How to Giggle: A Guide to Taking Life Less Seriously

In an age where health and wellness trends abound, Berner and DeSorbo argue that staying in tune with one’s own body is the best way to maintain physical well-being. The authors list a series of possible workout options and routines to discuss exercise in a positive, stress-free way.

Berner and DeSorbo describe five possible fitness routines they’ve researched for their reader’s benefit. These routines include Pilates, hip-hop yoga, gym memberships, sports, and hot-girl walking. They describe their personal experiences with each of these approaches to exercise, laying out the positive and negative aspects of each. As women who aren’t sports or wellness enthusiasts, Berner and DeSorbo have had to find exercise routines that are sustainable based on their sensibilities, schedules, and bodies. While DeSorbo enjoys Pilates, for example, it doesn’t appeal to Berner. Conversely, DeSorbo has never tried hip-hop yoga, a form of exercise that helped Berner get over a breakup and regain her confidence. The exercise routine that appeals most to both authors is walking, an easy and accessible way to get in steps while listening to podcasts, chatting with a friend, or running errands.

Berner and DeSorbo emphasize the importance of finding exercise routines that work best for one’s own sensibility and body type. Like all of life, exercise doesn’t have to be stressful: It can be a way to enjoy one’s life and body in a new way. This emphasis on personalization, sustainability, and mental well-being echoes broader fitness trends in the 21st century, which has seen a shift away from prior decades’ focus on exercising to maintain a certain physical appearance.

Chapter Lessons

• Exploring different forms of exercise can help a person find one that feels most accessible to them.
• It’s okay to be honest about how one feels and what one’s body needs; going to the gym or playing sports won’t appeal to everyone.
• Implementing a fitness routine doesn’t need to be overwhelming; walking is a simple way to explore one’s neighborhood and get fresh air.

Reflection Questions

• How does your relationship with exercise compare and contrast to the authors’? How does their outlook on fitness challenge your own?
• The authors lay out five exercise options. How might their reflections on each fitness routine make exercise less stressful? Which of these options might you choose, and why?

Berner and DeSorbo offer their readers new ways of navigating their relationships with men. In a society that still emphasizes women’s dependence on men, the authors stress the importance of prioritizing oneself over friendships and/or sexual relationships with men. For Berner and DeSorbo, this practice of decentering men has helped them discover and embrace their most authentic versions of self.

Berner and DeSorbo share examples of how they learned to decenter men on their journeys toward self-actualization. Berner’s most notable experience occurred after a breakup. She stayed with her then-boyfriend for over a year even though he made her feel bad about herself; she changed her life, routines, and personality to please him. When they broke up, she realized that she had to reclaim her own feelings, thoughts, and needs. She started applying herself to work and taking risks in her personal life. 

DeSorbo learned to decenter men after a negative relationship experience, too. An ex got angry with her when she decided not to take time off from her new job to attend a wedding with him. However, instead of asserting herself and simply declining his request, she lied and said her boss didn’t approve the time off. In retrospect, DeSorbo admits that she should have stood up for herself and vocalized her fears: She let her ex control her emotions and dictate her behaviors in compromising ways. Like Berner, she wasn’t following her instincts or claiming her needs. These are habits the authors believe women are culturally conditioned to exhibit; breaking these habits can be liberating.

When women decide to prioritize themselves instead of prioritizing men, they can achieve bigger goals, establish healthier relationships, feel more confident, and lead happier lives. The authors cite the ends of Kelly Clarkson’s, Shakira’s, Mandy Moore’s, and Katie Holmes’s toxic relationships as further evidence of the power of putting oneself first. While this chapter largely speaks to a heterosexual female readership in its emphasis on romantic relationships with men, elements of it engage with a broader feminist critique of how patriarchal societies center men’s experiences while casting women of any orientation (or race, social class, etc.) in supporting roles.   

Chapter Lessons

• Being anxious, upset, or stressed in a relationship is a signal that a man isn’t the right fit.
• Women should value their own needs, wants, and feelings over the needs, wants, and feelings of the men they’re with and be wary of men who try to force them to compromise on their needs.
• It’s important to have interests and activities that don’t involve men; happiness shouldn’t depend on being in a heterosexual relationship.

Reflection Questions

• How do your experiences or tendencies in relationships with men (romantic, platonic, or familial) compare to Berner and DeSorbo’s? Have you ever had a moment of realization similar to the ones the authors describe?
• How can you apply Berner and DeSorbo’s decentering lessons to your current relationships with men? What do you imagine will be the most difficult and/or most rewarding aspects of prioritizing yourself?

Because friendship is such an important part of the human experience, the authors stress the importance of spending time with positive people. Intimate relationships can dictate how an individual feels about themselves; it’s therefore vital to foster healthy connections. Berner and DeSorbo offer six methods for avoiding unhealthy friendships.

