughts, changes our feelings,” he said.
He recommended that people bring more humor to their lives, especially their work, and “hang out with those people that make you laugh, they’re going to make your life a joy.”
And, he added, “Develop your own sense of humor … It’s one of the most important tools you have.”
Humor can be so powerful, that Rader added two caveats:
“Be careful who you share your humor with. Not everyone finds the same things funny as you do.”
And, “The same humor we use to heal can also hurt. So remember not to hurt people with your humor.”
Diane Davis, a registered nurse with Woman’s Hospital’s Breast Center and an audience member, said she was there both for herself as a breast cancer survivor and her patients.
David said she was hoping to learn more about how humor can defuse stress.
“Humor’s a good way to handle life,” she said.
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