How Laughing Could Help Your Career
I saw this recent article and even though it’s really about mental health, I felt like there are some really important career and management things to consider as well.
The Benefits of Laughter For Your Health and Mental Health
1. One of the suggestions is to watch stand up comedy. Not only will the laughter help with your stress levels, but as I’ve mentioned before, it is also a way to improve your presentation and public speaking skills. You start to absorb some of the skills that you watch all the time, and when it comes to telling stories, capturing an audience’s attention, timing, etc. there’s no one better to learn it from.
2. Laughing and smiling more does help with stress. Name a profession that couldn’t use help with that?
3. I’ve read in a few places recently about Zoom fatigue, I’ve even mentioned it a few times myself. I also have seen others talk about this issue, that it’s not so much Zoom, as it is that we’ve changed the way we do meetings in this era of everyone working from home. Now, we all log in, talk about what we need to talk about, and get off the call as soon as possible. There’s no buffer time of folks arriving to the conference room early, or wandering out together to head back to their own spaces. Those are the times we make small talk, and joke, and maybe even laugh. That’s what is missing from all of these extra meetings we are having now in order to communicate better. Make time for it in the meeting. Let the meeting start a little late so people have 5 minutes of small talk. Schedule a meeting that is just for small talk. In short, let your people be human with each other, and have a little fun.
In short, find ways to laugh. We all need the break from the doom and gloom of the world. I’m lucky, I live with someone who can make me laugh. I work with people who don’t mind it if I make a joke in a meeting, appropriately. Not everyone can do that. But, understand how important it is, for our health, and for our relationships with coworkers.
Where can you find more laughter in your work life?
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