The authors’ friendship red flags include friends who only want to party, friends who feed off of one’s own pain, friends who are too self-involved, friends who are too dependent, friends who mistreat other women, and friends who don’t understand one’s sense of humor. While there are all different sorts of friendships, Berner and DeSorbo argue that these six friendship types can endanger the individual’s mental health. If friends are selfish, sloppy, or lack self-awareness, they won’t value a person for who they are and what they need. In short, it’s okay to acknowledge when one doesn’t get along with another person. Letting go of friendships that don’t build one up will create space for more positive relationships.

How to Giggle’s discussion of friendship occurs within a broader paradigm shift in the self-help genre, which has traditionally focused more on romantic, familial, or professional relationships. Since the 2010s, however, growing awareness of loneliness as a societal problem, driven by factors like the decline of traditional community structures and accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has led to renewed interest in platonic bonds. Books like Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman’s Big Friendship have made the case for treating friendship as seriously as any other relationship—an idea Berner and DeSorbo’s emphasis on “red flags” echoes. 

Chapter Lessons

• Fostering healthy friendships with others requires being honest with oneself about who one is and what one needs.
• Friends who take advantage of an individual’s time, generosity, or even sadness don’t value them as a person.
• Fewer but closer friendships are more important than numerous loose acquaintanceships.
• Friendships have seasons; it’s okay to let a friend go if they no longer share the same values.

Reflection Questions

• Do you have people in your life who exhibit the behaviors Berner and DeSorbo describe as red flags? How might applying the authors’ viewpoints to these relationships help you prioritize more positive friendships?
• Come up with a list of your own friendship red flags. How do they help you to see your own intimate relationships anew?

While all intimate relationships are complicated, fostering healthy friendships is essential to enjoying life and valuing oneself. The authors expound upon the preceding chapter and offer positive signs to look out for in friendships. For Berner and DeSorbo, establishing a close relationship with each other has infused their lives with meaning. They describe 10 things that have made their distinct connection work for so long.

The green flags that Berner and DeSorbo noticed in their friendship with each other include sending voice notes, sending DMs, playing each other’s wing woman, giving each other space, not obsessing over special occasions, treating the other person to coffee, watching out for each other while out, posing for photos together, supporting each other through breakups, and being honest with each other. These signs of connection and care have made Berner and DeSorbo’s relationship last over time. In turn, they’ve learned to communicate, to be vulnerable, to ask for help, and to encourage each other. Their relationship is an example of a healthy, reciprocal form of connection. By looking out for green flags like theirs, readers can find similarly lasting friendships.

Chapter Lessons

• Positive friendships should give a person the time and space to be themselves.
• Friends who care won’t turn petty situations into fights.
• Prioritizing honesty, openness, and grace is vital to forming healthy, lasting friendships.

Reflection Questions

• Which of the authors’ relationship green flags most resonates with you? Have you had these green flags in your friendships? Alternatively, how might you display these green flags to your friends?
• What role has friendship played in your adult life? Have you cultivated it as seriously as you have other relationships? If not, what is one step you might take toward doing so?

Berner and DeSorbo acknowledge the difficulties of dating men in contemporary American society and offer tips to navigate this intimidating social sphere. The authors offer a list of nine men not to date based on their negative behavioral patterns, explaining how these romantic entanglements might have negative emotional effects. The authors assert that women must avoid men who self-identify as “a ‘good guy’” (142), men who are too active on social media, men who immediately profess their love, men who have rude friends, men who follow models online, men who don’t understand women, men who can’t express their feelings, men who compare their partner to their ex-girlfriends, and men who expect their partner to be their caretaker. 

Dating any of these nine boyfriend “archetypes” can impact a woman in a negative manner, causing her to compromise or doubt herself. Conversely, the authors imply that dating men who are understanding and caring, honest and open, and responsible and self-possessed can lead to healthier romantic relationships. Dating offers constant challenges, but if women follow the authors’ guidelines, they might discover more meaningful connections with men.

More overtly than most other sections, this chapter assumes a particular readership—specifically, heterosexual women. Although some of the “red flags” the authors list transcend gender (for example, having rude friends), many reflect male behavior in a patriarchal social context. For example, Berner and DeSorbo’s warnings about “good guys” echo ongoing discourse about men who leverage feminism or its ideas to excuse their own mistreatment of women. While this focus limits the book’s relevance in some ways, it also distinguishes it from an older class of self-help books (for example, John Gray’s Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus) that discussed relationships between men and women in ways that have since been criticized as sexist. 

Chapter Lessons

• When dating, women should not be positive to a fault but rather remain open and aware of their partners’ behavior so that they can detect when a relationship isn’t working.
• If a man expects his partner to take care of him, he isn’t prioritizing their needs or valuing them as a person.
• The people a man surrounds himself with and the way he conducts himself online reflect on his character.
• Romance is about communication; if a romantic partner can’t express their feelings, the relationship may not be sustainable.

Reflection Questions

• Have you dated any of the boyfriend archetypes Berner and DeSorbo describe? How have your relationships with these men played out? Do you agree with the authors’ assessments of these men? 
• How might you use Berner and DeSorbo’s dating guidelines to navigate your own dating conflicts? How could avoiding the men the authors describe set you on a different romantic path?