Team building activities are essential for nurturing a positive and cohesive work environment. While traditional team building exercises have their merits, incorporating innovative and unique approaches can take team bonding to a whole new level. Laughter Yoga, a practice that combines laughter exercises with deep breathing, offers a refreshing and effective way to boost team morale, improve communication, and strengthen interpersonal relationships. In this article, we explore how Laughter Yoga can be used as a powerful tool for team building.

Icebreaking and Energizing:

Need an ice-breaker? Well Laughter Yoga serves as an excellent icebreaker activity, breaking down barriers and creating an atmosphere of positivity and camaraderie. Laughter is contagious, and engaging in laughter exercises together helps team members let go of inhibitions, connect on a deeper level, and release stress and tension. Laughter Yoga energizes the team, setting a vibrant tone for the rest of the team building activities.

Strengthening Communication:

Effective communication is vital for successful teamwork. Laughter Yoga promotes non-verbal communication, as participants engage in laughter without the need for words. This shared experience helps team members develop a sense of understanding and empathy, enhancing their ability to communicate effectively. Laughter Yoga exercises also improve active listening skills, as participants must pay attention to each other’s laughter cues and respond accordingly.

Building Trust and Collaboration:

Trust is the foundation of any high-performing team. Laughter Yoga fosters trust by creating a safe and non-judgmental space for team members to let loose and be vulnerable. Through shared laughter, team members develop a sense of camaraderie, building trust and rapport. As participants engage in laughter exercises together, they learn to collaborate, synchronize their laughter, and create a collective experience that strengthens the bonds between team members.

Stress Reduction and Resilience:

Workplace stress can take a toll on team members’ well-being and productivity. Laughter Yoga is an effective stress management tool, as it releases endorphins and reduces cortisol levels, promoting a sense of relaxation and rejuvenation. By incorporating regular laughter exercises, teams can reduce stress levels, increase resilience, and create a positive work environment. Laughter acts as a natural stress reliever, helping team members cope with challenging situations and bounce back quickly.

Enhancing Creativity and Innovation:

Laughter Yoga stimulates creativity and innovative thinking. When individuals are in a relaxed and joyful state, their minds are more receptive to new ideas and alternative perspectives. Engaging in laughter exercises during team building sessions sparks creativity, encourages brainstorming, and promotes a playful mindset. This creative energy can lead to fresh insights, innovative problem-solving, and a more dynamic and productive team.

Improving Morale and Motivation:

High team morale and motivation are crucial for sustained team success. Laughter Yoga uplifts team spirit and boosts morale by creating a positive and joyful atmosphere. Laughing together creates a shared experience of happiness and optimism, fostering a sense of belonging and team pride. As team members feel motivated and valued, their enthusiasm and dedication to their work increase, resulting in enhanced productivity and overall team performance.

Enhancing Emotional Intelligence:

Laughter Yoga helps develop emotional intelligence among team members. As participants engage in laughter exercises, they become more attuned to their own emotions and those of their teammates. This heightened emotional awareness promotes empathy, understanding, and the ability to respond sensitively to others. Improved emotional intelligence strengthens interpersonal relationships and enhances collaboration within the team.

Long-lasting Positive Impact:

One of the remarkable aspects of Laughter Yoga is its long-lasting effects. The positive emotions and connections created during laughter sessions extend beyond the activity itself. Team members carry the sense of joy, unity, and positivity into their daily interactions, resulting in improved teamwork, increased job satisfaction, and a supportive work culture.

Laughter Yoga builds great teams, in summary:

Laughter Yoga can be a unique and effective tool for team building, helping to improve team dynamics and performance. By incorporating laughter exercises into team building activities, organizations can create a positive and cohesive work environment, fostering communication, trust, creativity, and resilience among team members. Embracing the power of laughter ensures that team building becomes a fun and memorable experience that positively impacts the overall success of the team.

If you’ve not tried Laughter Yoga before for your team, then get in touch and ask about it. As well as being a powerful team-building took – it’s a laugh!

