Do you laugh enough?
Do you make other people laugh enough?
Maybe you think that you are too busy to laugh or tell jokes. Maybe you think that being an adult means being serious all the time and spending most of your time working and having adult responsibilities.
And, yes, that is a big part of adult life and sometimes there is no way around that.
But laughing, joking, and spending time taking things less seriously is one of the best things that we can do for our mental and emotional health.
Even though we are busy people with plenty of responsibilities to keep us occupied, we can only continue to be productive members of the world if we have a strong and healthy basis of mental and emotional health.
Sometimes stress and overworking are celebrated in our modern society. If you aren’t stressed then you aren’t working enough, right?
But if we are stressed, burnt out and worn thin, we won’t actually be able to work well. We won’t be able to concentrate, our memory will be impaired, and our patience will be significantly shorter with other people.
And this isn’t limited to the world of work.
In our home lives and in our personal relationships, if we are approaching everything from a place of stress and overwhelm, we cannot possibly give the full version of ourselves to anyone else. We can’t be happy and we can’t give happiness if we are full of stress, anxiety, and tension.
In short, having too much stress limits and impedes every area of your life and holds you back in a multitude of ways.
What’s the secret to combatting this?
Laughter.
Incorporating laughter into your life can have a huge impact on your overall mood and happiness levels, even if you don’t think it could possibly do so.
The people who learn to take themselves less seriously are the ones who succeed at work, at home, and in their personal relationships.
When we laugh, we release stress from our bodies and we fill our bodies with pleasure hormones instead. It is physically really good for us.
When we laugh we also connect with those around us. Have you ever started laughing just because someone else near you is laughing too? Laughter has strong social power and it helps to bond people together.
While you might think that to successfully win people over at work and in relationships you need to be serious and commanding, it is far easier to win people over with laughter and communal bonding. When we bond with other people around us we are happier, healthier and less stressed, that’s a scientific fact.
If you want to become a happier version of yourself, take some time to surround yourself with laughter. Go to comedy shows, watch funny TV shows, engage in laughter and jokes with those around you, try and find the humour in small, everyday things, get Alexa to tell you her joke of the day.
Life is short and it is filled with stress and heartache, but it is also precious and something we should cherish with some laughter and joy.
The more we laugh, the happier we are, so why not give it a go?
What do you have to lose?