A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future (25 page)

“He who laughs last doesn’t get it.”

—
HELEN GIANGREGORIO

Now, usually the mere hint that I need to pick up my inner child from the day care of my subconscious makes me roll my eyes and hide my wallet. But the science mostly backs up Kataria’s claims about laughter’s virtues. Laughter won’t cure tuberculosis, but this odd human activity—emitting pulsating paroxysms of air and sound through our piehole—is undeniably good for us. For example, studies by Dr. Lee Berk of the Center for Neuroimmunology at the Loma Linda School of Medicine show that laughter can decrease stress hormones and boost the immune system.
³¹
Robert Provine, a neuroscientist whose book
Laughter: A Scientific Investigation
offers a thorough account of the anthropology and biology of laughter, notes, “The scientific record offers modest but growing support for the analgesic properties of humor and laughter.”
³²
What’s more, laughter has aerobic benefits. It activates the cardiovascular system, increases the heart rate, and pumps more blood to internal organs. Provine reports that laugh researcher William Fry “found that it took 10 minutes of rowing on his home exercise machine to reach the heart rate produced by one minute of hearty laughter.”
³³
Perhaps most important, laughter is a social activity—and the evidence is vast that people who have regular, satisfying connections to other people are healthier and happier. Laughter, says Provine, “has more to do with relationships than jokes.” We rarely laugh alone. Yet, we often can’t help but laugh when others begin to chuckle. Laughter is a form of nonverbal communication that conveys empathy and that is even more contagious than the yawning we did in Chapter 7. Laughter clubs—which, like laughter itself, are always free—combine elements of four good things (yoga, meditation, aerobics, and social contact) into a fifth good thing.

And that’s why Kataria believes that the next frontier of laughter clubs is the place where stress runs most rampant: the workplace. “Laughter can play a major role in reducing stress in the workplace,” he says. Kataria says that businesses believe that “serious people are more responsible. That’s not true. That’s yesterday’s news. Laughing people are more creative people. They are more productive people. People who laugh together can work together.” Companies such as Glaxo and Volvo have gotten the message and organized laughing clubs. And Steve Wilson, a Kataria disciple and self-described “joyologist” in Ohio, is taking the message to corporate America. Says Kataria, “There should be a laughing room at every company. If you can have a smoking room in a company, why not have a laughing room?”

I doubt that IBM will set up a laughing room anytime soon (though there were probably those who doubted whether Fortune 500 execs would ever pay money to play with Legos). But it seems clear that in an age of abundance, laughter provides something the left brain cannot. More broadly, today a play ethic can strengthen and ennoble the work ethic. Games are teaching a variety of whole-minded lessons to a new generation of workers and have given rise to an industry that demands several of the key skills of the Conceptual Age. Humor represents many aspects of the sophisticated thinking required in automated and outsourced times. And just plain laughter can lead to joyfulness, which in turn can lead to greater creativity, productivity, and collaboration.

“The limited brain is a technology,” Kataria tells me after we’ve finished breakfast and the clock is edging toward noon. “You do this, you get this. You do that, you get that. It’s mathematics. Laughter I see as a divine mathematics. It doesn’t make two plus two equal four. Two plus two can equal sixty-four.” Then he laughs.

*This study might also shed light on another scientific conundrum: why most men find the Three Stooges funny and most women somehow don’t. Recall from the last chapter that the “extreme male brain” often shows right hemisphere impairment. In the pick-the- punch-line study, patients with impaired right hemispheres showed a preference for slapstick humor. So men’s preference for the Stooges (and women’s disdain for them) might be more about the maleness of our brains than the meagerness of our taste.

Find a Laughter Club.

One easy way to add some levity to your life is to visit a laughter club. These groups are growing at such a rapid clip that there’s probably one near you. (For a list of clubs, go to the Laughter Yoga Web site.) Dr. Madan Kataria, the guru of giggles, has also produced a book, video, and DVD,
Laugh for No Reason,
that explain the basics of laughter yoga as well as the theory and science supporting it. The reading and viewing materials will set you back about $30. But the clubs themselves are free. As Kataria puts it, “No forms, no fee, no fuss.” Also, in the springtime, be sure to watch for World Laughter Day, which is held each year on the first Sunday of May. Repeat after me: Ho-ho, Ha-ha-ha.
(More info:
www.laughteryoga.org
)

Play the Cartoon Captions Game.

