Catching up with Karyn

That's where you'll find me -Karyn Buxman, RN, neurohumorist, and author of What's So Funny About... Heart Disease?: A Creative Approach to Coping with Your Condition- sharing the latest research on humor and healing for the person who has heart disease.

Did you know that laughing for half an hour a day can reduce your bad cholesterol by up to 66%? When you have heart disease, cholesterol control is job number one. Enjoying humor doesn't replace conventional treatment or prescription medications - but it's a fun, free, and effective way to make successfully managing your heart disease easier.

Listen to the January Jones interview here! If you like what you hear, don't forget to tell your friends about it on Facebook and Twitter. Sharing laughter is one way we can improve everybody's heart health!

We'd been called in for an emergency bowel obstruction. Our scrub nurse had some bad gas - don't ever trust the cafeteria's tacos! In the  middle of the procedure, the surgeon starts freaking out. "I nicked the bowel! Don't you smell that?"  He ran the bowel over and over before he was finally satisfied that it was intact, and he closed. Afterward, when I talked to the scrub nurse about it, she said, "What was I going to do - tell him I farted?!"

OR Nurses: this bookis for you! I count the years I spent as an OR nurse as some of the finest (and funniest!) of my career. Talk about the tight bond between nurses! I learned true caring, compassion, and grace-under-pressure from my colleagues behind those double doors.

There were also lots of laughs - and thank goodness for that. Laughter provides the emotional resiliency we need to operate at the top of our game in the high-stress, high-pressure OR environment. Nurses who laugh regularly enjoy considerable physical and mental...

I'll admit it - when I first saw this restaurant sign featured in the Huffington Post, I laughed out loud. Chances are you did too!

Now imagine what your reaction would have been if, instead of encountering this sign on the internet, you saw it while you were driving through your neighborhood. It's still funny - and the fact that the restaurant shared a funny sign might just be enough to motivate you to turn in and have a taco (even though they're not free!)

Humor is Power: Building Your Business

Businesses that offer their customers a way to laugh gain a significant competitive advantage. Humor is disruptive. It attracts our attention and makes us change the way we think.  The Mexican restaurant advertising “Free Tacos – Yesterday Only!” will make us laugh, but they’re also planting that seed reminding us how much we like tacos. Couple that with the powerful emotional associations people have with humor, and you’ve got circumstances that...

Build The Humor Habit!

Are you looking for ways to add more humor to your life? You should be! Laughter has tremendous benefits for our physical well-being, emotional resiliency, and social connections. Humor is power! When we laugh, we gain both a broader perspective on the world and a strengthened sense of being in control of our life.

It's a great idea to laugh every single day! Here are four websites that made me laugh out loud this week:

Nurse Quotes & Pics This Pinterest Board collects images and sayings hysterical for nurses and others working on the front lines of patient care

The Onion Satire and parody based on today's headlines

xkcd A smart and funny webcomic - scroll over the comics to see hidden text that can make the gag even funnier.

ebaum's world Short funny videos you'll want to share with your friends.

What are your favorite humor websites?

Humor is a powerful force. For more than 30 years, I've been researching, teaching, and speaking to groups about the ways they can use humor to lower stress, live healthier lives, be more productive in the workplace, and be happier at home. That's why I was absolutely heartbroken to learn that Jacintha Saldanha, a British nurse, took her own life after being duped by a radio DJ's prank.

This tragic incident reinforces the fact that humor is power. We all have a responsibility to understand how our humor impacts others. Pranks are a particularly problematic type of humor, as their entire humor value comes from someone else's pain and discomfort. Their fear, upset, or injury has become our source of amusement.

That's not healthy for us individually, and it's not healthy for us as a society. I've been very encouraged to see the discussions centering around the role of pranks in our media and culture. At a time when the problem of bullying is receiving so much attention, let's call...

Humor is perhaps a sense of intellectual perspective: an awareness that some things are really important, others not; and that the two kinds are most oddly jumbled in everyday affairs. Christopher Morley

Whether you're dealing with a chronic health condition like diabetes or heart disease, are a caregiver for someone with those conditions, or are just trying to make it through life with less stress and more fun, humor helps. At times when we feel stressed out or overwhelmed (an exceptional set of circumstances I like to call a Typical Friday Afternoon!) it can be difficult to maintain a realistic set of proportions about what's going on in our lives. All of our problems and challenges become enlarged: all of a sudden, the fact that you've lost your phone charger is as catastrophic an event as you've ever experienced.

Rationally, you know that's not true. Losing a phone charger probably doesn't even rate on your list of the 101 Most Terrible Things That Have Happened. It might not...

It's time to show the world what Diabetes looks like! I'm really excited about the American Diabetes Association's project, A Day in the Life of Diabetes, to demonstrate the increasing impact diabetes has on our families and communities nationwide. Successfully managing diabetes can be a herculean task, making what might seem like an otherwise ordinary life rather extraordinary.

You are invited to share a personal image, on the Association’s Facebook page, representing what “A Day in the Life of Diabetes” means to them. The image can be a picture of themselves, someone they care about, or otherwise represent how the disease impacts their lives.  The image will then make up a larger mosaic image that will embody the message of “A Day in the Life of Diabetes.”

I was on my way to speak to a group of diabetes educators at a regional hospital when I overheard two interns talking in the hallway. They were watching an elderly gentleman, who was moving slowly down the all, and trying to figure out exactly what the man's complaint might be.

“I’ll be you $5 he’s had a hemorrhoidectomy," one intern said.

The other intern did not agree. “No way. He’s suffering from arthritis.”

They both approached the man to inquire.

“Why are you moving so slowly, Sir?” asked one intern.

The old man replied, “My slippers are too large.”

Diabetes and the Family Caregiver

Being a caregiver - whether you're a health care professional or a family member or friend - can be challenging sometimes. We like to think we know what's going on. After all, we work hard to be a good caregiver. This is especially true for people who care for someone who has diabetes. Over the years, I've spoken with family caregivers who...

Generally, I don't have a hard time convincing people to add the healing power of humor to their diabetes management routine. Unlike diet and exercise, laughing is actually fun. (Yes, I know there are people who will tell you there's nothing more fun than an invigorating spin class. I am not one of those people.) Still, there are times when it seems like there's nothing in your life worth laughing about.

My friends, this is what yoga laughter was made for. I encourage you to check laughter yoga out. If you ever need to put a smile on your face in a hurry, try this simple exercise from What's So Funny About Diabetes?: A Creative Approach to Coping with Your Disease. It's one of my absolute favorites:

Gradient Laughter

Start by smiling—then slowly begin to laugh with a gentle chuckle. Increase the intensity and volume of the laugh until you’ve achieved a hearty laugh. Then gradually bring the laugh back down to a smile again.

It sounds simple, right? Just try it. It's okay...

As we celebrate Diabetes Awareness Month, I'd like to share a few thoughts on making time for humor. We all live extremely busy lives, balancing careers, families, social lives and managing our health care. Days go by at light speed. We're always on the go. One minute we're running here, the next we're going there, with a million things to do. Our to-do lists are six miles long, on average, and every item never gets crossed off. At this pace, entire days can go by when there's just no time to laugh. Those days add up, and before you know it, you're looking at weeks, even months, without humor.

Don't believe me? Ask yourself this. When was the last time you laughed so hard you cried? For most people, it's been a while. But as I explain in What's So Funny About Diabetes?, people with diabetes enjoy significantly better health when they laugh regularly and often. There are multiple ways humor helps us achieve effective diabetes management. Something as simple as laughing at your...