Читать книгу Ram Up Your Laughter - Santhanaram Inc. Jayaram - Страница 5

Everyone is familiar with the term a watched pot never boils but what does it mean exactly? Basically this phrase refers to the fact that waiting and watching for something only slows the process down; in other words things will happen faster if you stop concentrating so hard on them. This is the same premise behind something esoteric like creativity.

Many famous people have claimed that their creativity flowed through them rather than from them. Mozart and Beethoven wrote their symphonies by tapping into their creative mind and Thomas Edison worked the same way, using his creative mind to solve problems.

All of these individuals claimed to have tapped into some kind of altered state of consciousness that helped their creativity flow. Michael Faraday, the father of electromagnetic field theory got his information from a dream in which merely transposed! Now that's amazing.

Creativity is not actually limited by your IQ or your grades and it is a relatively simple concept. What if you could tap into your creativity by laughing? What if the more you laughed the more creative you were?

Using humor to boost your creativity is a fabulous concept. Using humor in the workplace could actually add to the creativity of workers and it is a very simple concept to incorporate. Finding ways to make work fun might actually help the bottom line.

Creative thinking in the workplace is a great way to boost innovative thinking. The more innovative and creative an employee is, the more likely they are to contribute to the company's bottom line. One thing that all companies have in common is that a lack of innovation means little or no growth because the one thing that is always constant is change!

Laughter encourages and motivates employees to think outside the box, which in turn helps them boost their creativity helping companies find innovative solutions to old problems. In a competitive workplace, creativity and innovation are necessary if a company is going to keep up with the times.

Looking at these three options brings us to the conclusion that the cheapest and probably the most effective solution is to find ways to boost the creativity of existing employees.

In the end true creativity is a process in which someone looks at the same thing everyone else is looking at, but sees a different result. There is a huge need for creative thinking in the workplace because competition is fierce.

A creative environment encourages spontaneity. One great example of a creative workplace is Southwest Airlines, because they are committed to making work fun by creating an atmosphere where humor, fun and playful attitudes thrive. Southwest Airlines knows that this kind of environment creates a free thinking state of mind where employees feel comfortable offering up innovative solutions. Southwest Airlines has actually tracked the monies it has saved due to employees' creative solutions and the fact of the matter is that it has saved them millions of dollars.

There is probably no better example of this than the Google headquarters office in Zurich, Switzerland because they have taken this idea of fun in the workplace to an entirely new level and no one would question their profitability!

The building was designed partly by their 300 engineers who work there and it is the epitome of the wacky office. They have meeting pods in the form of Swiss chalets and igloos, fireman poles for quick access between floors and an innovative slide so that people can get to the cafeteria as quickly as possible.

The message this sends to employees is that they are free to be creative and innovative and the environment certainly supports this. Creativity is encouraged and highly valued. The space has bright vibrant colors and a crazy feel making employees feel more comfortable.

Staff rooms are designed much like playrooms with crazy shapes and bursts of color. Whiteboards and beanbag chairs encourage creative thought and brainstorming and individual workplaces encourage the flow of creative thought. One thing is for sure, Google certainly knows that creativity is not a stagnate process and creativity cannot often be found in a boring office setup or a stagnate 5x7 cube.

When employees are allowed to relax and let their hair down, their productivity levels most likely skyrocket. In today's world with the invention of laptops and mobile devices, employees can essentially work anywhere and people are no longer tied to a desk.

Incorporating laughter into the workplace is actually a natural extension of the same concept that has made Google so successful.

The typical cubicle style office does not encourage creativity, but a crazy wacky one does. Not all companies have the luxury of creating virtual playgrounds for employees, but there are other ways to encourage creative thought.

What are some other ways in which humor can boost creativity you might ask? One thing is for sure, bringing your sense of humor to the workplace is an effective and very easy way to put more fun into work. All companies eventually get to that place where old solutions are simply not effective any longer and it is certainly true that new problems are always creeping up.

People who have a sense of humor tend to be much more creative, much less rigid in their thinking and even more willing to embrace new methods and ideas.

