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Laughter Strategies - Seminar Information

Humour is 'THE SHORTEST DISTANCE BETWEEN PEOPLE'

HUMOUR POWER

Creative Problem Solving ..... How to use humour and play giving the brain a chance to relax and find its own solutions to problems. A scarcity of humour may indicate a lack of flexibility, orginality and comfort within a group. Humour provides a sense of detatchment. Like creativity, it involves divergent rather than convergent thought processes, free-wheeling associations.
'SEEING THE JOKE' is not too distant from 'SOLVING THE PROBLEM.'

Team Work ..... By helping everyone relax and fostering team spirit, humour promotes a healthy exchange of ideas. People will make more daring suggestions safe in the knowledge that they will not be penalised for it.

Motivation ..... When individuals learn to lighten up, they enhance their attitude towards their tasks and the environment in which they work. They are further motivated to achieve that extra mile.

Humour as a Conflict Management Tool ....... People who laugh together and can view a conflict situation with humour have a much better chance at resolving their differences. Humour offers them the opportunity of stepping back from the problem and seeing it from a different perspective. Laughter creates bonds with people and therefore once they have shared the humour moment, there is a feeling of co-operative camaraderie so that they can achieve a great deal more from this perspective.
Humour facilitates change. It helps break down barriers between people and makes an organisation more participative and responsive.

Humour as a Communication tool ..... Humour plays a vital role in helping to close the communication gap between individuals, providing an alternative channel of communication.
Humour lowers the threshold of resistance between people. It intervenes by providing a short cut to establishing a rapport and helping to nurture an environment of trust in which discussion can move forward.
Humour can help to extract information which might not otherwise be volonteered and therefore of enormous value in the arena of negotiation.

Humour is 'THE SHORTEST DISTANCE BETWEEN PEOPLE'

I present a large variety of activities which induces much fun and laughter from participants as well as giving them tools and ideas to springboard further when they return to their own environments.

I have developed these activities over a period of years.

The activities I present elicit various responses from participants, although they are meant to be fun and lighthearted, they sometimes produce discomfort for some individuals according to their beliefs and conditioning.

It is quite a challenge to present work on humour and laughter as the general expectation is one of "make me laugh" which is about being a spectator to comedy and clowning.

My objective is to generate the idea for people to make themselves laugh, to take a risk in a little foolishness, being childlike, being conscious of the humour around them, learning to play with simplicity, making odd noises and facial expressions, dipping into their creative selves and allowing that innate part of them that is free spirited to take flight. This can be, for a few moments, just enough to forget difficulties, problems, stresses, terminal seriousness. Laughter has so many physiological and emotional benefits for the individual its a wonder that it is not included in the physicians prescription. In schools as part of a curriculum for survival.

I found that working with humour is not an easily transferable tool, mostly because of the reasons I have stated above. There is a great need for flexibility , understanding the group dynamics, being in the moment, discarding some activities for others, utilising various 'props'. Creating a balancing act between showing that I know what I'm about, that I have the training and skills to do this as well as being a 'Silly' role model and being able to show that I can survive that kind of public exposure of my own antics and then move back to being a serious 'grown-up' again. This sometimes has given some reticent participants a major shift in their view of themselves and how they can move towards a little lightheartedness.

That is also why the activities I present have a range of 'comfort zones' . From little activities for the individual to pairs, groups and playground types of games. The objective is to assist people to make themselves laugh, to be able to find for themselves moments that they can create something simple to give them joy, forget their troubles, connect with each other and finding that their existence is very worthwhile.

In a Laughter Workshop, people learn:

	Ways and means to deal with our attitude
	Understanding the way we think about laughter
	How we perceive humour
	Dealing with issues and messages about "being silly"
	Stretching ourselves - step out of our beliefs and being more fun
	Using humour as a coping tool during times of stress, pain and despair and as a means of creating distance between a difficult situation and being in a more emotionally comfortable state
	How humour is such a valuable tool when it comes to 'connecting' people with each other, creating a 'laughing bridge' between us. This also becomes a great linking mechanism when it comes to creating effective team work
	The value of fun and play as a means of lubricating the laughter and feelings of well-being. Giving ourselves permission to have fun and play

HAVING A CONFERENCE OR STAFF DEVELOPMENT DAY?

LAUGHTER STRATEGIES IN ACTION, TO LIGHTEN UP and LIVEN UP!

Strategies diminish SERIOUSNESS, HARDENING OF THE ATTITUDES as well as

SERIOUS CASES OF STRESSAROIDS.

These exciting and interactive presentations rejuvenate people as well as giving them a wonderful experience of laughing, finding humour in everyday activities, relaxing the fun way, dealing with difficult people and situations and using the value of humour, laughter and play as an appropriate tool in the workplace.

At the end, expect to have shed some chuckles and tension, and learnt some useful strategies to take back to the work environment.

Helene Grover is the laughter specialist in Australia, will make her presentation at your next conference, training session, staff development day, informative, fun, provocative, and will leave your people with some practical and useful tools to release their daily stressesaand have happier work teams.

Next Workshop Dates

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