1. Nurses Don’t Have to Make This Stuff Up

Photo by Kah Lok Leong on Unsplash

During a fire drill the nurse, Kathryn, was closing doors to patients’ rooms. An 86-year-old patient was talking on the phone to her daughter when Kathryn reached her room. As Kathryn started to shut the patient’s door, the woman asked, “What’s that ringing noise?”

“Don’t worry,” Kathryn said. “We’re just having a little fire drill.”

As she was leaving, Kathryn heard the woman tell her daughter, “No, everything’s just fine, dear. The hospital’s on fire but a nice little nurse just came to lock me in my room.”

Having worked as a nurse, as well as having interviewed hundreds of nurses over the years, I can attest that you don’t have to make this stuff up. Yet nurses from coast to coast right now are telling me, “There’s nothing funny happening in my life.”

Having studied the brain and humor for decades, I can tell you that if that is your belief, that will also be your reality. Telling yourself there’s nothing funny around you will wire your reticular activating system to show you just that—nothing funny.

Even during times of chaos—overwhelming patient census, lack of resources, staffing shortages—humorous […]