The Laughing Guide to Well-Being: Using Humor and Science to Become Happier and Healthier

Do you experience stress? Are you interested in better health and well-being? Do you pursue happiness? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you need to read this book. If you answered no, you're in denial. All of us can use a little help to become happier or healthier. Unfortunately, the help we get is often too scary: "if you don't do this or that, some catastrophic event of epic proportions will happen." Prilleltensky's approach, in contrast, is to help you become healthier and happier through laughter. In this hilarious book, Prilleltensky combines humor with science to help you improve your well-being. Each chapter consists of the Laughing Side, a series of funny stories; and the Learning Side, a research-based, user-friendly guide to health and happiness. The first chapter provides an overview of well-being, while subsequent chapters cover each of its six domains: Interpersonal, Community, Occupational, Physical, Psychological, and Economic (I COPPE) . When you finish the book you'll have a greater understanding of your life, and ways to make it better. Read more Continue reading Read less ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Isaac Prilleltensky, an award winning community psychologist and humor writer, is Dean of the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Miami. --This text refers to the hardcover edition. REVIEW
Prilleltensky provides a lot of humor, clear practical examples, illustrations, and advice that relays uncomplicated, accessible, and relevant content to be used easily in everyday-life to improve the quality of life. -- Global Education Review

This book is hilarious. It is so funny that you will be tempted to race through abstract advice about well-being and happiness to get to the next funny story and have another belly laugh. Do not race. You will miss the wisdom for the wit.
-- Martin E. P. Seligman, Professor, University of Pennsylvania, Author of Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being

This is a disarmingly clever and humorous book that offers a rich array of wise advice on how to live a happier, healthier, more meaningful life in a topical and relevant way that makes you want more and more! The best part? The author shares many personal amusing stories from his own fascinating life! A brilliant and useful tool for everyone! -- S. Leonard Syme, Professor Emeritus, University of California Berkeley, Co-Editor of Promoting Health: Intervention Strategies from Social and Behavioral Research

This book is extremely funny and informative at the same time. If you want to improve your well-being while laughing out loud, read this book. Prilleltensky shows that you can do both! -- Talma Lobel, Professor, Tel Aviv University, Author of Sensation: The New Science of Physical Intelligence

If you are suffering from ennui or boredom, or just looking to enrich your everyday life, you will find this book to be hysterically funny, inspirational, and educational. The authenticity and humanity of the author, Isaac Prilleltensky, permeates every passage so deeply that you will feel that you have found a great friend and mentor. -- Geoff Nelson, Professor, Wilfrid Laurier University, Co-editor of Community Psychology and Community Mental Health

Isaac's book is hilarious. I believe if you can get people to laugh that means you're getting them to listen, and when they listen, they learn. This book accomplishes all three of these things. -- Yakov Smirnoff, comedian

In The Laughing Guide to Well-Being: Using Humor and Science to Become Happier and Healthier, Dr. Prilleltensky, a respected authority in the area of well-being, reminds us that humor is a key factor in coping with life stressors and being resilient in work and life. Drawing upon psychological insights, the scientific literature, and common life experiences this book provides an important contribution to positive psychology in general and our understanding of happiness in particular.

In each chapter, Dr. Prilleltensky uses a strengths-based orientation to provide both chuckles and chunks of wisdom that we can all use to create a greater sense of well-being in our lives. And for those who are in leadership roles, I suggest they make this book required reading for those they supervise. When leaders model the behaviors and attitudes described in this book, then they, their co-workers, and their workplace becomes healthier- and more productive!

The capacity to laugh is essential to our well-being and needed more today than ever. This book provides the evidence, both scientific and anecdotal, that we each have the capacity to incorporate humor to strengthen our sense of well-being. Be good to yourself, read this book! -- Spencer Niles, Dean and Professor, School of Education, The College of William & Mary, Co-Author of Career Flow and Career Development Interventions

A Revelation!

This is exactly what we need. The Laughing guide to Well-Being shows the one little changeable thing in our life - a better sense of humor - that can transform relationships, visions toward the future, and our health. But as we've gotten more prosperous over the years, we've also gotten more serious, skeptical, and snarky in our humor. Prilleltensky's brilliant book shows how we can turn this around. There is no easier way to have a ripple across the rest of our lives than to realize that our laughing side is also our learning side. -- Brian Wansink, Ph.D., Professor, Cornell University, Author of Slim by Design and Mindless Eating

Who knew a self-help book could be funny, while being grounded in legitimate science; a guide to greater health or happiness, without being moralizing or prescriptive; or wise and insightful, without the self-directed blandishments from an author who can't see himself having the same problems the rest of us have. Dr. Prilleltensky has managed to pull off this hat trick - and produce a book that is fun to read and deeply educational. -- Harold G. Levine, Dean an