Humans have a natural need for laughter, and people who have the ability to bring laughter to others can make friends and money.

Howard Stern's ability to make people laugh, for example, has made him a celebrity and landed him a $500 million deal with satellite radio. Many of the most popular shows in the history of television have been comedies. Funny movies sell lots of tickets.

Mankind's quest for laughter makes the laugh industry a big business, but laughter hasn't always been a welcome part of the workplace. A perception has been that workers who are laughing aren't working hard or taking their jobs seriously, but Elaine Boltz said, "I'm trying to change that."

Boltz is an employee assistance program administrator at LMA Consulting Group in Lancaster, and through World Laughter Tour she's become a Certified Laugh Leader. As such, she leads laughter sessions for businesses and groups such as schools and hospitals.

The purpose of these sessions is to help the laughers feel better. In business settings, the hope is that laughter will lead to better productivity.

On a Friday morning earlier this year, Boltz gathered many of her fellow LMA employees in a large room at the business's headquarters on Charter Lane. Her assignment was to be a standup comedian without using jokes.

She began the session by saying, "We laugh with each other, not at each other. We laugh voluntarily."

Boltz then led the participants through an assessment of their stress levels. She gave a medical precaution, and then led some gentle stretching to prepare the muscles for laughter.

"How'd I get to be this old?" one of the participants asked, and everyone had a good laugh.

One of the participants was Jeffrey Klunk, M.S., a licensed psychologist and the founder of LMA. He offered a strong endorsement of humor in the workplace.

"I believe that regular laughter and good humor is necessarily a characteristic of a healthy person as well as of a healthy organization.

"People tend to perform at their best when they are most physically, emotionally, and spiritually healthy. An appropriate degree of laughter and humor is necessarily part of that.

"I have seen many situations in which people become overly tense or focused on an issue. They tend to lose creativity and hope. Often a cycle develops in which as a person becomes more serious, and the situation seems more problematic, which leads to more seriousness. he injection of some humor can often bring about a more positive approach, which, in turn, generates new ideas, optimism, and higher levels of energy and commitment."

LMA Consulting Group isn't a business whose workload immediately brings to mind visions of laughter and levity. LMA works with businesses on issues such as organizational effectiveness, career management, and human resources.

LMA's sister company, Life Management Associates, deals with psychological and behavioral services, employee assistance services, pastoral counseling services, and crisis response. So while it's not a business focused entirely on laughter, Boltz and many of her associates do recognize the value of laughter in everyone's life.

Dr. Donald Masey is a licensed psychologist who specializes in neuropsychology and behavioral medicine and who sees the value of laughter.

Asked if he would prescribe laughter for his patients, he said, "I certainly would prescribe laughter (psychologists do not prescribe medications). I believe it does contribute to better mental health.

Laughter clubs can help organizations function more efficiently and productively, although for different reasons in different company cultures.

For example, the too tense and high-pressure workplace will benefit by loosening up and having people realize they are part of a team. In the end, who doesn't like to have fun at times?"

In Boltz's position, she has varied assignments. A major one is to work with individuals in the "sandwich generation" who find themselves simultaneously caring for children and parents while they also work and try to find some time for fun in their lives. She also serves on LMA's Crisis Response Team, so she sometimes finds herself working with people in painful situations.

It was actually a painful situation in her own life that inspired Boltz to become a certified laughter leader. She suffered an injury and was slow to heal. She learned to take a humor break daily, and humor changed her attitude. Laughter didn't help her to heal any faster, but it did help her deal with her situation more positively.

The World Laughter Tour is the creation of Steve Wilson, an Ohio mental health professional who has worked as psychologist and a psychotherapist. He is also the founder of Ohio Professional Counseling Services.

In 1998, as he was preparing to lecture in India, Wilson learned that gurus in India were teaching the importance of laughter for physical and mental health. After he met with some of the gurus and saw their work, the World Laughter Tour gained momentum, and it's growing steadily.

LMA's laughter session began with the participants joining hands and chanting "Ho ho ... hah hah hah. Ho ho ... hah hah hah."

"Simulated laughter becomes contagious," Boltz said. "It has no cultural barriers, no language barriers."

For 20 minutes, she guided the laughers through a series of laughing exercises. They included:

·Passing the laughter in which the participants passed an imaginary bucket of laughter among themselves.

·The Penguin Walk

·Cell Phone Laugh and many others.

One crucial aspect of laughter clubs is they take the humor out of laughter. That's an important distinction because humor is completely subjective.

While Howard Stern has his massive contract and millions of loyal listeners, he also has legions who call him vile and disgusting and who drove him from commercial radio to satellite radio.

The Three Stooges have millions of devotees who can quote every line they ever spoke, but many people can watch the Stooges and find nothing worthy of laughter. So to find jokes that would make everyone laugh yet offend no one is practically impossible.

Fortunately, Boltz said, the benefits of laughter are the same whether they come from humor or from the physical activity of laughing. The one form of laughter that may not be beneficial is laughter from tickling.

At the end of the session, Boltz asked for a new assessment of stress levels, and everyone indicated a lower level of stress and a higher level of energy than at the beginning of the session. As the workers prepared to return to their regular workday, they said that they felt more positive and more energized.

Boltz finished the session with a day-by-day approach to avoiding "Hardening of the Attitude." That little plan includes:

Monday -- Giving out compliments

Tuesday -- Being flexible, going with life's flow

Wednesday -- Showing gratitude for all the good things in a person's life

Thursday -- Performing act of kindness

Friday -- Forgiving everyone for everything

Saturday & Sunday -- Chocolate and fun; giving yourself permission to have fun and to indulge a little.

"Laughter opens creativity," Boltz said. "Laughter and anger are mutually exclusive. Start the day with laughter."

"If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane." -- Jimmy Buffett blog comments powered by Disqus