me arts ed

Survival Tool

This is part of the Teacher Appreciation Week series. I love to laugh and want to remind/inform you about how essential it is in our crazy, busy lives of teaching!

Laughter is an important item in the teacher’s toolkit. Even though April was National Humor month doesn’t mean its over. In fact, I suggest you take National Teacher Appreciation week to think about laughter. (Just don’t get to serious about this topic). This post is a reminder of the importance of laughter in your educator bag.

I was several years into my teaching career when an administrator (who I had a high level of respect for) pointed out to me that I was taking myself way to seriously. I looked closely at that statement and what that meant to me and to my students. I made a few small changes and to my surprise the environment in my classroom changed. I no longer looked at situations through the same lens but viewed each one uniquely. I thought I had to be serious in order to have control, for my students to be successful, and for my classroom to look a certain way when others visited. As I continued on my teaching journey I realized that one key to a successful classroom was including fun and laughter in every lesson and encouraging my students to be joyful.

When situations move towards being stressful I ask myself how important it is to “tangle”. I remind myself to take the high road and most importantly my bottom line question: Is this a dance or a wrestle? Most often it is a dance – we all know that dancing is more fun!

As the same goes “laughter is some of the best medicine”. Each of us knows how laughter impacts us and in addition the research supports that.

Laughter:

• activates our natural, brain-boosting endorphins,
• relieves depression,
• helps fight cancer growth,
• relieves frustration and stress,
• improves our immune system, and
• enhances oxygen by messaging the liver, kidneys and pancreas.

Laughter can reduce our medical bills and increase our work productivity up to 31%. It is know that people who laugh regularly use less sick-time and often problem-solve more creatively.

Recently I heard that along with the rise of yoga classes there are some laughter yoga classes. I have yet to see this in action however, it sounds intriguing. Some work places are offering yoga laughter classes to help relieve stress. Not to mention the number of calories burned is sure to rise with a large group laughing together. When someone is enjoying a hearty laughter it is difficult not to laugh or at least smile.

A couple of laughter websites to help increase your laughter:

• www.laughteryoga.org
• www.laughteryogaamerica.org.

And lastly, Christa Scalies offers the following reasons to add laughter to your survival kit or as I’d like to say your educator bag. Please don’t wait until the next break or vacation from your work to think about how to make laughter an important component of your day.

Laughter helps us de-stress, learn, cope, transcend, recharge, renew, hope, optimize, enjoy, create, meditate, digest, exercise, connect, engage, energize, oxygenate, release, persist, and persevere.

Laughter is an instant vacation. ~ Milton Berle