It's amazing how quickly even the most serious news can be transformed into jokes and circulated seemingly instanteously via email and texting.
The latest topic chosen by wags is the possibly imminent, scary Swine Flu pandemic. This week I have been sent a variety of jokes related to the crisis - from the very un-pc "It will only affect men" to the plain puerile and childish "miracle cure for swine flu - apply this special oinkment"!
It's surprising but true that a common response to nervousness or stress is to react (sometimes inappropriately) with humour. What do we gain by this?
Sometimes ridiculing or downplaying a situation seems the easiest way to reduce our fear and minimises our anxiety about a situation. Additionally, our body seeks to dispel the physical aspects of nervous tension (muscles tightening, shallow breathing etc.) when bad news is broken or during inappropriate events (e.g. funerals or - as a young Liverpool player learnt this month to his cost - a minute's silence) and uses laughter to release this tension. I have encountered lots of laughter during stress coaching sessions and training, often cleverly observed and amusing to me, but really delivered by a participant as a way of avoiding or hiding true concerns or minimising any guilt they feel.
It's a natural human response which may unfortunately get us into trouble; forwarding texts and e-mails isn't and may lead to the full force of disciplinary action if your boss thinks it's inappropriate or the revulsion of people you considered friends but misjudged their sensitivities - leading to even more stress!