One way humor adds to creativity is by distraction. Going back to the theory of a watched pot never boils creative solutions are more apt to come forth when someone is distracted by something like humor. Humor helps stretch your mind and it helps you look at problems in a whole new way. Humor helps you make connections and see things that you wouldn't normally see. Sometimes solutions are often found the moment you walk away from a problem because continually staring at the same old problem for hours on end does nothing for your creative mind.

Humor helps take the pressure off much like a pressure cooker releases steam. It helps you emotionally distance yourself from the problem at hand and it helps you not take life quite so seriously.

People even learn better in a more creative atmosphere because humor helps you remember things better.

If you really stop to think about it, most of us spend more time with our co-workers than we do with our own family, so finding ways to have humor in the workplace is critical. Humor helps us to be more resilient and it helps us regroup and re-prioritize.

According to researchers who study the brain, there are three parts of your brain that light up when you laugh at a joke:

In many ways, humor is an attitude and a set of skills you can develop as a coping mechanism. When you face problems with a sense of humor, you can more easily deal with the ups and downs of life. When you learn how to essentially lighten up, life becomes much more bearable. Laughter can help you ride those turbulent waves that life throws you and it can help you heal and even help you tap into your creativity by helping you think differently. Humor can help you maintain your sanity by helping you remember not to take life so seriously.

What are some other ways that humor and laughter can help boost your creativity you might ask? According to Albert Einstein:

Albert Einstein certainly understood a thing or two about creativity. Creativity is highly rewarded in companies because it helps companies maintain a competitive edge. Creativity is really nothing more than problem solving; it is looking at an old problem in a whole new way and laughter can certainly help you look at things differently. Laughter helps take the edge off and it helps you release endorphins, which help you feel better. When you feel better, you tend to be more creative because you don't feel such pressure to perform.

Everyone has this ability to be creative, but not everyone taps into it. Some of us merely need permission to call ourselves creative and we simply need to allow our more creative side to flow.

Laughter helps you feel more enthusiastic and more energized and this helps fuel your creativity. Brainstorming sessions are much more likely to be successful when laughter is involved. Laughter can create magic because it can help you tap into parts of your brain that you don't often use.

In many ways, if life is a journey, laughter is the shock absorber! Life can difficult at best and laughter can help us in many ways by helping us deal with the tragedy and the drama. Laughter should be thought of a sort of survival skill in some ways, because those who know how to poke fun at themselves have the advantage.

Stress can cause many issues, including health problems and laughing at yourself can help you ward off stress and tension. Sometimes we simply need to give ourselves permission to laugh and permission to be silly. Laughter helps keep our creative pumps flowing. Laughter helps us bring about our inner child, which helps us lighten our load. When you recall happier times and humorous moments, you feel better and more light-spirited. Laughter can be a wonderful teacher and a fabulous mentor because it reminds us not to take ourselves too seriously.

Laughter gives you the freedom to be playful and natural. Laughter gives you a pick me up when you feel down. People who are more jovial are much more fun to be around, let's be honest. People that tend to take life too seriously can be a real drag. Everyone has heard the notion that laughter is the best medicine and in many ways, that tends to be true.

Laughter can be very beneficial to organizations because it is a great way to enhance teamwork and cooperation.

Laughter creates emotions and helps us express ourselves and emotions can play a very powerful role in our lives. Laughter can have a very positive effect on employees because it helps people deal with problems much more effectively. Humor in the workplace can improve job performance and satisfaction, encourage creativity and even help diffuse conflict. Meetings are often the way companies communicate and a meeting that encourages laughter and open communication will often be a much more productive meeting than a dry serious one.

People tend to remember things better when conversations are infused with laughter and humor and laughter used strategically can enhance the effectiveness of teams. Laughter can help one lighten the emotional atmosphere and create a feeling of solidarity and collegiality and laughter can be a great ice-breaker. Shared laughter can help create a more relaxed atmosphere and it can help reduce tension and anxiety.

Humor can even be an effective leadership strategy because it helps people relate to one another better.

