Make time to have a giggle or two

Yes, it’s that time of the year again as we have turned the clocks back to face the dark mornings when we wake up and need to commute or start work from home. It can be difficult to get motivated when the days are dark and wet, but we all have our own built-in superpower we can harness to fill our energy and resilience buckets to motivate and strengthen us during the next few months.

If we can tap into our humour, we have a built-in superpower to help us to be our best versions of our authentic selves.

Why is humour our superpower?

It strengthens our brain connections – sharing a funny story, a joke, a laugh, or observation helps us to remember the incident and the information more clearly because we create a visual image in the brain, which then strengthens the connections. The release of dopamine (our reward hormone) when our humour is acknowledged, engages us in the moment, and the memory is boosted by or emotional thought connection. This means that humour is integral to our growth mindset in learning new skills and information.

It gives us resilience – as well as flooding us with dopamine, the brain releases serotonin and oxytocin, our happy and social bonding hormones when we laugh together. Even anticipating laughter suppresses the cortisol in our bodies by around 39% which enables us to perform more effectively and productively. It boosts our emotional resilience because we are less stressed and feel happier and more trusting, so we can cope with uncertainties together.

It boosts our creativity and problem-solving skills as it sparks the connections in the pre-frontal cortex. The anticipation of laughing, having an atmosphere of humour has been found to lower epinephrine (the fight or flight hormone) by 70%. This means that people feel psychologically safe when a leader shows humour, and feeling safe means employees are more likely to share new ideas, innovate, and take risks without fear.

It shows we are our true selves – authenticity is vital for a leader to gain trust and build long-term relationships in a company. We can’t fake our humour. It must come from our true self, our values, our perception of the world to be real and acknowledged by others. By showing our authentic selves, we break down barriers, and balances our authority with being approachable.

It can make us better negotiators – being able to use levity when dealing with serious, even life-dependent issues, brings an essential human connection and the boost of oxytocin that is vital for trust. This empowers us to break down the barriers, humanises us, and be more likely to both achieve what we want in negotiations.

Humour is a resource in all of us, and we can use it to fill our bucket when we need to motivate and energise ourselves, or get past a barrier in connecting with someone. It’s our internal library of memories, connections, images, and stories. Humour is our superpower deep within each of us integral to our authenticity and individuality. So, now it’s time to exercise that chuckle muscle, share a belly laugh on Zoom, and make a connection with someone.