Most advice about humor focuses on appreciating it when it shows up—watch a funny movie, spend time with people who make you laugh, find something to smile about. All good counsel, but it treats humor as something that happens to you rather than something you can deliberately cultivate.

This chapter takes a different approach. Just as gratitude can be trained through daily journaling, and mindfulness through regular meditation, humor can be developed through intentional practice. The research is clear that sense of humor is malleable—it responds to effort and repetition. The question isn’t whether you can become funnier and more humor-oriented; it’s how.

What follows are practical techniques for building humor into your daily routine—not as entertainment, but as a psychological practice with measurable benefits. Think of it as humor as exercise: something you do regularly, whether or not you feel like it, because you know it makes you stronger.

The Science of Humor Habits

Before diving into specific practices, it’s worth understanding why daily humor habits work—and what the research says about their effects.

Humor as a Trainable Skill

For decades, researchers assumed that sense of humor was a stable personality trait—you either had it or you didn’t. More recent evidence challenges this view. A 2018 study at the University of Zurich tested Paul McGhee’s “7 Humor Habits Program” and found that after eight weeks of systematic practice, participants showed significant increases in cheerfulness and life satisfaction. More importantly, their actual sense of humor—as measured by standardized assessments—improved.

This finding matters because it means humor isn’t just something you consume passively. Like a muscle, it responds to training. The participants didn’t just watch more comedy—they practiced finding humor in their own lives, creating jokes about their experiences, and developing what McGhee calls a “humor coping” orientation. The skills transferred beyond the training context.

The Three Funny Things Intervention

One of the most studied humor practices adapts a classic positive psychology intervention. Martin Seligman’s “Three Good Things” exercise—writing down three positive events each day and reflecting on why they happened—has robust evidence for increasing happiness and reducing depression. Researchers at the University of Zurich wondered: what if you did the same thing, but focused on funny things instead of good things?

The “Three Funny Things” intervention asks participants to write down three amusing events from their day and explain why they were funny. Studies found that this simple practice increased happiness for up to six months, with effects comparable to other positive psychology interventions. Participants also reported more frequent laughter, more smiling, and increased cheerfulness—suggesting the practice had shifted their baseline mood, not just their momentary experience.

Interestingly, extraverts benefited more from the intervention than introverts, but even introverts showed improvement. And participants didn’t need to start with a strong sense of humor to benefit—the practice worked for naturally serious people too.

Why Daily Practice Matters

Research on habit formation shows that behaviors become automatic through consistent repetition in stable contexts. A landmark study found that it takes an average of 66 days for a new behavior to feel automatic, though the range varies widely depending on the complexity of the behavior and individual differences.

For humor habits, this means that occasional efforts won’t produce lasting change. You need regular practice—ideally at the same time each day—to shift your default orientation toward the humorous aspects of experience. The good news is that missing an occasional day doesn’t derail the process; automaticity gains resume after one missed performance.

The key is what habit researchers call “implementation intentions”—specific plans for when, where, and how you’ll perform the behavior. Instead of vaguely resolving to “find more humor in life,” you commit to a concrete practice: “Every evening after dinner, I will write down three funny things that happened today.” This specificity dramatically increases follow-through.

Humor Journaling: Recording the Ridiculous

A humor journal is exactly what it sounds like: a dedicated space for recording funny observations, amusing incidents, and comic moments from your life. Unlike a gratitude journal, which focuses on what you appreciate, a humor journal trains you to notice what’s absurd, incongruous, or delightfully unexpected.

How to Start

Choose a format that works for you—a physical notebook, a notes app on your phone, or a dedicated journaling app. The medium matters less than consistency. Set a specific time each day to write, ideally anchored to an existing routine (after breakfast, before bed, during your lunch break).

Each day, record at least three things that made you laugh, smile, or struck you as funny. These can be external events (something you witnessed, a joke someone told, a headline you read) or internal observations (a thought that amused you, an absurd connection you noticed). The key is capturing the specifics: what exactly happened, who was involved, what made it funny.

Prompts to Guide Your Practice

When you’re starting out, prompts can help direct your attention:

What was the most absurd thing that happened today? Look for moments when reality violated expectations—minor incongruities, unexpected twists, things that made no logical sense.