When we become responsible adults, we often lose our creativity, enthusiasm and joy. Laughter helps us keep a childlike atmosphere and it helps keep our creativity alive.

In order to more fully understand how laughter influences creativity, one must first understand how the brain works as far as creativity. Psychologists have been studying the concept of creativity for generations and there are conflicts with how creativity comes about. Some schools of thought state that creativity is inherent within you while others say that is a byproduct or an adaptation one learns along the way. Humans are inherently creative species and it varies from individual to individual.

Creativity is said to come about from the right side of the brain but that may actually be a bit simplistic and it may in fact involve many different regions of the brain because in reality creativity comes from a dispersed network of many different regions of the brain.

There have been several studies that correlate creative thinking with the alpha brainwave frequency with participants displaying higher alpha brainwaves in the frontal area of the brain, so this may be of interest to those who study the brain. Some studies have even found that there are different types of creativity, some that depend on prefrontal brain engagement with others dependent on prefrontal disengagement.

The conclusion of this work tells us that there may not be just one area of the brain in which creativity comes from and many studies have shown that there are actually a multitude of processes and different levels of the brain that are involved when it comes to something like the process of creativity. Other studies have shown that creativity may even be related to unconscious processes and there are even some schools of thought that relate creativity to mental illness.

Understanding how creativity arises from the brain is a fascinating field of study when it really comes down to it. Many times one hears the word creativity right alongside the word "genius" and even though it may be highly desirable to be a creative genius, the two don't necessarily go together and as a matter of fact they are two very different things.

Creativity has been equated with high levels of divergent thinking. Divergent thinking can be defined as one who has the ability to come up with a large number of responses to open ended questions or probes. Many times you will hear the idea of people getting flashes of insight or creativity when they least expect it. The most famous example being that of Archimedes, who came up with a flash of insight while in the tub bathing.

The story is that Archimedes when faced with the dilemma of whether an irregularly shaped crown of gold was made of an alloy or pure gold, received a flash of insight the moment he immersed himself in the tub, suddenly realizing that he could measure its density by measuring the amount of water it displaced divided by its weight, just as water was displaced by his body in the tub.

This is a charming and beautiful example of how the process of creativity works.

Laughter enables us to take our eye off the ball so that our creative juices can start to flow. There seems to be somewhat of a pattern when it comes to the idea of creative thought. The creative process seems to flow through certain stages:

The Stages of the Creative Process

•The first stage, the stage of preparation, is essentially a time in which the skills or information is assembled.

•The second stage continues with a period of incubation, which is often equated with a time of relaxation in which someone is not consciously working to solve the problem. This period of incubation may in fact allow the unconscious mind to begin forming connections, in support of the creative process or solution.

•The third stage is the stage where one reaches the point of inspiration or the "eureka" moment in which the solution presents itself.

It seems that one simply can't force inspiration and trying to force it may in fact even stifle it! This concept of an incubation period is fascinating and it helps us understand the reason why something like laughter supports the creative process because laughter helps us take our mind off of our problems, and it is just this process itself that may be the key to supporting creative thought. Laughter can be equated in many ways to the idea of an incubation period because it allows our mind to form new connections and new sources of inspiration while we are busy laughing.

One can also look at something like the chaos theory or the complexity theory to understand creativity as well. The chaos theory is the study of dynamic and nonlinear processes and the study of self-organizing systems; self-organizing systems are seen in nature all the time every time a flock of birds or a school of fish comes together. All of these kinds of things demonstrate a kind of dispersed control, rather than a centralized control similar to the human brain because the human brain may actually be of the ultimate self-organizing system with creativity being one of its most integral and dynamic systems.

When experiencing something like laughter, the brain's frontal lobe becomes active. The limbic system, or network of structures located beneath the cerebral cortex, is also activated. The limbic system is important because it controls some behaviors that are essential to forming memory and experiencing pleasure.

The limbic system also controls friendship, laughter, affection and love! Laughter also helps your blood vessels function better acting on the inner lining of blood vessels causing them to relax and expand, increasing blood flow. In other words, laughter not only helps your brain, but it also helps your heart.