Episode 58: Laughter: The Best Medicine? with Kody Green, Part One

00;00;09;00 – 00;01;40;21
Kelly Parbs
Science tells us that laughter isn’t just a response to joy. It’s a powerful tool for mental health and physical health. Studies show that laughing reduces stress hormones like cortisol, triggers the release of feel-good endorphins, and even boosts immune function. It improves blood flow, helps relieve pain, and increases resilience in the face of adversity. In short, laughter truly is medicine. My guest today knows this firsthand. He’s a comedian, but his journey goes far beyond the stage. Living with significant mental illness, he has embraced laughter not just as a coping mechanism, but as a vital part of his healing process. Today, he will share his story, his experiences with mental illness, the challenges he’s faced, and how he has found his own path forward. We will explore the ways humor has shaped his journey, how he uses comedy to connect with others, and what we all can learn about bringing more laughter into our lives. So whether you’re looking for a laugh or seeking a new perspective on mental health, stay with us – this conversation is sure to be inspiring. I’m your host, Kelly Parbs! I’m a licensed clinical social worker and have dedicated my career to helping people with their mental health. Today my guest is Kody Green. Hello, Kody, and thank you for joining me today!

00;01;40;23 – 00;01;42;19
Kody Green
Thank you so much for having me!

00;01;42;22 – 00;01;58;26
Kelly Parbs
So today I want to talk about the importance of laughter and comedy for our mental health. But before we dive in, would you mind giving us just a brief overview of your experience with mental illness, your diagnosis, and how you got where you are today?

00;01;58;29 – 00;03;56;15
Kody Green
Yeah. Of course. So, my experience with mental health and mental illness, actually started with my mom. So when I was a pre-teen, my mom started having, auditory and visual hallucinations, delusions and paranoia. And eventually she was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. And so I was through most of my teenage years, I was a caregiver for her. I eventually went on to do, you know, college and my first year of college, I went through my own psychotic break where I was later diagnosed with schizophrenia. After a few years of struggling with addiction and, incarceration. And so it was a really challenging time for me. And, I wanted to, you know, try to make a difference. And in other people’s lives and hopefully keep them from having to go through what I went through instead of getting the help they need for their mental illness diagnosis. So I eventually started sharing my story on social media. And I use storytelling and humor as a way to help people better understand schizophrenia and mental illness. And it blew up way more than I ever planned. And I ended up having over a million followers on TikTok, and I started using that platform to really try to help people better understand what my daily life was like. What it was like as someone living with schizophrenia, but also as a recovering addict and someone with a criminal record due to my addiction. And, it got to a point where, you know, I was standing in front of incredibly large audiences telling them about my story. But I still felt like I was struggling a lot. And that was until I found comedy and started using, humor as a way to, you know, still share these stories and still spread awareness. But do it in a way that felt healthier to me and felt like, you know, I was able to, kind of function a little more with it and get something back out of it.

00;03;56;18 – 00;04;28;17
Kelly Parbs
That’s a lot. Mental illness, addiction, incarceration. It’s a little bit hard to think about where comedy comes in after hearing something so heavy like that, but I like that’s really the point that we’re trying to make here, right? Comedy and laughter can be healing, so thank you for sharing that. And being so honest with really hard information. And let’s talk about it. When did you see that humor was going to be a tool for you in healing? Tell us more about that.

00;04;28;20 – 00;06;18;22
Kody Green
Well, I always tell people like, I’m a millennial and I think that’s coded in our in our DNA. I think millennials just cope with dark humor. And so I always used it even before I ever had my own diagnosis. I always used it to, you know, deal with what I was going through with my mom, but also just in my everyday life, when something came up that was hard for me to understand or deal with, I used humor as a way to, try to navigate those difficult situations. And so when I went through, you know, my symptoms beginning, I went through all of the things I just mentioned. I didn’t know how to deal with it. I didn’t know how to cope with it. And so, it took a while for me. You know, it was really hard to find humor in what I had been through at first. And like you said, it’s really heavy. You know? Everything I went through was so challenging. It was so frustrating, and it was so easy to be down on myself. And it was so easy to to make the situation worse and worse by, you know, talking about how bad things were and and not that that wasn’t true, but it wasn’t getting me anywhere. It was really… I felt like it was really preventing my recovery from being as fulfilling as I needed it to be. And so I went on to, you know, kind of regain that, the humorous, you know, style that I had because it was something I lost with my diagnosis, and it was something I had to find again. And when I started using humor just in my everyday life, people, people always gave me the weirdest looks. They’re like, oh, you really shouldn’t joke about that! And I didn’t know how to respond because it was the only way that I felt like I was finally able to understand what I was going through. It was the first time I was able to put a voice to all of these challenging things!

