Laughter Decreases Pain

 Science, Wellbeing  No Responses »
Jan 312012
 

I admire people who come up with creative solutions to their problems, so I wanted to share this Scientific American article with you.

The authors of the scientific study were trying to understand why laughter makes us feel good. One of their theories was that when we laugh, we release endorphins, our internally manufactured painkillers. So they thought that measuring the level of endorphins released during laughter would be a way into understanding the physiological process of laughter. However, measuring the level of endorphins a person is producing can only really be done through a spinal tap (ouch!). In addition to this, they wanted to measure laughter in a social situation, so they took their research to the Edinburgh Fringe.

The scientists got creative.

A way of measuring the level of endorphins in a person is to measure their tolerance to pain. So the scientists found different ways of making people feel pain. They had to do this straight after they experienced laughter, so they got their subjects to lean against a wall in the sitting position until the pain in their legs got too high and they fell over.

I will not go into the details of the experiment here as they are clearly explained in the Scientific American’s blog (click here) but I will of course summarise their findings.

The pain threshold in those people who had attended a comedy at the Fringe and therefore had laughed in a group, were able to withstand more pain than those who had watched a documentary on their own or watched a comedy on their own.

This means that:

Laughter can reduce our perception of pain and

Our body responds to comedy more strongly when in the company of others.

Maybe we should start taking this research seriously and laugh more often when we’re down.

Or maybe we are doing this already: the mechanics of crying (really, proper crying) are pretty similar to the mechanics of laughing. So maybe the body is already protecting us by trigerring off a similar mechanism, if only a less appealing one.

 

To Change or Not to Change

 Change, Wellbeing  No Responses »
Jan 242012
 

Sometimes we think we could be happier if…

I’m sure more stress is caused when pondering over what could or couldn’t be done, what we should or shouldn’t change, than by the actions of doing and changing.

Some years ago, I came across a way of tackling this that has helped me enourmously to remain happy at work and in my personal life, but mainly at work, as this is the area where I have to take most decisions. Let me share this with you. Who knows, it might be of some help at some point.

  1. (Let’s write a list.) Identify what is not right.
  2. Is changing this beyond your control? Then stop worrying about it and come up with strategies to deal with it.
  3. If changing it is within your control, decide whether you want to change it. Really, do. If you are going to change it do it soon, it won’t change by itself. (Or it might, but not in the way you desire.)
  4. If you are not going to change “it”, accept that you are not going to change it and move on.

In case I haven’t expressed myself correctly, here is a more succint way of saying more or less the same thing.
“Focus on what you can do in any given situation, rather than on what you can’t do or aren’t allowed to do.”
Bruce Rosenstein in Learn from Peter Drucker, Leadership Excellence March 2010

WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY AT WORK?

It seems like an easy question but, apparently, it’s not. According to Daniel Gilbert (author of Stumbling on Happiness), people are not very good at predicting those things that make them happy.

It is also possible that the things that are keeping you engaged at work would be classified as “small”, such as solving a small problem, getting a difficult phone call over and done with or helping a colleague at work.

Identify what makes you happy and see if there is any way to do more of it. Give yourself time to think about this: just because it’s not obvious, it doesn’t mean it’s not possible. Once you have identified “it” you will be more alert to the possibilities that might form themselves around you. See what things at work can be changed or eliminated to create space for more meaningful activities – “meaningful” to yourself, your team and your organisation.

We spend so much time of our lives at work (or thinking about work or the possibility of work) that we deserve to give ourselves a chance to be as happy there as we can. Not always possible, but worth striving for.

Was this post useful? Make sure to read Roll Out Your Happiness Programme.

Illustration by arte_ram

 

Roll Out Your Happiness Carpet

 Leadership, Wellbeing  No Responses »
Jan 162012
 

The Globe awards have just been awarded, the BAFTA nominations have already been announced. With all this talk of glamour, maybe it’s time to roll our your own happiness carpet.

It might sound a bit hippy-dippy, but happiness at work continues to attract the interest of psychologists and neuroscientists alike.

I set up a training business with one goal in mind: to enable people to be happy at work. Okay, two goals in mind, to enable people to be happy at work and make a living out of it. For me, the most effective way of doing this is to work with managers and leaders in organisations, as they have the ability to influence other people’s happiness at work.

By being happy at work, I don’t mean elated (although that could sometimes be the case). I mean being engaged with the work, challenged but not threatened, pleased to be working with those around you and feeling like you make a difference. Even through setbacks, I can be happy if I feel like they are temporary and part of a learning curve. Even routine work can make me happy, if I feel it would be missed if I didn’t carry it out. When the work itself is not particularly challenging, I might enjoy the company of others who seem supportive of what I do.

Yes, it pays to have happy people at work.

  • Happy employees show, on average, 31% more productivity.
  • Happy employees show, on average, 3 times more creativity. (There goes the whole myth of the unhappy creative person out of the window.)
  • Employees scoring low in “life satisfaction” (the standard metric for measuring productivity and happiness) stay at home 1.25 days a month.

So, a happy employee is more likely to use their time wisely, be more able to solve problems and turn up for work.

I think I can stop now advocating for the need to have happy teams and begin to talk about what we can do about it.

A HAPPY YOU

The first step in creating (or, if you’re lucky, sustaining) a happy team is to make sure that you are happy yourself.

If you feel like you could be happier at work, here are some simple things you could try out. There is no way that I am going to attempt to understand your individual situation without having met you first. However, in order to change, you will need to develop new habits and those I am about to suggest, have been proved to work. When these activities were taken up by a group of tax managers during a time of high pressure (Dec 2008), their life satisfaction scale moved from 22.96 (out of 35) to 27.23 after four months.(Source: Positive Intelligence by Shawn Achor. HBR Jan/Feb 2012.)

So, why not give them a try?

Choose one of the following five activities and carry it out every day for 3 weeks. (Don’t give yourself a hard time if you skip a day or two, we don’t want to create unnecessary pressure!)

  • Write down (or type), three things you were grateful for.
  • Write a positive message to someone in your social support network.
  • Meditate for two minutes.
  • Exercise for ten minutes.
  • Write down briefly the most meaningful experience of the last 24 hours.

Chances are, that one of these will work to make you feel happier or help maintain your sense of thriving. Furthermore, if you respond to this exercise in a similar way to those who took part in the study, you will rip the benefits for months.

CATCHY HAPPINESS

Happiness is contagious: we can’t help feeling good when we’re around those who are happy. I mean genuinely happy, not in-your-face absolutely fantastic. It is therefore worth continuing to invest in yourself and lead by example. One of the things you can do which will raise your happiness levels, is to help others. Yes, in the words of psychologist Daniel Gilbert (author of Sumbling on Happiness):

One of the most selfish things you can do is help others.

Sounds good to me – if you go out of your way to help your team members, you will benefit both your team and yourself. If you want the data to support this argument, here it is.

In a study involving Harvard students, Shawn Achor found that those who went out of their way to help others were 10 times more likely to be engaged in their work. (Source: Positive Intelligence by Shawn Achor. HBR Jan/Feb 2012.)

Being happy, engaged, connected, in flow… all different ways of describing the desired state when at work, where we spend an enourmous amount of our life.

NEXT WEEK: To Change or Not to Change – how solving that dilemma can make us happier.

 

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