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© by Bonnie Budzowski, President of InCredible Messages, LP.
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Discover Your Simple Power to
Increase Happiness
By Bonnie Budzowski
President, InCredible Messages, LP
Next time you need to boost your mood, head for a playground and
watch the youngest children play. If you catch a glimpse of
toddlers being pushed on swings or chasing balls for fun, you’ll
hear one of the best sounds in the world—laughter—and you’ll feel
better. Watching a baby or toddler in the act of play will
lift your mood and bring a smile to your face.
Why does the sound of a child’s laughter—even a child who is a
stranger to you—have the power to lift your mood? How can
someone else’s laughter make you a little happier? The answer
is simple: moods are contagious. Laughter has the power to
enter into your very person and alter you and your mood, for good.
If you find this surprising, think about the reverse experience.
We all remember days when our good mood was snuffed out by an angry
boss, co-worker, or family member. We know bad moods are
contagious. We have been victim to them.
We are, perhaps, less aware that smiles and laughter are contagious
too. We might be unaware altogether that we have the power to
spread good moods and enrich our own happiness in the process.
In Primal leadership: Learning to Lead with Emotional
Intelligence, authors Goleman, Boyantzis, and Mckee tell us
scientists have begun to describe our limbic system, which is the
seat of our emotions, as an open-loop system.
This is easy to grasp if we look, in contrast, at the circulatory
system. Your circulatory system doesn’t care about what is
going on with toddlers at a playground or your colleagues at work.
That’s because the circulatory system is a closed-loop and
self-regulating system—in many ways like your heating system at
home.
Your limbic (emotional) system is a whole different story:
what goes on with the people around you enters your system and
alters it. In other words, the emotions and moods of the
people around you are contagions. Some of the contagions are
helpful and healthy. Some are definitely not.
Goleman and his co-authors tell us that scientists can now verify—by
recording physiological data as two people have a conversation in a
lab—that one person transmitting an emotional signal can literally
alter the following functions of another:
- Hormone levels
- Cardiovascular function
- Sleep rhythms
- Immune functions
With this knowledge, you discover your own power to increase happiness, in
yourself and in the world.
- 1. Choose carefully the people whom you give access to your mood.
Minimize your contact with people who spread a pessimistic, grumpy, or
critical approach to life or to you. Seek out people who are
optimistic and upbeat. Build relationships with people who are
positive contagions. Seek out people who infect your life with
laughter!
- 2. Spread the good mood you wish to find in the world. Schedule
time in every week for some sort of playful activity. Give yourself
permission to watch movies, shows, or YouTube skits that make you laugh.
Schedule time to have dinner, play board games, or share an evening out with
people who know how to enjoy themselves.
Play is the work toddlers do to explore and grow. Play and laughter is
the work adults do to balance out the demands and stresses that threaten our
health and happiness. A good belly laugh is never a waste of time.
It’s an investment in your good health and happiness.
I first began to think about the power of laughter decades ago when I read the
story of physician, Norman Cousins, chronicled in Anatomy of an Illness.
The story takes place in 1964. Cousins is battling a debilitating illness
in which the connective tissue in his spine is disintegrating. He is in
extreme pain. The diagnosing specialist gives Cousins the bad news:
“You have one chance in five hundred to recover.”
In light of the odds against him, Cousins decides to check himself out of the
hospital. With the help of his physician, the sick man undertakes a
serious experiment with laughter and other affirmative emotions, like faith,
hope, love, and the will to live.
Cousins begins the laughing part of his experiment with films of the classic TV
show, “Candid Camera” and some Marx Brothers films. If you are not
familiar with “Candid Camera,” think of it as the original version of “You’ve
Been Punked.” Hidden cameras record people’s reactions to ridiculous
situations. You can’t help but laugh when you watch this show, just as you
can’t help but laugh at the slapstick humor of the Marx Brothers.
Here is how Dr. Cousins describes the initial outcome of his experiment:
I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an
anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep.
Cousins won his battle with illness in the 1960s. His book describing the
journey is a classic, still available today, nearly 30 years after it was first
published. I keep the book on my shelf because it opened my eyes to some
of my own power for happiness.
In the introduction to my 1974 edition of Anatomy of Illness, Cousins talks
about a new class of hormones doctors were just discovering at the time of his
illness, a class of hormones called endorphins Think of how far we’ve come
in our knowledge about endorphins and other “happiness” hormones that we
influence by laughter, exercise, and love.
For example, in 2002 Daniel Goleman and his co-authors of Primal Leadership
wrote this, based on the work of neurologists:
In a neurological sense, laughing represents the shortest distance between two
people because it interlocks limbic systems. This immediate, involuntary
reaction, as one researcher puts it, involves “the most direct communication
possible between people—brain to brain—with our intellect just going along for
the ride.
