It’s Good To Talk: The emotional cost of keeping things light

It’s that time of year again, new year, new start.

These are familiar thoughts to people in January; a grey month where all the fun seems to be left behind at Christmas.

There is a particular skill us Irish develop early in life, the ability to keep things light and display humour.

For many, this is a talent for deflecting attention away from anything too raw. A joke can smooth an awkward silence, make a difficult truth soften a bit or signal that we are coping well enough.

Therefore, don’t ask me any more questions.

Humour can be a way of being or a habit that we become fluent in, often without thinking about when or why we learned it. For much of the year, this way of being works.

Reassures

It oils the wheels of daily life. It allows conversations to move along. It reassures others that we are steady, capable, not in need of extra support, it’s basically a sign to the outside world that “I am ok”.

‘Laughter is one of the most effective regulators we have’

In Ireland, I feel we have a culture that values not making a fuss and humour offers a way to connect without exposing too much of the situation or yourself. But there is a quieter side to this skill that tends to surface in January.
As the festive noises of Christmas fades and the social calendar thins out, the places where humour supports us becomes fewer.

There are fewer gatherings, fewer casual connections, fewer moments where a quick remark can carry us through.

What remains is more time alone with our thoughts, and often a subtle shift in how our usual coping strategies feel.

The joke still comes easily, but it doesn’t quite lift things in the same way. I notice at this time of year, some people arrive to counselling with a vague sense of unease rather than a clear problem.

They describe feeling flat, restless, unmotivated and the phrase “nothing gives me joy”, is a common description of how people can feel in January.
It’s also common for people to experience overwhelm, even though nothing obvious is “wrong”.

Minimise

Most people are quick to minimise their own distress. They apologise for taking up time and tell me that they feel “bad” because other people have it worse than they do and all of that might all be delivered with a smile.

These are often people who have been carrying difficult experiences for a long time with remarkable grace. Losses might never have been fully acknowledged.

Chronic stress may normalise. Relationships may require constant emotional adjustment but the smile has remained and so is the lack of acknowledgment that all of this is happening. Keeping an outward smile keeps things manageable.

It allows life to continue without interruption and it’s not always a case of people ‘burying the head in the sand’ - often when people are living their life and wondering why they don’t feel good they are genuinely not able to see or acknowledge what they are carrying.

I tend to summarise what people tell me and when they hear it out loud it can give clarity to the actual emotional load that they may be holding.

It often gives people permission to feel and understand that their load is a massive factor in why they don’t feel ok.

Emotional armour

We all, to some degree, use an element of humour to deal with some of our emotions or life stresses. It becomes a form of emotional armour, protecting not only the person using it, but also the people around them.

It keeps conversations safe and socially acceptable. It signals that things are under control, even when that control requires considerable effort. It’s far from easy for that smile to be worn at times. It can be a heavy mask.

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Often we want connection without the vulnerability that comes with saying what is causing the pain. You’re unlikely to present to your GP with physical pain while smiling yet we often expect ourselves to act differently when the pain is mental. The problem is not humour itself.

Laughter is one of the most effective regulators we have. As the saying goes “Laughter is the best medicine.”
It releases tension, creates belonging, and reminds us that we are more than our struggles.

Shared humour can be really comforting, particularly when times are tough.

I have been to wakes and funerals where there have been moments of laughter, it didn’t take away the pain but it did provide small movements of relief in the face of hardship. It has carried families and communities through difficult chapters with resilience and warmth.

The cost comes when humour becomes the only acceptable expression of distress.
The smile behind the façade. When every difficult feeling is softened before it has a chance to be felt. Those feelings do not disappear!

They can be pushed down but that is not processing or healing. These feelings might wait for quieter times.
January, with its shorter days and slower pace, provides exactly that kind of quiet without the usual distractions.

The emotional load that you might have been avoiding might surface in indirect ways through disrupted sleep, irritability, low energy or a feeling of not “being yourself”.

Guilt

Many people struggle to make sense of this, often feeling guilty for feeling low, telling themselves they have no reason to complain.

It’s easier to look for a practical explanation, such as tiredness, weather, the post-Christmas lull. It’s mostly too hard for people to look too closely at what might have been building beneath the jokes.

Another factor is the way Irish humour often works through self-deprecation. We learn to make ourselves the punch line before anyone else can.

This can be charming and disarming, but over time it can also reinforce the idea that our own needs are something to be laughed away rather than taken seriously.

When you get into this habit it can then feel very strange or uncomfortable to speak openly about your emotional strain. I notice that there is also the social fear of “bringing the mood down”.

Many people fear that being honest about how they feel will burden others or dampen the mood, so it feels easier to say they are “grand.”

Being honest with yourself about her feelings in counselling will not take your humour away - it just asks you to look at when you use it rather than avoiding or using it to suppress real expression and feeling.

January, for all its greyness, can be a useful time for self-reflection or noticing, taking time to allow those feelings to be heard, felt, processed and hopefully healed, if need be. With fewer demands and expectations, there is a little more space to listen inward.

Humour can take on a different role when it sits alongside honesty rather than covering it, it becomes richer and more connective. Laughter that follows truth can feel more grounding than laughter used to avoid and can carry relief rather than deflection.

If you’re noticing that things feel heavier lately, it doesn’t mean anything is “wrong” with you. It may just mean it’s time to listen a little more closely to yourself. A few small shifts can help.

Noticing

Start by noticing. Pay attention to when the jokes come out too quickly- not to stop them but to be curious as to what they might be covering.

Give yourself one place where you don’t have to be funny. That might be with one trusted person, in a journal, on a walk, or in counselling.

Somewhere you can honour you and your feelings by saying, “Actually, I’m finding things hard.”
Low mood, tiredness, irritability - these are often signals, not failures.

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Instead of pushing through, ask what you might need more off right now? Maybe it’s rest, space, routine, or simply less pressure or less stress.

Remember you are the expert on yourself, if you allow yourself to trust yourself. If “grand” doesn’t quite fit, try something a bit closer to the truth, for example it might be, “a bit worn out,” “managing” or “not great this week.” Small honesty like this can make a surprising difference to the outcome of the conversation and the relationship with yourself.

And finally, remember that humour doesn’t disappear when you make space for honesty. It actually becomes lighter. It feels less like armour and more like connection.

January doesn’t ask us to have everything figured out. It just offers a quieter moment to check-in, to take the smile off for a minute, if we need to, and to carry ourselves with a bit more kindness through these Winter months.

All good wishes for the month and year ahead!

Tracy xx