00;06;18;24 – 00;06;26;13
Kelly Parbs
It sounds like you just intuitively knew that laughter was a part of healing for your journey.

00;06;26;16 – 00;07;29;00
Kody Green
Yeah, well, and I saw a lot of other people do it too. I come from a family where humor is is how we, you know, talk about difficult things, sometimes to the point where it’s not productive. Like sometimes it’s been used to avoid difficult topics, but when used correctly, it’s how we navigated those difficult conversations. So I tried to really make that a part of my daily life. And, and I used it as a way for me to feel better. But I also found that using humor helped people open up about some of these really difficult topics. So when I was using humor on social media, like I was doing jokes about what I had been through with my schizophrenia diagnosis or my addiction. All of the sudden I was getting people who were messaging me who otherwise they didn’t know anything about my illness. They had never learned anything about it. They were too afraid to, like, learn about it because of how stigmatized it is. So when I was making these jokes, it opened up a door for a lot of people who otherwise wouldn’t have been a part of the conversation.

00;07;29;02 – 00;07;47;02
Kelly Parbs
I love that! I love that, and we all know that there’s some stigma around the topic of mental health. And although I think we are making some progress in breaking that down as a speaker and a mental health advocate, that’s something that sounds like it’s a really good tool in your toolbox.

00;07;47;04 – 00;08;40;29
Kody Green
Yeah. Well, you know, I get to I’m very fortunate that my journey has reached millions of people online, but I also get to do a lot of speaking events now, and I and when I first started, I realized, and you put it really perfectly in the beginning. It’s heavy, like everything in my story. And I just gave you, like, a brief one minute summary, you know, it’s like when I’m giving an hour long speeches about what I went through. People were leaving that room just, like, crushed. I didn’t feel like people were leaving with any more hope. I didn’t think they were leaving with any motivation for their own journeys or what they were going through. And actually, what I found was that with topics that heavy humor was the only way to effectively deliver it, because it allowed me to not only like I said, reach people that I wasn’t reaching before. It allowed me to soften some of these really difficult topics, and I-

00;08;40;29 – 00;08;43;03
Kelly Parbs
…made it a little more lighthearted?

00;08;43;05 – 00;09;12;15
Kody Green
Yeah. And I think some people really need that. Not everyone, you know, not everyone has been through this journey. To me, when I talk about it, it doesn’t seem so heavy because I’ve been through it. So, I mean, the good part of my life now or I get to look back on that. But people hearing it, you know, it’s hard for them to understand that, you know, I’ve been through all that and I’ve lived this life, and I think it can be really challenging if you’re not able to, you know, use humor to lighten some of that really difficult conversation.

00;09;12;22 – 00;09;25;19
Kelly Parbs
Absolutely. Can we talk a little bit about what happens chemically in our brains and in our bodies when we actually laugh? Is that something that you can speak to?

00;09;25;22 – 00;10;32;07
Kody Green
I’m not. I mean, I always tell people I’m not a doctor or a psychiatrist. So I can’t I can’t talk about the actual chemical changes or anything like that. I’ve been really fortunate to work with some doctors and psychiatrists, who have told me the benefits of laughter and how it can, allow more serotonin and more, you know, it can and really work to effectively, utilize those, serotonin and dopamine transmitters in your brain, which, that’s, you know, it’s it’s one of those things where I go based off of what I feel. And I’ve always felt that humor has been able to really allow me to feel things that are challenging and not always pleasant. And so, I know there is more of a, a scientific understanding to it. And it’s it’s amazing to me that we’re able to break this down to a science now, because I think it shows how how underutilized humor and comedy can be have been, in in some of these conversations.