The brilliantly poetic and creative Sharon Nott attended a recent Laughter Yoga training. Here’s the poem she wrote and sent to me shortly afterwards. Thanks Sharon 🙂

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Laughing yoga, no not me.

Wouldn’t want anyone to see.

What if I couldn’t summon a laugh.

What if I they felt that I was daft.

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But then I met Sue

With her cheery disposition

And decided there and then

That I was on a mission.

.

I would step out of my comfort zone

And join in all the fun

I would laugh and learn the exercise

And not hide away or run.

.

The group were so amazing

We had such a giggle

Throughout the whole weekend

Negativity! – not a niggle!

.

We got to talk all  gibberish

With our childlike minds

We practised meditation

Imagery, breathing, all different kinds

.

So I am now a Laughter Yoga Leader

And will share this with all

If its something your considering

Definitely give sue a call

Whether your pupils are 4 or 18, our Laughter Yoga in Schools service is centred around stress management and Laughter Yoga.  Laughter Yoga is an excellent addition to any school curriculum, offering support in learning,  as well as bringing greater confidence, self-esteem and resilience to pupils.

Make things happen and laugh!

Our Laughter in Schools offering, means we can create a bespoke and tailored approach to suit your school, whether you would like a laughter “taster session”, a one-day laughter event, or a full integration into your curriculum across the year.

Laughter can support pupils at all stages of their learning, and whilst it needs to be tailored to suit different ages and requirements, the principles are the same – using the beneficial psychology and physiology of Laughter training to bring about positive and deep-seated effects.

Choose from:

• Laughter Yoga sessions in school
• Laughter Yoga for assemblies and events
• Laughter Yoga training for staff and parents
• Laughter facilitation training for events and activities
• Laughter Yoga products, including DVDs
• Laughter Yoga CPD
• Our activities and services in schools are not just in-school! We offer a selection of training and Laughter support, that can be used for parents, after-school and even holiday care.

Learn to be a Laughter Leader!

And – we are fully trained to train you! If YOU would like to deliver Laughter Yoga sessions in your school, then we can train and certify you officially to become a certified Laughter Yoga Leader, an internationally recognised certification with Laughter Yoga International.

Stress and Laughter aren’t opposites for no reason… you can hack stress with a little laughter.

I love using  Laughter Yoga to support creative thinking and training, help stress and laughter really is the best way.  Just recently I’ve been doing some training using laughter to support organisations with their stress-management, and I’ve been consistently impressed at the benefits that laughter offers… 

…one of these benefits is facilitating creative thinking in a stressful situation. Anyone who’s tried to be creative whilst stressed-out, may well have noticed that stress is not the most resourceful creative state to be in.  That’s because the logical left brain thinking that accompanies the feelings of stress and overwhelm, tends to focus purely on analytical processes.

We’ve all heard about the left and right sides of our brains – left for logic, right for creative.  And like most things in life, we need both sides to be functioning well to really maximise our results.   However being a stressful situation without any release can lead to circular thinking, with the problem and issue just going round and round in our minds as we seek a “logical” solution.  Of course, the solution doesn’t appear and this in itself can cause yet more stress and so the circle turns into a downward spiral.

Once this starts, the issue can often remain unresolved because it needs some creative input – but the log-jam of logical thought processes and stress simply won’t get out of the way to allow the right brain creativity to be heard.

Stop Stress and Laugh – use laughter when stressed out – it offers a release!

The benefit of using laughter at this point, is it offers a very real release from this analytical thinking/dwelling.  In short, it is impossible to be stressed and logical whilst you’re rolling on the floor in side-splitting laughter!

It is the physical activity of laughter that transmits a stress-release signal (endorphins) which finally quietens down our stressy logical thought process and allows us to access the creative right side of our brain and allow creative solutions to appear!

Not convinced?   Well you can evidence this yourself – after all how often do you just dwell on a problem and get nowhere, but as soon as you stop thinking about it, or move on to deal with something else, the solution pops into your mind?

