We should stop laughing at the time when we are serious

We should stop laughing at the time when we are serious

How to Stop Laughing when You Laugh at Inappropriate Times

Sometimes, you just can't help feeling the urge to laugh. If you allow yourself to laugh during serious moments, you may end up accidentally offending someone. While it might not be that easy to stifle a laugh, for most people it can be done! Remember you have deoderant...use it.

1. Understand when it is inappropriate to laugh. They say that "laughter is the best medicine," but if the occasion is very serious, others may not appreciate your laughter. If you go into a situation knowing that it's not laughable, it'll help you maintain a more serious demeanor.

2. Check to see if others are laughing, or at least smiling a lot. If they aren't, then remind yourself not to laugh unless they do. Or, if you see someone else laughing inappropriately (and everyone else giving that person dirty looks) then get away from them as quickly as possible, because inopportune laughter can be infectious.

3. Think of something very sad and depressing. If you need inspiration, the daily news is usually full of unfortunate events that will suffice to calm you down. Think about something that makes you want to cry. Although this can be unpleasant, it usually takes care of the uncontrollable urge to laugh. If sadness doesn't work, fear is also extremely effective. Think of a scene from a horror movie you just saw or a car accident. This is physically proven to work because the addrenaline (the fear hormone) released from your brain when you have these thoughts will block out the endorphanes (the happiness or laughing hormone). It may take some practice to convince yourself enough of the fear, but once you have mastered it, it's very effective.

4. Try pinching yourself or causing some other strong physical sensation, such as biting your inner cheek or your tongue (don't bite too hard!). Bite each side of your mouth together, so that the edge of your lips aren't rising up to make you smile or laugh. Hold your breath when you are about to laugh. This can act as a distraction, helping you beat the urge to laugh out loud. If you still squeeze out a smile which other people tend to notice, press your lips together so it doesn't look like you're smiling.(sometimes when you hold your breath though, it just squeezes the laugh out even louder or you laugh at yourself, so be cautious.)

5. Disguise a smile or laugh with a coughing fit. If a grin or chuckle slips through, quickly cover it up by putting your hand over your mouth and coughing. Move away from the crowd, even if it means stepping out of the room or going to the restrooms. If they see you are coughing, they will understand.

6. Force yourself to turn your laugh into a cry if the occasion is something sad such as a funeral. Some people sound like they are laughing before they cry.

7. Try exhaling as much of the air as possible from your lungs. This removal of the air will not allow the laugh to continue and make it stop. This usually works best when combined with the coughing technique mentioned above. A combination of techniques is often the best!

8. If it gets really bad, hold your nose and cover your mouth with that hand. Then people can't see your grin, and you can laugh as hard as you wish inside yourself. You may start shaking, but that's OK, it can be covered as crying. Try not to let any sound out, but if you do ease up by accident it sounds much like a sneeze or a strange snort.

9. Open your mouth wide and let the laughter out silently without smiling, this may look odd but it works.

10. Pretend to pick your teeth. Open your mouth wide and pretend to pick away at something stuck. Not only does it totally hide your smile, you also clean your teeth at the same time! Be careful though because the face made is funny enough to make others start laughing when they see what you're up to.

11. Use reverse psychology on yourself. By telling yourself something like, "This is funny! Laugh some more!" you end up finding what ever you were laughing at not funny any more.

12. Count backwards from 10 to 1. If this doesn't work, try again. Even forward counting can help.

13. Try biting down on one side of your lower lip. Then laugh all you want without opening your mouth. People will think you are crying and trying to hold it back. But after you are done, don't just stop. Inhale a few times as if you are hyperventilating.

14. Push your tongue against the top of your mouth, and at the same time pushing your mouth shut slightly.

15. Bite your tongue and pull your cheeks back....or if you are at a funeral or something serious, hold your hands up to your face and smile and laugh as much as you want but try to make the laughing sound like you're crying.

16. Close your mouth and breathe heavily through your nose, as if you are laughing, just without opening your mouth. It can be covered up as a cold or something of that nature.

17. Bite the inside of your cheeks.

18. Do a multiplication in your head. This is guaranteed to work, but it may require some practice. In case you never noticed, when we hear a joke or see something funny, we keep recreating the joke/scene in our minds over and over, and that's why we keep laughing. So the best way to stop laughing is to get the joke out of your head. Doing some mental calculation will, undoubtedly, require all your attention. Just try doing a multiplication and reading a book or thinking about anything else at the same time, you'll see it's impossible. However, if you're trying to hold laughter in a school play or something of that sort, where you still have to think about what to do next, you're gonna have to learn not to look down or look distant while you're doing the math, and, also, to start doing the calculations again as soon as you feel like laughing, but without stopping what you're doing.

19. If multiplications are too much of a strain for you, you can always try other calculations, or just try to remember something, anything. Try to remember the names of all your friends and relatives, for instance, or trying to list all the songs of your favorite music album. Whatever uses your brain capacity and takes your attention away from the joke will help.

20. If none of the above work, then get away to a private area (e.g. a restroom) and let it out. Return to what you were doing after you're done