Sometimes, you just can’t help feeling the urge to laugh. If you allow yourself to laugh at serious moments, you may offend someone. Controlling the urge to laugh is not always easy, but it can be done.
Steps
- Make sure that you really shouldn’t laugh. They say that “laughter is the best medicine,” and if the occasion is very serious, others may not appreciate your laughter.
- If you decide that there is no way you can go ahead and laugh, try to 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 the above does not work, you may want to try pinching yourself or causing some other strong physical sensation, such as biting your inner cheek or your tongue (don’t bite too hard!). This can act as a distraction, helping you beat the urge to laugh.
- Just stop breathing when you are about to laugh or laughing and the smile will just slide away in seconds.
