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6 June, 2012 by Cris Popp

Laughter Builds Community at Work

If you’ve ever attended one of our laughter workshops, or checked out the website, you would know by now that scientific research shows laughter improves our health, increases our happiness, lowers our stress hormones, and tackles depression.

Did you also know that laughter helps break down social barriers, and is a common language to all no matter what corner of this great globe you come from. In this day and age of busyness, long work hours and with a large proportion of our communication with others no longer taking place face to face, but rather through a plethora of social media devices, our communities are suffering.

You may never have thought of your place of work as a community before, but seeing as you spend a large proportion of your time at work, and for many, your work colleagues will also factor in your social circles, attitudes to the work environment, the work places ability to cope with stress, the approachability of individuals within the workplace etc. will all affect the identity of the people within the community workplace and their degree of cohesiveness, productivity, happiness and wellbeing.

Have you ever stopped long enough to take a look at the people around you; at the shops, on the commuter train or bus, the shopping centres, your office? Not many of them are smiling and many of them are head down furiously one thumb typing.

Recently, I made a point of making eye contact and smiling at complete strangers (not in a weird stalkerish kind of way of course) hurriedly making their way to work. I was surprised at how many people were visibly shocked that a) someone looked at them and b) that someone smiled at them. I was rewarded more often than not with a returned smile. It then occurred to me that many of these people were heading into offices, where they would more than likely spend the next 8 – 10 hours sitting in front of a computer, eating lunch on the go if at all, checking their Facebook or Twitter status in a few brief moments of down time, and quite possibly, not actually have a real face to face non work related conversation all day. Bit sad really.

Is it any wonder that this combined with stress, deadlines, an inbox with 100’s of waiting emails, and a mobile phone that is never off that most workplaces are somewhere people can’t wait to get out of instead of places of laughter, productivity, increased job satisfaction and less stress?

I say, I say, I say. What do you get if you cross a tired office worker with a week of desk-lunches and 15 hours’ overtime? An unproductive workforce. And a distinct lack of humorous jokes.

A wise man once said, “He who has achieved success has worked well, laughed often and loved much.” So if we want to achieve success in our workplaces, why aren’t we laughing more there?

Laughter is a major coping mechanism for dealing with stress.  It also helps us to feel happier; two ingredients of creating stronger communities and workplaces.

If there is less stress and a greater sense of wellbeing, we are more able to deal with the challenges we face. Furthermore, laughter has the power to break down barriers so that people are more approachable and we become a stronger community.

Supportive humour and laughter should be part of the culture in every work place community, helping to reduce stress, get rid of fear, increase performance, and bring a greater sense of happiness and well-being.

Quite aside from the fact that we all like a laugh, the benefits of some office humour gives you more to talk about with your colleagues and a chance to bond with people you may not get to speak to in the office. Humour can help build relationships, it is  good for networking, and is a powerful bonding agent.

So where can you start?

  1. Firstly, smile at people,and smile at your colleagues Smiles are infectious and make you feel better.
  2. Secondly, tell a joke, but make sure you know the joke. “If your short-term memory is rubbish, find one that’s short and simple. Tell it with conviction. Don’t ‘um’ and ‘er’ and be believable. Remember Ivor Dembina’s law of comedy: if it’s going badly, get off. If it’s going well, get off.”
  3. Thirdly, get a bit of laughter into your workplace – contact us to find out how a laughter session can change the tone of your workplace and bring everyone together. Phone Cris 0438 545 607 or email kristie@laughterworks.com.au 🙂

Filed Under: Happiness, Laughter World, Uncategorized Tagged With: laughter, Laughter in the workplace, laughter workshops, stress-management

1 October, 2011 by Cris Popp

Laughter Yoga on 60 Minutes

Following our recent Laughter Yoga conference, 60 Minutes is running a story on happiness and featuring Laughter Yoga this Sunday 2nd October 2011. As we understand it, this 60 minutes program, running from 7:30pm to 8:30pm on channel 9, will cover the topic of happiness and the central role of laughter for wellbeing and thriving.

