I’ve been so uptight lately that I actually found myself looking forward to a colonoscopy. I treated it as a vacation day with a drug-induced nap.

Unexpectedly, I was invited to a banquet the night before the colonoscopy. It was at the same hour that I was scheduled to drink the magic milkshake. When I explained my predicament to the banquet hosts, I assumed I would earn a pass.

Instead, the event organizers did not appear to fully appreciate that I was about to star in my own version of the film “Up the Yangtze.” They said they would be happy to save me a seat near the rear door of the banquet hall.

“Great,” I thought. “Then I can just step outside if I feel the urge to, oh, I don’t know, PLAY THE TROMBONE!”

It all worked out in the end. (That doesn’t sound right, does it?)

The whole situation made me laugh and reminded me that humor is the best way to deal with stress. With election anxiety, gasoline shortages and talk of Great Depression II, last week was completely tense.

Here are a few of my home remedies for when you feel like your head is about to explode.

* Feeling financial stress? I learned long ago that fretting over the daily ebb and flow of the stock market is a fool’s game.

Try this: Drop a bouncy ball. Then, using nothing but mental telepathy, try to stop the bouncy ball in midair. Do this three times, and you might actually have what it takes to time the stock market.

On the day the Dow tanked last week, I gathered my two sons, ages 2 and 6, for a little living-room dance party. With the woofers thumping out “Brick House” by the Commodores, my 6-year-old did a break dance using my wife’s big blue exercise ball. Meanwhile, the toddler bobbed his head and spun around in circles until he got dizzy and fell down in a heap. He repeated this five times.

By the end of the record, I felt much better. I call this “Brick House” therapy, and it works every time — no mortgage required.

* Feeling stress at work? Try to find something in your office or workplace to laugh about.

On Wednesday, I was drafted to lead a weekly brainstorming session with reporters. It’s a time when we sit around a table and air out story ideas. It’s informal, the ideas don’t have to be starched and pressed.

I became amused by a discussion among some young reporters who cling to the belief that people born in 1977 are nothing like people born in 1980.

“Hmmm,” I said, nodding and trying to get my mind around this distinction.

Really, the young reporters insisted. People born in 1980 and after automatically have Facebook pages, and people born in 1977 are really old and can remember ancient technologies such as dot-matrix computer printers that go “zzzt, zzzt, zzzt.”

OK.

As a member of a generation more likely to have face-lifts than Facebook pages, I found this discussion fascinating.

* If you are worried about gas shortages, one of the reporters quoted a story out of Atlanta. Motorists there, he said, have been spotted following tanker trucks, hoping they’ll stop somewhere to deliver gas.

If you’re that desperate to gas up, I have a better suggestion: Get a colonoscopy.

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