It’s interesting how many of the Rules for a healthy mind involve being able to detach, to separate yourself out, to observe your own thoughts and feelings. It’s great to stand back and look at yourself from a distance – it puts things in perspective.

Many years ago, I volunteered with a charity which was all about listening to people who were going through hard times. It’s hard to describe just how much I learnt about life in general from this, about how people cope with adversity, and about the ways we can help, or inadvertently hinder them.

One of the things I observed was that there was a high correlation between people who coped and those who had a good sense of humour. Those were the people who were able to laugh at themselves and their situation, even in circumstances where finding any humour should have been a real stretch. I came to the conclusion that the reason for this is that, in order to laugh at yourself, you have to step back and observe yourself and – hey, presto! – you have detachment and perspective.

Of course this on its own won’t solve all your problems, but you’d be surprised how much it helps. It honestly can go most of the way to solving life’s minor glitches – getting soaked because you forgot your umbrella, or realising as you’re about to serve up a meal that you forgot to turn the oven on and the food is still raw. And if you’re going through real trauma, it can be part of the difference between falling apart or holding it together.

If you can take the stress out of those everyday mishaps and irritations by laughing at yourself or your situation, you can learn to reduce your stress levels significantly. One of my favourite strategies when I’m having one of those days is to write the funny version of the incident in my head, while I’m getting progressively wetter without my umbrella, or sitting in the traffic jam, or storming out of the shop in frustration at how I’ve been treated.

A friend of my recently recounted a story in which his organisation (as in he’s the boss) had cleared out the drains behind the kitchen because they discovered they were clogged up with fat and detritus. It was revolting, and they put it in a wheelbarrow outside the kitchen door while arranging to dispose of it. Ten minutes later, they had an unannounced on-the-spot inspection from the council heath officer. They couldn’t risk the inspector finding the wheelbarrow, so my friend had to smuggle it past him and hide it before the chap reached the kitchen. My friend was wearing a brand-new suit, which got covered in fat as he literally wheeled the fatberg past a window while the inspector was inside with his back turned. Now this must have been pretty nerve-racking at the time, but the way my friend related the story made it laugh-out-loud funny, and I could see that he’d dealt with it by seeing the funny side even as it was happening. The result was that a potentially stressful incident had actually been a highly entertaining one for him.