Communicating: Comedic Relief

Last updated on: February 27, 2012 at 6:45 am by Andy Gill

Communicating: Comedic Relief 2012-02-27T06:45:00-05:00 Andy Gill

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In my morning routine as I’m getting ready for the day, I usually plug in a podcast, mostly sermons that I listen to (Chandler, Chan, Driscoll, etc) but I decided to check out the Ted Talks they post online and make available via podcast… In this podcast Chris Bliss breaks down the importance of communicating, the entire message is worth listening to but what stood out to most is this:

A great piece of comedy is a verbal magic trick… where you think its going over here and then all of a sudden you’re transported over here and theres this mental delight that is followed by this physical response of laughter which not coincidentally releases endorphins in the brain and just like that you’ve been seduced into a different way of looking at something because the endorphins have brought down your defenses.

This is the exact opposite of the way anger and fear and panic, all of the flight or fight responses operate. fight or flight releases adrenalin which throws our walls up sky high, and then comedy comes along dealing with a lot of the same areas where our defense are the strongest: race, religion, politics, sexuality. Only by approaching them through humor, instead of adrenalin we get endorphins, and the alchemy of laughter turns our walls into windows revealing a fresh and unexpected point of view.

Communicating is definitely one of my passions. Whether it’s speaking publicly, having one on one discussions, or writing/blogging. I love it. Though the one thing I don’t think I use enough is “comedic relief”… The thing I feel most of us can use more often is comedic relief. Whether you’re a business man, motivational speaking, youth pastor, head pastor, salesman, waiter… whatever. Gaining the ability to appropriately use comedic relief, not only in public speaking, but through your day to day life is a helpful and arguably necessary tool to have…

The ability to make an audience laugh, I believe, separates the good communicators from the great.

What about ya’ll? Do you find yourselves incorporating comedic relief in your messages? Or do you find it distracting?

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