00;10;32;10 – 00;10;58;19
Kelly Parbs
Yep. I agree. And- and the proof is in the outcome for you, right? You know that when you use laughter and and comedy that you feel better. And that’s the, the bottom line. One of the things that research does show is that laughter reduces stress hormones and boosts resilience. And it sounds to me like you’re saying you have physically experienced, those results.

00;10;58;22 – 00;12;12;06
Kody Green
Yeah, absolutely. And I’ve I’ve been really fortunate that I’ve been able to see that. And a lot of my friends that are advocates as well. So I think there’s a lot to be said when I, when I share my story, I always try to look for correlation with other advocates, other people living with schizophrenia. Some of my peers and a lot of the people I see that are able to, to really do their best is the people that got passed just, you know, I always say medication was a lifesaver for me. It was the foundation that created the ability for me to do all of the things I do now. But it’s really just the beginning. I think the people who have the most success after medication are people who can find the joy in life again. And because it’s like it’s really difficult living with an illness like this, it’s really difficult struggling with any mental health issue or any mental illness. And so humor, I think, allows some people to be able to find a little bit of joy in everyday life that they didn’t have before their symptoms started. And that’s only going to help someone who is constantly trying to find a way to get through each day, like I was, or like some of my peers are.

00;12;12;09 – 00;12;29;14
Kelly Parbs
Absolutely, and I think that ties closely to actually another podcast that I want to do someday is on the topic of gratitude, when we can think of those things that we’re grateful for, or those things, like you said, that bring us joy, that’s going to have nothing but a positive impact on our lives.

00;12;29;16 – 00;12;32;00
Kody Green
Yeah, absolutely.

00;12;32;02 – 00;12;57;18
Kelly Parbs
One of the things that I read when I was preparing to have this conversation with you, I just thought was a great takeaway, was that hearty laughter, actually relieves tension, relieves your muscles, and it leaves your muscles relaxed for an additional 45 minutes after you’re done laughing. But I guess that’s something I- I never thought about or knew!

00;12;57;21 – 00;13;31;18
Kody Green
Yeah. No, that’s that’s something I even I wasn’t aware of. And I love hearing stats like that because I think it really just backs up a lot of what, you know, people like me have experienced but never been able to, you know, I don’t think to prove that. I just know based on personal experience that these things work. But I do know that there’s a lot of like, new studies that have come out about like humor and coping and not just with mental illness, but even like physical health conditions. And like how it can, help people in their journeys with, you know, other, ailments as well.

00;13;31;20 – 00;13;57;17
Kelly Parbs
Yes! And, in that same article- funny you say that because it said, you know, not just related to mental health, but it said that it decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection fighting antibodies. So really, laughter and and comedy can help improve resistance to disease. I mean, that’s great news for everybody.

00;13;57;20 – 00;14;05;12
Kody Green
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it really like, drives the point of of what we wanted to talk about today too.

00;14;05;14 – 00;14;27;00
Kelly Parbs
Yep, yep. And then further not to go on too much about this, but I just find it to be fascinating from a wellness perspective. It said that laughing increases your oxygen intake, which stimulates your heart and lungs and muscles and increases those endorphins that just make us feel good. Which you kind of mentioned earlier.

00;14;27;02 – 00;14;28;13
Kody Green
Yeah. Yeah.

