Improve your personal health--and the health of your organization--by finding opportunities to experience lots of  “Ho, Ho, Ho” on the job.  People who laugh can cope better with the stress of everyday life.  And, laughter helps us to create positive connections with coworkers and customers. 

When you smile or laugh, physiological changes in your body literally make you “feel better.”  Today scientists can measure laughter’s role in improved circulation, stimulating the nervous system, heightening the immune system, and making the heart stronger.  Laughing reduces stress chemicals like cortisol and increases mood elevating chemicals or “endorphins.”  

        Healthy people laugh at least 100 times a day.  (That’s just four times an hour, or just 8 minutes a day.)   Here are some ideas for adding a little more “Ho, Ho, Ho” to your workplace:       

• Keep an office first aid humor kit that includes a comedy CD, cartoon books, stress balls, jokes, and toys. 
• Build your own, personal file of jokes and cartoons. give yourself a periodic humor break. 
• When a coworker has solved a tough problem, or deals with a difficult customer, provide an award for “hazard duty.”
• Create an award for peers to give each other like the S.P.U.D. (Superior Performance of Unheralded Duties.)
• Periodically have executives serve coffee or cook for everybody. (Or for a real laugh, have executives take the job of an employee for a day!)
• Require chronic-complainer coworkers to sing their complaints--out loud--a Capella. 

You can improve your personal health--and that of your organization--by getting plenty of “Ho, Ho, Ho.”   Find situations and activities that make you laugh and enjoy them more often.  Surround yourself with funny people.  Laugh every chance you get.  Smile often and laugh lots---just for the health of it.

Jeri Mae Rowley, MS Human Resource Management is a professional speaker and master trainer from Great Falls, Montana.  She would be absolutely delighted if you copied this article and shared it with others.  You can read more of her articles, and learn more about her many speaking and training topics, on her website: www.jerimaerowley.com.