You should work hard at your job. Your fellow employees are counting on you to stay focused and accomplish all of your daily tasks. However, your coworkers know that everyone in the office is human, and if you put too much focus on our work, you’ll put unnecessary stress on yourself and eventually burn out. That’s why it’s important to keep your mind at ease at the office by doing things that stimulate creativity. One thing that is almost guaranteed to inspire creativity is laughter.
In a 2014 article in Psychology Today, Moses Ma said that humor and laughter promote high activity in the brain.
“…EEG topographical brain mapping has shown that the entire brain has to work together to appreciate a joke fully and for humor to work. First, the left hemisphere begins to process the words, then the frontal lobe center of emotionality is activated, 120 milliseconds later the right hemisphere begins processing the pattern and a few milliseconds later the occipital lobe shows increased activity. Delta waves are increased as the brain “gets” the joke, and the nucleus accumbens to elicit happiness felt as a reward, and finally, laughter erupts.”
Ma goes onto say that the humor activates the limbic system, connecting both sides of the brain. Humor also releases tension, and without tension, the brain can achieve perceptual flexibility.
Personally, I’ve tried to incorporate humor in my daily office life by writing my own parody office newsletter. Instead of writing about actual office events, I try to style mine more like the The Onion, with absurd, ridiculous stories that have no bearing on reality. For example, I have written about the Apple Bandit, a story I came up with alongside another member of my office, where that person would put Apple-branded stickers on everything, and I would write about that person as if he/she was a menace to society. I’ve written a story about a small, personal office that my fellow employees are not allowed to use, possibly because there dead bodies in there, or a secret tunnel that leads to treasure, or perhaps we’re not allowed in there because it’s haunted.
You don’t have to what I did (mine aren’t that funny anyway, they just make me laugh). Do something that makes you and your employees smile. Whether it be light conversation, making a joke (not at someone else’s expense), or just writing something funny in a journal, do something that stimulates your mind the right way.