Therapy teaches how to lower inhibitions, embrace ‘inner clown’
Workers in investment, sales and other businesses recently rode an imaginary subway, holding invisible straps, swaying with the turns and laughing. Very likely many of them had forgotten the joy of playing like children.
“Laughter Lawyer” Debra Norwood had a serious purpose in helping them remember. Norwood was taking the group at Ridgeway Business Center through a few exercises to lower inhibitions and help them relax and have fun.
Norwood, who practices family law, has seen what stress can do to people and has dealt with trials in her own life. Seeking ways to help herself and others, she discovered laughter therapy as one way to cope. Others suggest everything from diet to yoga to more flexible work policies to deal with stress levels that seem constantly on the rise.
Over the past quarter-century, there has been a 10 percent to 30 percent increase in stress levels among all demographic groups, according to a recent study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. White middle-age collegeeducated men who had full-time jobs suffered the biggest increase in stress, twice as much as any other group, between 2006 and 2009. The last two years of that period have been labeled the Great Recession.
Women felt the most stress, perhaps because they are more sensitive to the troubles of those around them, researchers speculated. The study, which analyzed surveys of more than 6,300 people in the U.S. from 1983, 2006 and 2009, was published in June in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.
The problem is actually global, according to Regus, the workplace solutions company, which last year surveyed 11,000 corporations across 15 countries and found that an average 58 percent of
workers reported a rise in stress levels. An increased focus on profitability and the risk of unemployment were the most common reasons cited.
Fonda Fracchia hears every reason for anxiety including health issues, work issues, aging parents and finances. Fracchia, a fitness and wellness coordinator for the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, co-leads a stress management support group for employees. Once a month, people who use only their first names voice their worries to the group. “People need a safe place to talk about what their stressors are in life,” Fracchia said.
One woman had a paraplegic husband who was unemployed; a young man was dealing with a mother who had Alzheimer’s. One woman worried for two years she would lose her job.
Fracchia said a common denominator among them is the feeling of powerlessness over the situation. “It always comes up that they don’t have a choice,” she said. “But everyone has a choice every day. You have to get into their minds to help them create proper boundaries with themselves with family and with work.”
Long-term stress is costly to both people and businesses. It can disrupt almost all the body’s processes, increasing risk for heart disease, sleep and digestive problems, depression, obesity, memory impairment and worsened skin conditions such as eczema. Businesses can face loss of productivity, decreased motivation among workers and rising conflicts.
Regus recommends a more flexible workplace that allows employees to work full-time or parttime from home and creating easy access for such workers to offices, meeting rooms and video communication technology.
Others feel you can munch your way to a less stressful life. In “The DeStress Diet” (Hayhouse, Inc.: $14.35), nutritional therapist Charlotte Watts and journalist Anna Magee offer a diet to lose weight and de- stress. Some foods they recommend for protection against long- term stress are celery, garlic, cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, etc.), licorice, oily fish (such as salmon and sardines), chocolate and nuts.
Fracchia can lead people to all manner of activities and tools to deal with anxiety, including yoga and meditation, tai chi, abdominal breathing, visualization exercises and positive mental pictures to change thought processes as well as time management skills and spiritual relationships. “We learn and teach others that we all have choices,” she said. “We are never ‘stuck,’ unless we want to be.”
The woman who worried about losing her job did recently lose it, said Fracchia, but she seemed to handle it better because of the tools she had developed.
Norwood, who is married to Dan Norwood, a labor and employment attorney, has seen stress literally destroy people. Long ago, a client of her husband’s who was involved in a whistleblower case that dragged on for years committed suicide after his case was refused without comment on appeal.
Norwood was then dealing with pressures of her own, including raising seven children (four of them her own), two of whom have special needs; and taking care of her bedridden mother, who had Alzheimer’s.
She began to explore everything from massage to psychology to learn to live with difficult situations. She was led to research in positive psychology and eventually to a laughter therapy method developed by Ohio psychologist Steve Wilson.
“I was looking for my inner clown,” Norwood said. She became a certified laughter leader, and in the past two years, she has begun to present the therapy to small businesses, students and private individuals in this area. She also serves as a host for the “Look Good, Feel Good” segment of blogtalkradio .com/ businessovercoffee.
Her laughter circle sessions typically include simple breathing exercises and laughter vocalization, which can mean sounding out “whoo whoo” and “ha ha,” leading movements that work both sides of the brain and having people stand up and greet one another to create empathy among them.
On the desk or tables of participants, she leaves children’s toys, such as clown noses, funny glasses and spinning tops.
“We don’t claim laughter cures everything, but it helps you cope,” said Norwood, and it has beneficial health effects including boosting the immune system. To keep the good feeling going, Norwood offers laughter therapy’s “goodhearted living principles.”
For example, people are invited to use Mondays for compliments, Tuesdays for flexibility, Wednesdays for gratitude, Thursdays for acts of kindness, and Fridays for “moving toward forgiveness,” she said. Weekends are for chocolate. “That means rest and relaxation,” she said.
It’s a simple prescription, but it can be transforming if faithfully applied, she said.
“So much is in how we view things. We must mindfully train ourselves to create a different environment with a transforming attitude.”