Humour is a new colour and this season its super chic to wear a smile

This year instead of binding yourself to difficult New Year’s resolutions to make life less pleasant by giving up your loves, how about you embrace a new healthy habit by making the commitment to find the funny in your everyday life. A recent report claimed that men have changed their undergarment preferences in the last decade, making a shift from looser to tighter fitting briefs. They claim the apparent reason for choosing this snugger fit is that in uncertain times men feel comforted by this nether region hug. Is this the solution? We shift to tighter underwear to stave off the woes of our turbulent climate or could there be a less constricting solution? Thankfully there is, HUMOUR! Even more brilliantly it burns calories, super charges your immune system, makes you more attractive, reduces constipation, improves sleep, builds resilience and makes you feel great.

Why funny?

Humour should be a tool in your therapeutic repertoire as when it’s perceived to be caring it is an incredible rapport building and engaging ally. Humour enables us to cope in the often-challenging roles of health and social care. It has been described in positive psychology as a mature psychological defence alongside altruism, postponing gratification and being future minded. Colleagues who use appropriate humour in the workplace are perceived to be assets to their teams. Further workplaces who enjoy a lighter side have better staff retention.

Beyond the goggle box…

My plea to you in your commitment to get more daily funny is to look beyond the TV as your source. Like the old proverb says ‘happiness is born a twin, to have joy share it’. The more the merrier is the key to creating out loud laughter, the best variety. Humour is a creative process, the extent to the perceived funniness is between the unexpected and expected resolvability of the joke. It’s also a social lubricant and the smile itself literally says I like you, I’m enjoying your company. Create opportunities for genuine laughter, the mere anticipation of humour reduces the stress hormone Cortisol production. Better still target those opportunities for when they’ll make most impact. Surely devoting some nights at the comedy club is worth an investment to avoid the January blues?

Ask yourself and your loved ones:

• When do we laugh? When do we need to laugh more? What are the factors that make you laugh more or less, can they be increased or reduced to have an even better time?
• What makes us laugh? Go on create a big list; the reminiscence will generate humour and laughter in itself.
• What used to make us laugh? Could we do it again?
• Who makes us laugh? Could we see more of them? Pick up the phone and organise a regular catch up, it’s so easy to be too busy to remember to see people we really ought to.

There are oodles of ideas for humour creation in the face book group humour4OT. We would love you to join us!

Brilliantly humour is free, accessible, adaptable and feels delicious. However, it can also be offensive so always think of your audience’s preferences. It needs to be well timed so always be kind with your comedy. And of course, it shouldn’t be at the expense of getting important work done. Other than that, fill your boots with joy, wear the biggest grin and rock your girth with mirth! Be brave, be the fun instigator, the laughter generator and the saver of men away from overly tight pants!