Lighten up stress – use laughter to get out of a brain-spin

So next time you’re in a brain-spin, and desperately seeking a solution, try lightening up instead.  Take yourself out of the stressed situation – watch a funny YouTube clip, or enjoy a laugh with a friend on the phone, and allow yourself to become totally immersed in the humour of the moment. The aim here is to completely forget what you were worried about. Stress and laughter work on opposite sides of the brain (stress on the left, thinking side, and laughter on the right creative side) so stop stress with a laugh to give your creative right brain the respite to come up with the solution.  So have fun for as long as you can, and when you finally choose to return to the problem, chances are the answer will either pop up out of the blue, or the scale of the problem will seem to have shrunk to a more manageable size – and either way that’s a great result!

I’ve just been watching an amazing video on TED (the usual source of all things inspiring!). This particular video, by Jane McGonigal, is called “The game that can give you 10 extra years of life”. In fact I loved it so much that I really don’t mind if you pootle over to it right now and watch it. Because what really matters is not where you get the information from – but that you “get” the information!

Now you may start off watching this video, and glance at the bottom of the screen where you can see the running time is 19 minutes! Ouch, that’s a chunk out of a working day! Suddenly you get thoughts

like “I can’t waste my time sitting around watching some woman talk about video games – I have so much work to do”. Well let me urge you to indulge yourself and watch on!

I promise something magical happens. Yes, you’ll get what she promises (spoiler alert!) but in addition, this little video is the sweetest, most subtle reminder of priorities that I’ve seen for some time. And let’s face it, we need reminding!

You see, whilst the government is experimenting on the economy, and making cuts to services and wages, and the media is bustling and bristling with indignation, fury and exposes, we’re constantly being fed a menu of “fear and urgency”. Of course it’s in the government and bankers’ favour to have us all running around trying to make as much money as possible… they get the tax from every £1 we earn, and the longer we earn it for (think delaying pensionable age). But is it in our own interest?

The stress and overload of work, or the stress of no-work simply cannot be a good thing. As McGonigal rightly points out, the lessons we learn from others on their deathbeds, quite literally, have never been “I should have worked more hours”…

Of course, there are complex reasons why we are all working so hard and so much. After all we didn’t get to be the 3rd out of 28, in the “longest hours worked in Europe league table” overnight. It’s evidently been in our systems for some time and it’s not likely to disappear quickly. But there are things we can do to help.

Feedback to your boss if you feel you have too much stress. If they don’t know about it, then they can’t help you. Remember if you accept additional work that is putting you under stress and strain, then you are colluding with the establishment and perpetrating the culture of “must work longer and harder”.

Enjoy your work. OK, for some of us that may sound like tough one, and I don’t mean to be flippant. So assuming that you cannot change or leave your job for whatever reason, at least there are measures that might help you even if you absolutely hate your work. Firstly dwell on the good bits. Moaning about the bad stuff just makes them seem even worse, whereas thinking about the positive bits (the pay, your nice colleague, the view from the window, the fact that you have a window!) can make work seem a lot more pleasant. Remember wherever your focus goes – grows!

Put on a cheerful face. There’s numerous studies that show that if you’re smiling and looking happy, you can trick yourself into believing you really are happy. Even a fake smile will do the job. Just grin and bear it!

Take every opportunity to laugh. Laughter is the ultimate in stress release and stress relief. Good hearty laughter for 15-20 minutes a day will help you release endorphins, reduce cortisol, improve your mood, enhance your self-esteem, improve your connectivity to others.

…. and it’s proven time and again, that people who are more smiley, positive and happy-looking are more likely to get the better jobs, as people would prefer to work with them.

And finally, take McGonigal’s advice, do all the things she suggests in her video – because you can, and because they are fun… But a word of warning before you start, please ask yourself what are you going to do with an extra ten years of life? I wonder how many people will think “when I retire, I’ll have an extra 10 years to enjoy life, spend time with friends and family, and play more”

And I’d like to ask – why wait? On exactly what date does that extra 10 years start? I’d suggest it should start TODAY!

Here’s the link to that video:  http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal