Making a shift to a more joyful work life - Sarah Beaumont

Today’s work environment sees more and more people spending longer hours at work, under ever increasing pressure to meet deadlines and without the motivation or enthusiasm needed to sustain them. April is the month for allowing the “inner fool” to shine through, so enter workplace humour: to help get you through the day, over and above it. Several studies have shown how having a well-developed sense of humour can benefit people in the workplace, and in life.

On an organisational level, research by Abramis (1990, cited in Yates, 2001) found that humour and fun could be used as tools to help people get through their work. Play was shown to have positive effects on factors such as job satisfaction, organisational involvement and work competence. On a group level, Duncan and Feisal (1989) found that joking behaviour facilitated cohesiveness among groups by acting as a means to which group members could relate to each other. Joking, when used appropriately, thus created a sense of belonging to the group.

On a personal level, humour has been demonstrated to moderate the impact of stress on our lives. Research by Abel (1998) found that a well-developed sense of humour in men and women curbed physical reactions to stress such as headache, loss of energy and muscle ache, and curbed anxious reactions to stress in men. Olinger and Dance (1993, cited in Abel, 1998) have described humour as being able to produce a shift in thoughts and consequent feelings about stressful situations, in order to view them as less threatening.

Humour may have the ability to move us from having fearful reactions in stressful situations to more confident reactions, which allow us to progress through stressful situations more quickly and easily. Dr. Spencer Johnson (1998), author of the book, “Who Moved My Cheese” identified the ability to laugh at oneself and one’s situation as being one of the most important precursors of successful change.

“The most revolutionary act you can commit in today’s society is to be publicly happy” Dr. Patch Adams.

Do you suffer from Pronoia? I’d like to confess that I do. Pronoia is the positive counterpart of paranoia – it is the belief that the universe is plotting to make you happy and bring you positive experiences. This state is most often noted in childhood, however the pronoia state can be rekindled in adulthood through the use of humour and certain other practices that include the genuine and enthusiastic expression of emotions. Other practices that may contribute to pronoia are an enhanced sense of play, a willingness to explore new sounds and facial expressions and maintaining an attitude of wonder and lifelong learning.

It may never be too late to rekindle a state of pronoia, but beware:

it may lead to a  diagnosis of major affective disorder – pleasant type.Making the shift into a more joyful work life. Humour is a communication device specifically designed to elicit joy and happiness. It is effective in relieving anxiety and stress and enhancescommunication.

Challenge your old belief:

Seriousness does not equal professionalism. Be aware that the confusion between seriousness and professionalism may lead to a more sombre workplace.

Be aware that Humour brings enormous benefits both personally and professionally.

Introduce some laugh time and some laugh places at work.

Ask one of our team to come in and run a laughter session with your team High performance teams are filled with laughter and connectedness.

Put up a humour board: Invite people to make their contributions – comic strips, ads from old magazines, stories, funny signs, headlines, cartoons.

Invite a comedian to your work place and go to the comedy festival with a work group.

Start an improvised theatre sports group (We’ll help you)

About Sarah Beaumont

Visit PRONOIA at: www.pronoia.com.au