Resilience Humor - Using Laughter to Heal from Pain: Interview with Mike Cotayo | Episode 112

They say laughter is the best medicine — why then, don’t we prescribe laughter? According to a study by the NIH, there are many health benefits:

  • laughter has an analgesic effect for pain without the negative side effects that comes with most other pain medications

  • laughter improves our mood impacting levels of depression, anxiety and stress by releasing endorphins and lowering cortisol

  • laughter reduces agitation in people experiencing dementia

What if we prescribed the following when people are going through tough times:

  • Frequency: Laugh at least once a day

  • Dose: A full belly laugh

  • Duration: Over the course of a half hour

In this episode, I interview comedian and mental health therapist, Mike Cotayo about how a little laughter goes a long way in healing.

About Mike Cotayo

Known as the “Funny Shrink”, Mike knows how to handle difficult people because he was one! Surviving a traumatic brain injury, he overcame his own addiction to drugs. He then went on to devote over 20 years of his professional life as a clinical social worker servicing the needs of people living with mental health challenges and addictive behaviors. As an expert in treating people with borderline personalities, he has delivered keynotes internationally, including speaking at the European Association of Gestalt Therapy in Sicily. Besides his career as a clinical social worker, Mike has also achieved acclaim as a stand up comedian where he discovered the power of humor to heal. He has headlined at The Laugh Factory in New York City, as well as Binghamton University, Columbia University and Kansas State University.


I got an opportunity to meet Mike through our joint friend Frank King, and together we encouraged Mike to submit his story in our Guts, Grit & The Grind book series on men’s mental health (he is in Book 3: “Guts, Grit & The Grind: A MENtal Mechanics MANual: 10 Tools to Troubleshoot Men’s Mental Health Challenges”).




Show Notes

More on Mike

Website: https://www.funnymanmike.com/

 

Social Media:

●      Twitter - https://twitter.com/FunnyManMike76

●      Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/FunnyManMike/

●      Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/funnymanmike76/

●      Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@funnymanmike76?lang=en

Previous Media Samples:

  1. Validation!!: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/QqGKb9ktV60

  2. Four City Brewery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5lSBz6sgsg

  3. Comedy Therapy Short: https://youtube.com/shorts/eZgQMW7C2Cg

  4. Comedy Therapy Short: https://youtube.com/shorts/ElOSPEr5DAY

  5. Comedy Therapy Short: https://youtube.com/shorts/EFtPl9DeASc

  6. A Dollar and A Dream: https://youtube.com/shorts/rfo90ELAh1c

  7. Ms. Fancy: https://youtube.com/shorts/dtdiCnBOZqg

  8. Payphone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE7YNhY_oBY

  9. Incredible Hulk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgtfX8h_QnQ

Other references and tools

The Laughter Prescription": https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6125057/

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Carey, B. (2019, October 28). Https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/28/obituaries/robert-provine-dead.html. Robert Provine, an Authority on Laughter, Is Dead at 76.

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Home. (n.d.). Retrieved March 06, 2021, from https://www.patchadams.org/

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McGettigan, C., Walsh, E., Jessop, R., Agnew, Z. K., Sauter, D. A., Warren, J. E., & Scott, S. K. (2013). Individual differences in Laughter Perception reveal roles FOR Mentalizing and Sensorimotor systems in the evaluation of Emotional authenticity. Cerebral Cortex, 25(1), 246-257. doi:10.1093/cercor/bht227

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Perls, F. S., Hefferline, R. F., & Goodman, P. (1951). Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality. London: Souvenir Press.

Provine, R. R. (2000). Laughter: A scientific investigation. New York: Viking.

Provine, R. R. (2001). Laughter: A scientific investigation. New York: Penguin Books.

Psychoneuroimmunology: Laugh and be well. (n.d.). Retrieved March 06, 2021, from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/305921

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Warren, J. E., Sauter, D. A., Eisner, F., Wiland, J., Dresner, M. A., Wise, R. J., . . . Scott, S. K. (2006). Positive emotions preferentially engage an auditory-motor "mirror" system. Journal of Neuroscience, 26(50), 13067-13075. doi:10.1523/jneurosci.3907-06.2006

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