With increasing acceptance of the role of promoting individual health and wellbeing in the workplace more businesses are including Laughter Yoga or brief Laughter sessions at their conferences & team building days. As Australia’s premier corporate laughter leader, Laughter Works has been running components of Laughter Yoga since 2004 leaving a smile on the faces of thousands of employees, boosting the bottom line and relieving stress. Because of our corporate business background we can guarantee the effectiveness – and appropriateness – of our sessions. The many highly positive testimonials on our site are an assurance that your leadership team and your staff will thank you for calling us. We also run a range of other programs including resilience and Hi!-Performance.

For more information on Laughter Yoga, please contact us at info@laughterworks.com.au or call Kris Popp on 0438 54 56 07.

Filed Under: Happiness, Laughter World Tagged With: Health & Happiness, Laughter Works, laughter yoga, Wellbeing

18 February, 2011 by Cris Popp

It Pays to be Happy at Work

How would you like to be more successful at work?  How would you like to be better paid?  What about being more engaged and energised – does that grab you?  And what would it be like if Monday mornings were something you looked forward too?  If you already do then congratulations, you’re probably happy at work.  If you’re not, then the good news is that you’re going to reap a whole pile of benefits as we show you how to be happier at work.

Jessica Pryce-Jones (author of Happiness at Work) conducted a large-scale study of more than 3,000 respondents in 79 countries and she found that the happiest employees are:

  • 180% more energised
  • 155% happier with their jobs
  • 150% happier with life
  • 108%  more engaged
  • 50% more motivated and
  • 50% more productive!

The happiest employees took 2/3 less sick leave and spent 80% of their time doing what they were there to do compared with 40% by the least happiest.

It’s not just employers that are better off. According to Dr Sonja Lyubomirski (Ph.DS Psychology, University of California) people that are happy at the office have higher incomes, better outcomes and enjoy more success. In research published in 2005, Lyubomirski found that there was a much stronger causal link between happiness and success than between success and happiness – i.e. happy people become successful – not the other way around (though there is a bit of that). Or put it another way – if you’re miserable before you became successful you’ll be miserable afterwards ( so don’t put it off your happiness 🙂 !).

Why then do employers (and let’s face it many employees) resist the notion of happiness at work?  Why do they have a separate (and smaller) budget for wellbeing then they do for professional development?  It’s because we think to be productive you also have to be serious and stressed.  I call it the “George Costanza Myth” (see my earlier post for more).   It’s the notion that successful people are harried, highly-strung and much too busy to have fun or to share a kind word with their colleagues.

In truth maintaining a positive, uplifted, outward-looking and humourful state is much better for your work, concentration, memory and decision-making than a serious, stressed and/or narrow focus.  It’s also better for your health, wellbeing, wallet and success.  So enjoy your life and your work – it’s good for you and it’s good for your organisation.  Stay tuned for further updates on how to build your happiness and productivity, save time and stop stress. Comments welcome.

Give yourself a top day.

Kris Popp
Chief Happiness Officer

Filed Under: Happiness Tagged With: happiness, workplace happiness

10 December, 2010 by Cris Popp

Fun Helps Change and Learning

It should be pretty obvious to you by now that we believe having fun is a better way to change behaviour than a negative, deficit-based approach (see our YouTube testimonials and clips ). It ties in with our belief that happy people are more effective at work and in their personal lives. There’s plenty of scientific evidence for that and a growing body of practice including Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and Innovative Positive Organisational Development (IPOD). Now IPOD and AI probably don’t sound like very “fun” words to you (we’re geeks and love this subject) so we’re going to make it fun for you to understand. Just watch this clip read on below. Notice how many more people take the stairs after the change ….

It does remind me of the maths teacher reported in the Melbourne Age that who brought a dog into class and found that all the students’ marks went up. People are attracted to what makes them feel good and avoid that which makes them feel bad (oh what a surprise *lol*). Not everything can be lighthearted but things have gone too far the other way – there is an epidemic of seriousness. Workplaces and jobs can be much more fun. Workshops, especially, should be fun to make people receptive to new messages and help learning. That is if you want people to want to be there. And we wonder how to engage our people!

Filed Under: Engagement, Happiness, Learning, Myths

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