HR Management & Compliance

Laugh Your Way to Wellness? Expert Says ‘Yes, You Can’


Wellness is a serious topic, says corporate humorist David Granirer, but a little humor might be just what the doctor ordered.


We’ve all been trained that “work isn’t supposed to be fun” and that “no pain, no gain” should be our motto. However, says corporate humorist David Granirer, blogging on about.com, we’re starting to realize that all that suffering is killing us. “Stress-related illness” and “burnout” are an all-too-common part of the HR vocabulary.


Which leads us to the business element of this wakeup call for the C-suite—studies show that all that suffering is affecting the bottom line. Not surprisingly, the more stressed and burned out people are, the less productive they are.


So what’s wrong at work? Granirer points to two factors that Thomas Kuhlman, a psychologist at the University of St. Thomas, blames for high stress at work:


–First, being placed in no-win situations, such as being expected to do a job but not having the necessary resources, having to serve under a particularly difficult boss, or being the enforcer for onerous and unpopular rules.


–Second, fighting unpredictable or uncontrollable stressors, usually relating to workloads and scheduling. One example is the familiar frustration of dealing with bad decisions made at higher levels of the organization into which you had little or no input.


Learning from “M*A*S*H*”


To illustrate this, Kuhlman points to the characters on the classic TV comedy “M*A*S*H*” Their work is the classic no-win: The job is to heal wounded soldiers, but if they do it well, the soldiers go back to the front to be wounded again. There’s no predicting when more wounded will come, and higher-ups are making crazy decisions.


In these situations, you choose either laughter or despair, says Granirer. Better to mirror the response of Alan Alda’s character, Hawkeye Pierce, and laugh, he says, because humor actually can help people cope with stressful situations.



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For example, he says, one study showed positive physical reactions from bouts of laughing—blood pressure was lower, blood was more oxygenated, muscles became relaxed, and cardiovascular and respiratory systems got a workout.


Another study found that managers whose employees had the highest levels of performance also used humor the most often.


A third study showed that laughter makes the immune system stronger.


Granirer has found many HR managers are already incorporating laughter into their wellness programs. Are you worried about who’s going to deliver the punch lines, he asks? No sweat—most organizations are full of people with a great sense of humor, but they need the go-ahead to let the “inner clown” out, he says.



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Topics to Avoid


Granier warns, however, that times have changed for office humor. He lists four topics to avoid:


#1: Jokes about co-workers’ sexuality. People are very uncomfortable with sexual innuendo in the workplace. Your friends may find it hilarious, but someone is bound to be offended.


#2: Jokes about people’s appearance. This is another emotionally charged area, and whether you agree or not, just don’t go there.


#3: Jokes about religion, ethnic background, nationality, or sexual orientation, unless it’s your own.


#4: Jokes about bodily functions. (The only exception, Granirer says, is if you work in a healthcare setting where these jokes are necessary to maintain sanity.)


So what’s left to joke about? We’ll get to that in tomorrow’s Advisor and also talk about setting up worthwhile wellness programs.

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