What frustrated you that you could reframe as funny? The traffic jam, the technical glitch, the miscommunication—these are comedy material waiting to be discovered.

What did you observe that struck you as ridiculous? People-watching yields endless material. So does paying attention to advertisements, corporate-speak, and social rituals.

What embarrassing thing happened that you could learn to laugh at? Your own missteps and mistakes are rich sources of self-deprecating humor—the kind that builds resilience.

What would a comedian notice about your life that you usually overlook? Step outside your normal perspective and look at your routines through comic eyes.

Going Deeper: Why Was It Funny?

The Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, which has studied humor journaling extensively, recommends adding a reflection component: after recording each funny thing, write a sentence or two about why it was funny. Was it the unexpectedness? The absurdity? A play on words? Recognizing the type of humor helps you become more attuned to similar comic possibilities in the future.

This reflective component is what distinguishes a humor journal from simply collecting jokes. You’re not just recording what made you laugh—you’re developing a deeper understanding of how humor works and training yourself to recognize comic potential in ordinary situations.

Playful Thinking: Cultivating a Comic Orientation

Beyond formal journaling practices, humor can be cultivated through shifts in everyday thinking. Researchers call this developing a “playful mindset” or “comic orientation”—a habitual tendency to look for the amusing side of situations.

Cognitive Reframing Through Humor

Humor activates what psychologists call “cognitive reframing”—changing your perception of a situation to see it in a new light. When something frustrating happens, the automatic response for most people is to dwell on the frustration. A playful mindset interrupts this pattern by asking: “What’s funny about this?”

Consider spilling coffee on yourself before an important meeting. Without a playful mindset, the experience registers as pure stress—embarrassment, inconvenience, evidence that the day is going badly. With a playful mindset, you might think: “Well, I’m certainly committed to this caffeinated aesthetic” or “I was wondering how to make this meeting more memorable.” The situation hasn’t changed, but your relationship to it has.

Research shows that people who habitually use humor to cope with stress are more resilient—they view obstacles as temporary and surmountable rather than as permanent disasters. This isn’t about denying problems or forcing fake positivity. It’s about accessing a cognitive mode that creates emotional distance and perspective.

The Absurdity Hunt

One simple practice for developing a playful mindset is what we might call the “absurdity hunt”—deliberately looking for things that make no sense. This can be done anywhere, anytime, without any special equipment.

During your commute, notice the bizarre juxtapositions of urban life. In meetings, observe the strange rituals of corporate culture. At the grocery store, contemplate the peculiarities of product packaging. The world is genuinely absurd if you pay attention—rules that contradict each other, social scripts that no one remembers the origin of, elaborate solutions to problems that could be solved simply.

The absurdity hunt isn’t about mockery or cynicism. It’s about noticing the gap between how things are and how they logically should be—the fundamental structure of most humor. Regular practice makes this noticing automatic.

The Comic Character Question

Steven Sultanoff, a clinical psychologist who has spent over 40 years studying therapeutic humor, recommends a visualization technique: when you’re stuck in a frustrating situation, ask yourself what your favorite comedian would notice about it. How would they describe it? What angle would they find?

This technique works because it forces you to step outside your immediate emotional reaction and adopt a different perspective. The comedian in your mind isn’t personally invested in your frustration—they’re looking for the material. Channeling their viewpoint creates the same kind of psychological distance that makes humor therapeutic.

You can also apply this retrospectively. Think back to a difficult experience from your past—something that felt overwhelming at the time but that you’ve since gained perspective on. Can you find the humor in it now? Most people can, which demonstrates that comic potential was always there; you just needed distance to see it.

Joke Challenges: Active Humor Creation

If humor journaling is about noticing, and playful thinking is about reframing, joke challenges are about creating. These practices push you to actively generate humor rather than simply appreciate it.

The Daily Joke Practice

Challenge yourself to write three jokes each day. They don’t have to be good—in fact, most won’t be. The point is the practice of looking for comic angles and attempting to craft them into shareable form.