00;14;28;15 – 00;15;49;10
Kelly Parbs
I was just thinking a while back, a few years back, sadly, a dear friend of mine went through terrible grief after unexpectedly losing her husband. And I often would say to her, you know, how can I support you? How can I love you through this? And every now and again she would say, Kelly, I think I just need to laugh. And that’s when I actually started really thinking about this. The benefit of laughter for mental health. And that’s when I saw firsthand how grief and joy really can happen at the same time- they can run parallel to one another? And I saw that maybe she just didn’t need in that moment to talk about the sadness of her loss, but instead needed to go out with some girlfriends and laugh. I got your name from Tom Farley. Actually, Kody, I think you know that I did a podcast with him. He is the brother of the late, great comedian Chris Farley. And he shared that in their family, like you just shared, they used humor sometimes as a way to like, avoid dealing with difficult emotions. Can you relate to that also? I mean, there’s definitely positives that we’re talking about, but have you ever experienced using it in a way that maybe was to avoid difficult emotions?

00;15;49;12 – 00;17;29;23
Kody Green
Oh, absolutely. I, and I actually had this conversation with, with Tom Farley as well. And we talked about this, in a video I made about, coping with humor and how, although, you know, we’ve talked about some of the benefits of it even here today. There are some people who especially this is something I think I see a lot in my area of the Midwest, which Tom Farley is also from, Wisconsin, like I am. And, sometimes I think when topics are too, like, too stigmatized or too difficult for families to discuss, sometimes they’ll use humor to avoid those topics. And so it can be really a double edged sword where like, you know, I talked about this too. There has been times where, early on in my diagnosis journey, I wasn’t using humor to, really express my feelings. I was using it to avoid my feelings. And, and so I think when we when I talk about humor in comedy, people, you know, can sometimes be skeptical because I think people see that. I think people can see when individuals are using comedy to avoid discussing what they’re feeling or going through. And so I, I know that’s a very real problem. I think it’s a more of a problem in communities where we haven’t gotten to you know, the levels we need to be with these mental health conversations or just difficult conversations in general. You know, I’m just using the Midwest because that’s my community. And I know we’re a little behind the times in these conversations and understanding.

00;17;29;26 – 00;17;50;07
Kelly Parbs
The- the whole topic of breaking the stigma, right. I think we are making progress. But- but yeah, that that’s one of the things I was thinking about. There might be people who say, you know, mental illness is no laughing matter. And I wondered if anyone has ever given you push back on your use of comedy, saying, you know, it downplays the seriousness of mental health.

00;17;50;10 – 00;20;02;02
Kody Green
Yeah, absolutely, I get that. I get that very often, especially now. My comedy’s become a big part of my advocacy. I got a lot of pushback early on because I, when I started comedy, I was a full time mental health advocate. And like I said, I love what I do. I love spreading awareness. I love having these really challenging conversations. But then I started doing standup comedy kind of in addition to all of the other stuff I do. And with that, I did get a lot of pushback from people in my community. It wasn’t so much patients. There were some patients and peers, but mostly it was caregivers who couldn’t understand why I was joking about it. And so I’ve tried to be I’ve tried to be understanding. Right. Because I understand how frustrating it is. Not only am I a person living with schizophrenia, I’ve been a caregiver too. I know how scary and frustrating an illness like schizophrenia can be. And so I really try to explain to people the benefits of why I use comedy and how it helps me as an individual, how it helps me spread awareness. And I think it’s one of those things where I’ve had to accept that not everyone’s going to be okay with it, and that’s all right. I had to realize that some people are not in a place where they’re going to be able to laugh about it, and I’m not mad at that at all. I’ve been there, and I think a lot of people get there. So I think the pushback is completely understandable. But I also think it hasn’t stopped me from doing the comedy, because I know that it’s healing me, and I know I have people reach out to me all the time on social media, people living with schizophrenia, sometimes caregivers who reach out and tell me that my comedy has helped them lighten the load that like mental illness has on them. And that, to me, is always going to be worth the time and investment I’ve put into, you know, creating this stand up identity I have and also just in my everyday content, because even when I’m doing speaking events, I’ll throw in jokes here and there just to lighten the really difficult conversations we’re having.

00;20;02;04 – 00;20;32;23
Kelly Parbs
Yes. And you have a really unique credibility because not only are you a mental health advocate, but you have this diagnosis of schizophrenia. You have this family dynamic that you grew up with, and you’ve been through very dark times. So you can you can speak to both sides of this with with great credibility. And I’m sure that that is very meaningful to some of the people who are listening to you.

