Mahan 9 Group, LLC
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Lisa Mahan
    • Chris Mahan
  • Our Services
  • Blog
  • Contact Us

Our Random...and sometimes, not so Random Thoughts

We hope you find some of the following articles to be of some assistance to you in your personal or business life.

Increase Productivity - Add Laughter to the Workplace

7/19/2013

1 Comment

 
Many are familiar with the adage, "Laughter is good for the soul." I'm not certain who first expressed the thought in those words but I do know that King Solomon said it this way in Proverbs 17:22 a few thousand years ago - "A cheerful heart is good medicine." The question I want you to ponder is this - Would laughter increase productivity in your workplace?

In a 2005 study conducted at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, Michael Miller, M.D. reported a correlation between laughter and increased blood flow. According to the research, laughter appears to affect the endothelium - the tissue that lines the walls of blood vessels - causing it to expand, thus increasing blood flow. In the course of their study, Dr. Miller and his researchers discovered that when healthy volunteers watched and reacted with laughter to a humorous scene from a movie, their blood flow increased by 22%. According to their report, that is about the same increase one would experience in the course of performing aerobic exercises. Another interesting observation from the study is encapsulated in this statement from Dr. Miller, "At the very least, laughter offsets the impact of mental stress, which is harmful to the endothelium."

In his book, The Gifted Boss, Dale Dauten touches on the importance of laughter in the workplace. During the course of a fictional discourse between  two old friends, the mentor says, "If you don't walk through your department and hear laughter, then you're not doing it right. When people are doing what they do best, they feel a special energy that comes close to giddiness. That could be one standard you put on yourself - you walk the halls and count how many laughs you hear." 

Most every workplace is fraught with stressors of some sort. While stress, in acceptable levels, can be a positive force that pushes us to perform, if increased to extreme levels, it can become a negative force that saps our energy and creativity and kills productivity. In the study mentioned above, those same volunteers who watched a stressful scene from a movie experienced a decrease in blood flow of 35%. 

To balance stress and keep it within acceptable levels, a wise manager utilizes humor to relieve the stress among his employees. Laughter not only reduces the stress level, it increases the blood flow to the brain which in turn affects the mood and productivity of workers. Not only are they producing better work, but they are happy while doing it.


Quote taken from: The Gifted Boss - How to Find, Create and Keep Great Employees (Revised Edition) ©2011 by Dale Dauten, Published by HarperCollins

1 Comment
David M Mahan
7/19/2013 03:13:10 am

This is an interesting take on something we have all heard at least once. Now if we can all just remember to put this idea into play.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Chris has an opinion on just about everything - Just ask Lisa. And he's usually right - just ask him! (LOL)

    Lisa isn't the one who always has something to say, but when she does, it is usually worth taking a moment to listen.

    Archives

    May 2016
    April 2016
    June 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013

    Categories

    All
    Book Reviews
    Customer Service
    Marketing

    RSS Feed

©2013 Mahan 9 Group, LLC
Site Creation by Mahan 9 Group