Laughing Your Way to Organizational Health. what u think . is this true.reply

Tweet

Workplace wellness is a serious issue. With terms like "stress-related-illness" and "burnout" becoming household words, organizations are increasingly looking for ways to keep their workforce happy, healthy and productive. Up to now, most organizations tended to devalue the idea of laughter at work, seeing it as a distraction from getting the "real" job done. This attitude is also reinforced by the work ethic many of us were raised with: "No pain, no gain," "Work isn't supposed to be fun," and "It's only worthwhile if you have to suffer for it." However, we're starting to realize that all of this suffering is killing us. Not only that, but we're finding that it's actually counter-productive to the bottom-line results so sought after in this time of change and downsizing. And amazingly enough, this is confirmed by scientific research. A recent study conducted at Canadian financial institutions found that managers who facilitated the highest level of employee performance used humor the most often. The scientific data is also proving that laughter is an integral part of physical wellness. Dr. William Fry of Stanford University found that laughing 200 times burns off the same amount of calories as 10 minutes on a rowing machine. Another study found that after a bout of laughter, blood pressure drops to a lower, healthier level than before the laughter began. Laughter also oxygenates your blood, thereby increasing energy level, relaxes your muscles and works out all your major internal systems like the cardiovascular and respiratory systems. Furthermore, researchers are discovering that laughter also affects the immune system. According to Dr. Lee Berk of the Loma Linda School of Public Health in California, laughing makes it grow stronger, with the body's T-cells, natural killer cells and antibodies all showing signs of increased activity.