00;20;32;25 – 00;21;26;24
Kody Green
Well, I think it helps them understand that when I do comedy, I don’t mean it in a malicious way. I’m not mocking any individual people with schizophrenia that I think is too far past the line. That’s where I draw the line with this type of comedy. But what I do is I talk about myself, I talk about my situation, and I talk about the illness. I am in no way trying to undermine what people are going through, because it’s a very real scary, you know, experience, to go through this not only as a, as a person with an illness, but as a caregiver. So I want to be able to reach people with my comedy in a way that’s not just fun, but effective. You know, I want people to get something out of it. And I want people to learn more about my illness. And I found that I if I do it right, I can do all that, you know.

00;21;26;26 – 00;21;39;20
Kelly Parbs
Yeah. It sounds like you really found a good way to navigate that balance between being funny and being mindful of mental health realities and how different people cope differently.

00;21;39;23 – 00;21;41;15
Kody Green
Yeah, absolutely.

00;21;41;18 – 00;22;28;22
Kelly Parbs
You know in my job I don’t know if you know, but in my job, part of my job is training people on how to support others after a loss or a tragedy. And we do, what to say and what not to say type exercise with people. For example, we might say, a do say would be, I can’t imagine how difficult this is for you. And, don’t say might be, well, you can always find another husband, right? You would never say. You’d never say that. Have you found that there are any firm like you don’t say is when it comes to using humor in mental health conversations. I mean, one you you shared with us. Never at the expense of of someone who’s going through it.

00;22;28;24 – 00;24;12;15
Kody Green
Yeah, I really that’s the one that I always stick to. I feel like everything else you know, there’s a line. And so with, you know, with everything else regarding mental health and comedy, a lot of people like dark humor and dark humor really toes that line of of what’s okay and what’s not okay. And so for me, the main thing has been I don’t want anyone to feel targeted. I, I would never, like, use an example of someone. I have so many stories of, you know, my peers, my friends who are advocates, stuff like that. And I would never use a story about them, you know, and to me, that’s too far. And, you know, there’s been there’s been times where, you know, I’ve been given permission to tell a story. I have a lot of, like I said, I do have a lot of people with my diagnosis that reach out to me and who love my comedy and and give me a story I can use. And I’ll usually turn it to make it sound like it was something I experienced so that I could do it in the expense of the person who shared it. And that, to me, is like the the only real rule I’ve set for myself is to not make anyone the target of the comedy. I think the other thing is remaining factual. So one of the things that really frustrates me is I hear a lot of people make jokes about schizophrenia, and what they don’t realize is, like some of the people doing it, they’ll make a joke, and there’s like a really popular meme online and it’s, I have schizophrenia, it’s a meme, and it says I have schizophrenia, and so do I.

00;24;12;17 – 00;24;13;10
Kelly Parbs
I’ve seen that!

00;24;13;15 – 00;24;23;10
Kody Green
And so but what that is actually what that would actually be saying would be, that would be D.I.D., or just a Dissociative Identity Disorder. So it’s not even about schizophrenia.

00;24;23;13 – 00;24;25;13
Kelly Parbs
People who don’t know their mental illnesses.

00;24;25;15 – 00;25;05;05
Kody Green
Exactly. So like that’s the one thing too is I want to stay factual. And so that’s why I don’t exaggerate stories. The stories I tell are all things I’ve experienced or all things that, you know, someone close to me has experienced, that they’ve allowed me to share those stories because I don’t want to, you know, we’re already people with schizophrenia, are already constantly fighting misconceptions about schizophrenia because of movies, TV shows and the media. I don’t want to add to that. So that’s my two big things, is I don’t want to make fun of anyone specifically. And I don’t want to add to the misconceptions or misunderstandings that are already out there about my illness or mental illness in general.

00;25;05;08 – 00;25;23;16
Kelly Parbs
Thank you. I really appreciate that takeaway. And you’re you’re making me think about how people overuse, like OCD, you know, say something like, I’m- my OCD is making me want to organize my closet. Exactly. That that is a misunderstanding of what OCD is.

