It amazes me how researchers are gradually finding that there’s a huge amount of truth in old wives tales and sayings. ‘Laughter is the best medicine’ is a classic. Are you aware just how seriously laughter is being taken nowadays?
Scientists believe that laughter came before speech in our evolution and certainly in child development a baby will be laughing before it talks. Laughter may originally have been a shared relief after the passing of danger. Children find it easy to play and laugh, but as we grow into adults we’re so overwhelmed by busyness and ‘shoulds’ and ‘should nots’ that we lose that spontaneous ability, which is a shame, because it’s one of the healthiest things you can do.
Did you know that laughing 100 times is the equivalent of 15 minutes on an exercise bike? Laughter works out your diaphragm and your abdominal, respiratory, facial, leg and back muscles. It also lowers blood pressure and helps strengthen your immune system. That’s the physical side.
Mentally it’s magic! It alleviates stress, disperses depression, strengthens human bonds and relieves anger and anxiety. In fact, a lack of humour (often owing to low self-esteem) will slow your thought processes down, making you more prone to anxiety, stress and depression.
Humour in the workplace is fundamental in order to create cooperation, trust, team spirit, good morale and communication. Those few minutes of banter or telling jokes does everyone a power of good. If you’re a boss try to make sure you inject humour into situations and encourage others to do likewise. When people laugh together they work better together.
If you work in a humourless place, then try to log on to a joke website or something similar for five minutes during the day, or take a comedy book with you and read it at lunchtime.
Laughter is brilliant for diffusing situations. A light-hearted remark in the middle of a difficult problem relieves tension. If someone is angry and you can manage to make them laugh the anger fades. If you’re telling your children off or having a row with a teenager, humour goes a long way towards getting your point across.
I know a lot of this seems obvious, but far too many of us lead lives with an inadequate amount of laughter, which is very, very sad. It leads to ill-health, rage and unnecessary stress. Make up your mind to inject lots of laughter into your life. Even smiling and chuckling a lot will help. Read funny stories and jokes or, even better, tell funny stories and jokes. Watch comedy DVDs and sitcoms or listen to comedy CDs, read funny books and most of all find funny people to spend your time with. Develop your own sense of humour by trying to see the absurdity in events around you. Once you start looking you’ll find yourself laughing at situations all over the place instead of becoming irritable and you’ll find that other people start laughing with you.
My personal favourite is stand up comics and the ones that make me laugh the most are without doubt Eddie Izzard (a genius!), Alan Davies and Lee Evans. Give them a try and see if they make you laugh and let me know what makes you laugh too!
Scientists believe that laughter came before speech in our evolution and certainly in child development a baby will be laughing before it talks. Laughter may originally have been a shared relief after the passing of danger. Children find it easy to play and laugh, but as we grow into adults we’re so overwhelmed by busyness and ‘shoulds’ and ‘should nots’ that we lose that spontaneous ability, which is a shame, because it’s one of the healthiest things you can do.
Did you know that laughing 100 times is the equivalent of 15 minutes on an exercise bike? Laughter works out your diaphragm and your abdominal, respiratory, facial, leg and back muscles. It also lowers blood pressure and helps strengthen your immune system. That’s the physical side.
Mentally it’s magic! It alleviates stress, disperses depression, strengthens human bonds and relieves anger and anxiety. In fact, a lack of humour (often owing to low self-esteem) will slow your thought processes down, making you more prone to anxiety, stress and depression.
Humour in the workplace is fundamental in order to create cooperation, trust, team spirit, good morale and communication. Those few minutes of banter or telling jokes does everyone a power of good. If you’re a boss try to make sure you inject humour into situations and encourage others to do likewise. When people laugh together they work better together.
If you work in a humourless place, then try to log on to a joke website or something similar for five minutes during the day, or take a comedy book with you and read it at lunchtime.
Laughter is brilliant for diffusing situations. A light-hearted remark in the middle of a difficult problem relieves tension. If someone is angry and you can manage to make them laugh the anger fades. If you’re telling your children off or having a row with a teenager, humour goes a long way towards getting your point across.
I know a lot of this seems obvious, but far too many of us lead lives with an inadequate amount of laughter, which is very, very sad. It leads to ill-health, rage and unnecessary stress. Make up your mind to inject lots of laughter into your life. Even smiling and chuckling a lot will help. Read funny stories and jokes or, even better, tell funny stories and jokes. Watch comedy DVDs and sitcoms or listen to comedy CDs, read funny books and most of all find funny people to spend your time with. Develop your own sense of humour by trying to see the absurdity in events around you. Once you start looking you’ll find yourself laughing at situations all over the place instead of becoming irritable and you’ll find that other people start laughing with you.
My personal favourite is stand up comics and the ones that make me laugh the most are without doubt Eddie Izzard (a genius!), Alan Davies and Lee Evans. Give them a try and see if they make you laugh and let me know what makes you laugh too!