In Chapter 2, we learned about the Rainbow Project, an alternative SAT devised by Yale’s Robert Sternberg that measures more whole-minded abilities. One of the exercises on that anti-SAT asks test takers to supply the captions to
New Yorker
cartoons that have had their captions removed. Try a version of this exercise yourself, preferably with a few other people. Select five or six cartoons from the
New Yorker.
Cut them out of the magazine, but cover up the caption. Then show the captionless cartoon to your pals—and ask them to devise a caption of their own. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. You’ll be surprised by how challenging and fun this can be. (It’s also good training for the caption contest that appears on the back page of every
New Yorker
issue.) For background on this exercise, and on the broader subject of witty cartoons, consult
New Yorker
cartoon editor Robert Mankoff’s book
The Naked Cartoonist.
(And if you’re really into this, check out the Mankoff-edited
The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker,
which includes a companion CD with all 68,647 cartoons ever published in the magazine.) Mankoff says captions require “rhythm, brevity, and surprise.” And the humor contained in them depends on a particularly right-brain sensibility. “Most cartoons or funny ideas have this weird combining aspect,” he writes. “It is a conceptual blending and overlapping of categories that the conscious mind resists, but that is absolutely necessary to create new ideas. A provocative way to think about it is that it is as if a couple of ideas got together and had sex.”

Step on the Humor Scale.

James Thorson, a professor at the University of Nebraska–Omaha, has devised a multidimensional sense of humor scale, which has been used by both researchers and clinicians to measure individuals’ level of mirth. The test asks things like whether you use humor to cope and whether your friends consider you a wit. Thorson’s research has found that “those who score high on a multidimensional sense of humor scale have lower levels of depression and higher levels of purpose than those who score low in humor.” Take the test yourself and see where you stand.
(More info: tinyurl.com/6t7ff)

Play at Inventing.

Invention and play often have much in common. The best inventors are playful. The best players are inventive. One place to understand the connections is the Smithsonian Institution’s traveling “Invention at Play” exhibit, which “focuses on the similarities between the way children and adults play and the creative processes used by innovators in science and technology” and examines the “various playful habits of mind that underlie invention.” The exhibit will travel through the United States for a few years. If you can’t see it in person, check out the excellent “Invention at Play” Web site.

(More info:
www.inventionatplay.org
)

Get Your Game On.

You must understand video games. Seriously. You must. So if you don’t know a joystick from a jelly roll, spend some time getting up to speed on games played on computers, online, and on special devices such as Game Boys and PlayStations. Ask your kid. Ask your neighbor’s kid. Or go into an electronics store such as Best Buy, where the games are usually on display, and ask for a demo. You won’t regret it. And you may even become hooked. At the very least, you’ll begin to understand the powerful new grammar, narrative pattern, and thinking style these games are teaching. For added nuance about this world, page through any of the many gaming magazines now available. (Look for them near the games in that electronics store.) And investigate the following Web sites, which offer smart primers and some snippets of cool games.

Game Spot
—
A comprehensive gaming site—one of the best around.

(More info:
www.gamespot.com
)

Game Talk
—
An online community for gamers.

(More info:
www.gametalk.com
)

Game Zone
—
Another comprehensive gaming site with news and reviews for games on every platform.

(More info:
www.gamezone.com
)

Newsgaming
—
Operating at the boundary of gaming and political commentary, this site offers games based on current events.

(More info:
www.newsgaming.com
)

Open Directory Project, Video Games
—
A massive list of just about every good gaming site and online game on the Web.

(More info: dmoz.org/Games/Video_

Games/full-index.html)

There
—
This site bills itself as an “online getaway.” You become a character—and then hang out with other players on a nifty islandlike setting. This might not ultimately be your cup of chai, but the free trial is worth exploring to get a sense of what role-playing games are like.

(More info:
www.there.com
)

Wireless Gaming Review—
This site is a great source of information about wireless gaming—games you can play on your cell phone and on other wireless devices. Lots of free downloads, too.

(More info:
www.wgamer.com
)

Women Gamers
—
The Internet’s largest portal for women gamers, this site features the usual reviews and product announcements as well as great information about industry trends.

(More info:
www.womengamers.com
)

Yahoo! Games—
A good introduction to online games, this site allows you to play everything from backgammon to canasta to Toki Toki Boom with people around the world.

(More info: games.yahoo.com/)