Start with observation-based humor: take something you noticed and try to make it funny. Maybe it’s the paradox of “convenience stores” that are never conveniently located, or the way your coffee maker sounds vaguely judgmental in the morning, or the peculiar optimism of “estimated delivery times.” Look for the incongruity and then articulate it.

You can also practice the “plus one” technique used by comedy writers: take any statement and try to add a funny twist. “I went to the gym today” becomes “I went to the gym today—well, I drove past it, which is basically the same thing cardiovascularly.” The addition transforms ordinary observation into comedy.

The One-Laugh Challenge

Set a daily intention to make at least one person laugh—not by sharing a video or forwarding a meme, but by saying something funny yourself. This can be low-stakes: a witty observation, a playful comment, a self-deprecating aside. The goal is to practice real-time humor generation in social contexts.

Track your attempts and successes. Notice what works and what doesn’t. Pay attention to timing, audience, and context. Over time, you’ll develop a better intuition for when humor lands and when it misses—knowledge that can only come from practice.

Rewriting Your Stories

Take an experience that bothers you—an embarrassing moment, a frustrating encounter, a disappointment—and try writing it as a comedy bit. What’s the setup? Where’s the incongruity? What’s the punchline?

This practice combines the cognitive benefits of expressive writing with the perspective-shifting power of humor. You’re not minimizing what happened or pretending it didn’t matter. You’re finding a new angle on it—one that creates distance and perhaps even transforms something painful into something you could share for laughs.

David Granirer, founder of Stand Up For Mental Health, describes this transformation: “In comedy, you talk about things from the past that are painful, but you turn them into comedy… There is a cognitive shift where all of that bad stuff from the past just becomes great material. And all of a sudden, they’re proud of what they’ve survived, instead of feeling ashamed of it.”

Building Your Humor Routine

The most effective approach combines multiple practices into a sustainable routine. Here’s a suggested framework for integrating humor habits into your day:

Morning: Set the Intention

Before you start your day, take 30 seconds to set a humor intention: “Today I’m going to notice three absurd things” or “Today I’m going to find something funny about that meeting I’m dreading.” Research on implementation intentions shows that this simple act of conscious planning dramatically increases follow-through.

You might also start the day with deliberate humor exposure—a few minutes with a comedy podcast, a quick scroll through saved funny videos, or reading something that makes you smile. This isn’t the deep practice of creating humor, but it primes your brain to be receptive to comic possibilities throughout the day.

Throughout the Day: Notice and Reframe

Carry your humor awareness with you. When something frustrating happens, pause and ask: “What would be funny about this?” When you’re waiting (in line, in traffic, for a meeting to start), practice the absurdity hunt. When you’re with others, look for opportunities to make someone laugh.

Consider keeping a running note on your phone where you capture funny observations as they occur. These become raw material for your evening journaling practice.

Evening: Journal and Reflect

Before bed, spend five minutes with your humor journal. Record at least three funny things from your day. Reflect on why they were funny. If you attempted jokes, note what worked and what didn’t. If you succeeded in making someone laugh, celebrate that small victory.

This evening practice serves multiple functions: it consolidates your learning, provides positive reflection before sleep, and builds the record that makes humor noticing feel rewarding and worthwhile.

When Humor Feels Forced: Troubleshooting Common Challenges

Building humor habits isn’t always smooth. Here are common obstacles and how to address them:

“I can’t find anything funny”

This usually means you’re setting the bar too high. You don’t need to find things hilarious—mildly amusing counts. Lower your threshold and look for smaller moments: an ironic sign, a slight absurdity in conversation, a pet doing something weird. The practice is about training attention, not achieving comedy gold.

“I’m not a funny person”

Research shows that baseline sense of humor doesn’t predict who benefits from humor interventions. Even people who don’t consider themselves funny show improvement with practice. The goal isn’t to become a comedian—it’s to develop the capacity to notice and appreciate humor, which is a learnable skill.

“My jokes don’t land”

This is normal and expected. Professional comedians fail constantly—it’s part of the development process. Pay attention to what doesn’t work and adjust. Maybe your timing is off, or you’re choosing the wrong audience, or the joke needs refinement. Failure is data, not evidence that you should stop.

