HE WHO LAUGHS, LASTS.

- Mary Pettibone Poole

Why don’t people smile and laugh more at work? It’s simple. They are afraid they will get in trouble. This is because when you laugh, you release chemicals into your bloodstream that would be illegal if you bought them on the street. This is serious stuff.

According to Dr. Lee Berk from Loma Linda University, when you laugh your body releases T-lymphocytes. The penal system would surely lock anyone up who illicitly sold T-lymphocytes to minors outside the gates of school. Thankfully the eternal wisdom of the universe is such that no one has to. We don’t have to push T-Lymphocytes because laughter itself is contagious. When you laugh, not only do you benefit from these immunity building chemicals. Those that can’t help but laugh with you also benefit.

For years when I worked in insurance, I had a terrible work attitude. There were days when I went to work simply to hear the woman in the next cubicle laugh. Her laugh was as contagious as the common cold, only you wanted to get it. I used to lean against the wool-like synthetic beige fabric of the cubicle partition that separated her professional world from mine hoping to catch whatever it was that she had. She did not laugh at anything particularly funny. She just laughed. And every time she did, I felt closer to her, closer to life, closer to insurance. Her joyful laughter made me feel the truth in the title words of the Walt Disney song: ‘It’s a small world after all.’

“The shortest distance between two people is laughter.”

- Victor Borge

Laughing and smiling more at work will lighten your attitude, make you professionally irresistible to co-workers, and fill you with enthusiasm. Laugh more with others and you will infect those you work with and/or love with joy.

Have a great week!