00;25;23;21 – 00;26;13;19
Kody Green
Exactly. And if you use that example, you can literally probably think of a dozen or more times where you’ve heard OCD used as a joke on a TV show or movie, where it’s used in that way, where it’s not even factual, it’s not portraying how the illness actually affects a person’s life. And so that’s what I try to avoid in my own comedy. And, and so when I get mad, sometimes people will get mad at me because I’ll, you know, I do comedy. But then if I see a joke on TikTok or YouTube or Instagram that isn’t at all related to schizophrenia or isn’t factual, I’ll comment on it that I don’t like it, or that it’s wrong for whatever reason, and people will say, oh, you’re just being sensitive. I’m like, no, I love schizophrenia jokes, you just got to do them right!

00;26;13;22 – 00;26;23;04
Kelly Parbs
And by the way, Kody, while we’re talking, if there are any schizophrenia jokes or any other jokes you want to share with us, please do jump right in. Oh, yeah. We all could use a laugh.

00;26;23;06 – 00;26;24;26
Kody Green
Yeah, definitely.

00;26;24;28 – 00;26;45;05
Kelly Parbs
So I’m wondering, are there any times for you when humor, even though that is kind of part of your natural life, it sounds like always has been- are there any times where it just doesn’t feel accessible to you and and if so, is that a sign that maybe, maybe something deeper in you needs some attention?

00;26;45;07 – 00;28;51;08
Kody Green
Yeah, absolutely. I think I think any time there’s major life altering changes. So like even receiving my schizophrenia diagnosis or, you know, watching my mother struggle with hers, I think there’s, you know, we have this idea in comedy that there’s a right time to joke about stuff, right? It’s, you know, some stuff is too soon. And I think for me, that’s more what it is. It’s not about what’s going on. It’s about when I start joking about it? Because I’ve always found that, like, I have been able to really use humor in almost every scenario thus far in my life, and I’ve been through enough now that I think I’m confident to say, I don’t think there’s anything in my life that could happen that I wouldn’t eventually be able to find humor in. That being said, that might not resonate with everyone you know. And for me, I’ve found that eventually I’ve been able to to utilize humor. But it’s really a timing thing. It’s I know that when I, when I try to joke about it right away, it doesn’t help me in the way that it does years down the road. And, if I’m not getting that benefit out of it, then I really look into, you know, therapy and counseling and then, with some of my more traumatic things I’ve been through. I even have done eMDR therapy. Yeah. So, like, I, I love humor, but I don’t want to make it sound like humor is the only way I cope with things. And I still very much take care of myself. And earlier, when I was talking about medication being like the foundation of all of my care, for me it’s really like that medication aspect. But then on top of that, you know, I still do therapy and I still do counseling. I still really work on my mental wellness. And then comedy is really one of those top tiers. So if it’s like a pyramid, you know, it would be, you know, medication and well-being at the bottom. Comedy is really more of a top tier? Once I’m stable, I can focus on finding humor in some of these situations.

00;28;51;08 – 00;28;59;10
Kelly Parbs
Your overall wellness is more the foundation of your mental health. But- but the comedy is is an extra bonus.

00;28;59;12 – 00;29;30;22
Kody Green
Exactly. And it’s something that I usually need time to be able to, to find the humor in certain things. And I think that’s where some people go wrong with humor in comedy? Is trying to utilize it too soon. And this goes back to the point that Tom Farley made. If you try to utilize humor early on in a journey or in a life change, you might be using it more to avoid those feelings. I always try to deal with those feelings before I make it something that I’m willing to joke about.

00;29;30;25 – 00;30;02;21
Kelly Parbs
Sure! Stay tuned for part two of my conversation with Kody Green, and the topic of the healing nature of laughter, and how we all can incorporate laughter into our daily lives. To hear that episode and other episodes of OnTopic with Empathia, visit our website, www.empathia.com. Follow us on social media @Empathia, and subscribe to OnTopic with Empathia to hear new episodes as soon as they go live. I’m Kelly Parbs- thanks for listening to OnTopic with Empathia!