“I can’t maintain the habit”

Habit formation research suggests two fixes: make the practice easier, or attach it more firmly to an existing routine. If writing three things feels like too much, write one. If evening journaling doesn’t happen, try a different time. The most important thing is consistency, even if the practice itself is minimal.

“Everything feels too serious to joke about”

There are times when humor isn’t appropriate—acute grief, crisis, moments when others need support. But if everything feels too serious, that might be a sign that you’re stuck in a heavy perspective that would benefit from lightening. Start with small, low-stakes situations. Finding humor in traffic or technical glitches doesn’t require making light of genuine tragedy.

The Compound Effect: What Regular Practice Produces

The benefits of humor habits compound over time. What starts as effortful practice becomes increasingly automatic. Here’s what regular practitioners typically report:

Shifted attention. You start noticing funny things without trying. The practice of deliberately looking for humor trains your brain to detect comic possibilities automatically. This isn’t forced positivity—it’s expanded awareness.

Improved resilience. Minor frustrations feel less overwhelming when you habitually look for their absurd side. The cognitive reframing that once required effort becomes your default response to stress.

Enhanced social connection. As you become better at generating and sharing humor, your social interactions become warmer. Laughter creates bonds, and the ability to make others laugh is a form of social generosity.

Greater cognitive flexibility. Research shows that humor practice increases cognitive flexibility—the ability to shift perspectives and consider alternative interpretations. This flexibility benefits problem-solving, creativity, and emotional regulation.

Baseline mood elevation. Studies on humor interventions consistently find effects on overall mood that persist well beyond the practice period. You’re not just feeling better during the exercise—you’re raising your emotional set point.

Making Laughter a Lifestyle

The practices in this chapter aren’t about forcing yourself to be constantly cheerful or pretending that nothing is serious. They’re about developing a capacity that most of us have let atrophy—the ability to notice and appreciate the comic dimensions of experience.

This capacity is genuinely therapeutic. It creates perspective on problems, connection with others, and resilience in the face of difficulty. And unlike many therapeutic techniques, it’s enjoyable—the more you practice, the more you laugh.

Start small. Pick one practice from this chapter and commit to it for a week. Notice what happens. Adjust as needed. Building any habit takes time, and humor habits are no exception. But the investment pays dividends—in wellbeing, in relationships, and in the simple pleasure of finding life amusing.

As Allen Klein, author of The Healing Power of Humor, puts it: “When you wake up in the morning, say, ‘I’m going to find one thing today that I can giggle at or at least smile about.'” That modest intention, practiced daily, can transform your relationship with yourself and the world.

Sources and Suggested Readings

Research Articles

Gander, F., Proyer, R. T., Ruch, W., & Wyss, T. (2013). Strength-based positive interventions: Further evidence for their potential in enhancing well-being and alleviating depression. Journal of Happiness Studies, 14(4), 1241-1259. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-012-9380-0

Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998-1009. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.674

Ruch, W., Hofmann, J., Rusch, S., & Stolz, H. (2018). Training the sense of humor with the 7 Humor Habits Program and satisfaction with life. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 31(2), 287-309. https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2017-0099

Seligman, M. E. P., Steen, T. A., Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2005). Positive psychology progress: Empirical validation of interventions. American Psychologist, 60(5), 410-421. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.60.5.410

Wellenzohn, S., Proyer, R. T., & Ruch, W. (2016). Humor-based online positive psychology interventions: A randomized placebo-controlled long-term trial. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 11(6), 584-594. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2015.1137624

Wellenzohn, S., Proyer, R. T., & Ruch, W. (2018). Who benefits from humor-based positive psychology interventions? The moderating effects of personality traits and sense of humor. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 821. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00821

Books

Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones. Avery.

Fogg, B. J. (2020). Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Klein, A. (1989). The Healing Power of Humor. Tarcher.

McGhee, P. E. (2010). Humor as Survival Training for a Stressed-Out World: The 7 Humor Habits Program. AuthorHouse.

Online Resources

Greater Good Science Center. Three Funny Things practice guide. https://ggia.berkeley.edu

Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor. Resources for humor practice. https://www.aath.org

Mental Health America. Humor and mental health resources. https://mhanational.org/resources/humor