Online With The Professional Image

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Humor in the Workplace

Dear Colleague,

I have always considered humor my favorite form of aerobic exercise. In fact, science has proven that every time we laugh, we burn up 5 calories... enough of a reason for laughing harder and more frequently.

But more than a diet aid, humor creates bonds. It relieves stress and lowers blood pressure. Humor is an enormously powerful business asset. People view you as smarter, quicker, and sharper if you can find the humor in a difficult situation. Laughing at ourselves lets our colleagues know how human we really are.

In the best selling book, Good to Great, author Jim Collins determined that one of the common denominators of the 11 great companies that he profiled was that the CEO used self-effacing humor. Humor proved to be disarming in tense situations, created approachability, and led to more open working relationships.

So why does laughter make us feel good? It's purely chemical. The brain releases endorphins that provide a sense of euphoria. It's a healthy addiction...all that chuckling, chortling and laughing out loud. It's a proven stress reliever. Laughing also suppresses the production of cortisol, a hormone released when we are under stress that ultimately destroys our internal organs.

One of the greatest stories about humor comes from Christopher Reeves, five days after he was completely paralyzed after falling off a horse. As he hung suspended in a hospital room, trying to decide whether he wanted to live or not, he saw a blue scrub hat, a yellow gown and heard an eastern European accent muttering a stream of crazy medical jargon. It was Robin Williams posing as an insane Russian proctologist. "I laughed," said Reeves, "and I knew I was going to be all right."

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