Notice the level at which laughter hits. It’s at an involuntary,
emotional, high-impact level. You see, smiles are good contagions.
Laughter is even better. In fact, research shows that bosses who are
upbeat and optimistic attract and retain employees better that bosses who are
negative and pessimistic. If you want to be surrounded by relationships
that can enrich your happiness, be playful.
I’m not suggesting you go out and buy joke books, but I do have a few
suggestions:
- 1.
In tense situations, be the one who finds a reason to laugh or lighten up the
mood. Look for ways to break up tension in one-on-one relationships and
groups. Keep your tone light and find humor in the moment, even in tough
moments and hard times.
2.
Cultivate the ability to laugh at yourself. Keep your own tasks in
perspective, and avoid taking yourself too seriously.
3.
Assess the level of your own optimism. Read Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life by
Martin E. P. Seligman. Seligman is a renowned psychologist and
clinical researcher who has been studying optimists and pessimists for a quarter
of century. After an explanation of the thought patterns that distinguish
optimists from pessimists, the author teaches readers skills need to change from
pessimism to optimism, with worksheets to guide along the way.
The topics of optimism and laughter figure into a discussion about seismic
changes that are occurring in our culture today. Daniel Pinks, author of
A
Whole New Mind, claims the skills of what he terms the information and knowledge
age are no longer sufficient—due to the abundance of goods in our society, the
outsourcing of jobs to underdeveloped countries, and the automation that frees
up much of our time.
Pink describes six aptitudes that will determine success in the new conceptual
or design-focused age. These are design, story, symphony (mixing disparate
parts into a harmonious whole), empathy, play, and meaning. The list is a
far cry from qualities you find in traditional MBA schools.
As an example of the importance of play in our emerging culture, Pink points to
an Indian physician from Mumbai named Madan Kataria. Dr. Kataria is
committed to spreading laughter as a way to increase both health and
productivity.
To put Dr. Kataria in perspective, Pink suggests we consider Henry Ford, who, as
you know, was a key figure in the industrial age. Ford considered laughter
a disciplinary offense. Dr. Kataria and other neurologists and scientists
are pointing to the health benefits and productivity benefits of laughter in the
workplace. We are now encouraging behavior that was considered a
disciplinary offense around 100 years ago.
Kataria is so serious about the importance of play that he has made it his
mission to trigger an international laughter epidemic. In fact, in 1995,
he began a laughter club. After awhile, Kataria began to realize that to
be truly effective, laughter had to come from inside a person. It couldn’t
be dependent on a comedian, a good movie, or something external. Kataria
invented a thing called yoga laughter, which combines yoga breathing with
self-generated laughter.
If you think this is crazy, take note. The first laughter club started
with five people. By the time Pink published A Whole New Mind in 2005, he
could report 2500 laughter clubs around the world. Today, the official
Laughter Yoga site boasts 6000 laughter clubs worldwide. One club is
conveniently located in my geographic area.
Humor and play are respected attributes and behaviors as part of our emerging
culture. In addition to the ability to increase happiness, research shows
that these elements play a role in good health and work-related success.
Most people I know can’t imagine themselves joining a laughter yoga club.
With work, family, and community responsibilities, most of us are looking for
opportunities to increase our happiness without another commitment or
event—especially one that seems odd to us.
Even the busiest among us can afford the time to visit a playground to watch
children play. Those of us who are lucky enough to have young children in
our lives can find time to play with them. We can all manage the time to
watch a funny movie or schedule a lighthearted evening out with friends.
We can all spend a bit of time checking our relationships to assess the type of
contagions we are inviting into our lives. And we can all spare a few
hours to learn about optimism and how we control our thought patterns.
After all, our own happiness is at stake. What could be more important?
Permission is granted to reprint this article when the following
contact information is included: © 2010 by Bonnie Budzowski,
President of InCredible Messages, LP. For more free articles, go to
www.IncredibleMessages.com or contact Bonnie at
info@IncredibleMessages.com.
Bonnie Budzowski, President of inCredible Messages,
is a recognized expert—helping people to use influence and
persuasion to sell their ideas and move business forward. Bonnie is
a professional speaker, author and coach. She recently launched a
new coaching project to help her clients "Write the Book of
Their Dreams."
Clients appreciate Bonnie’s practical, humorous and high-energy
approach. She holds an MA in Communication and has been called upon
to work with corporations, entrepreneurs, universities, and
associations.
If you’d like to sell your ideas, boost your influence, or
advance your career through a book or presentation, call Bonnie at
412-828-1629,
bonnie@inCredibleMessages.com or visit her website at
www.inCredibleMessages.com.
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