Crayon Drawings, Paper Planes Can
Reduce Stress

by Ann Fry

In our last column, we discussed how laughter is a cost-effective solution for "lightening up" the workplace. 

Let's continue that discussion, but we'll approach it from another perspective. I'm going to share some serious information about how stress affects our physical health. Some of the physical and psychological symptoms of stress include:

• Headaches and fatigue

• Increased consumption of alcohol, nicotine, coffee or drugs

• Sleep disturbances

• Moodiness or irritability

• Depression

• Feelings of helplessness, hopelessness or being overwhelmed

• Feeling out of control

• Communication difficulties

If these symptoms are showing up in your employees, how is that contributing to their performance on the job? How is that contributing to their sense of purpose and commitment and loyalty to their job? And if they aren't committed to performing or producing on the job, what is that costing your company?

Stress costs your company a lot of money. It detracts from the bottom line through health and mental health expenses, insurance claims, workers' compensation claims, absenteeism, violence, recruitment and replacement costs, and low morale.

Here are a few outrageous statistics on the costs of stress:

• It's estimated that stress costs up to $2 billion annually in sub par performance, lateness and insurance claims.

• 60 percent to 90 percent of all medical visits are stress-related — high blood pressure, chronic pain, anxiety, substance abuse and marital/family problems.

• One survey reported that 34 percent of U.S. workers considered quitting their jobs because of excessive stress. And one-third of the workers expected stress to lead to eventual burnout.

So, what is your company doing to reduce stress in the workplace? There are, of course, the traditional stress management techniques — deep breathing, meditation and exercise. Those work for some people. But what about laughter or fun ways to reduce your stress?

For businesses and employees, dealing with stress is rooted in taking numerous small, fun steps to alleviate it. The key to making humor work for any company is to help employees improve their own humor-coping skills. Here are some of our recommended stress release or "lighten up" exercises:

1. One of our favorite activities for stress reduction is called downloading your stress. Here's how it works.
   
   Before beginning the process, each person thinks of a stressful event he or she has experienced within the past couple of days.
   
   Choose a partner to download your stress. One person agrees to go first.
   
   The person going first will talk, and the other will listen without talking.
   
   The person talking will have 60 seconds to talk quickly and in an exaggerated fashion about the stressful event he or she experienced. At the end of 60 seconds, the partners will switch. If you're worried about disclosing the nature of your stress, you can download it in gibberish using unintelligible language or sounds.
   
   After both have "downloaded" their stress, they'll talk about how they started to lighten up as a result of exaggerating and talking fast. Hopefully, they will feel better as a result of the exercise.
   
2. Getting rid of perfectionism. Perfectionism places totally unnecessary expectations on a person. People have a sense that if they don't perform a task "perfectly" that something "bad" will happen. To prove them false, here's a fun exercise.
   
   Fold a piece of paper in half and hold it in the hand you don't write with. Take a crayon and hold it in the hand you do write with.
   
   Place the paper against your forehead. Place the crayon against the paper and write your first and last name in cursive — trying, of course, to do it as perfectly as possible.
   
   When finished, take the paper down and look at it — it will produce roaring laughter and it won't be perfect — and nothing bad will have happened as a result of it not being perfect.
   
3. Now, if there is still some stress left, try this one. It's called "brain dump." This is great for ridding yourself of any remaining annoyances.
   
   Take a blank piece of paper. On the paper, write, draw or scribble down everything and anything that's bothering you — work that isn't done, personal issues such as finances and relationships, stuff that's just on your mind.
   
   Dump it all on the paper, using crayons — list things, draw stick figures or symbols, or whatever works. The important thing is to get it all down.
   
   Once completed, take the paper, fold it up into an airplane and ship it into the garbage can — thus ridding yourself of all your stress.
   
   If your stress really is making you angry, you even could burn your paper in a empty trash can. Just make sure you don't burn down your office.

After all the previous exercises are done, go out to the playground, go for a swim or a walk, go to the zoo, go shopping, go to a movie, play a game or do something that will be fun for the rest of the day. Without stress for even part of one day, you'll return to your workplace refreshed and highly productive.

Remember that stress is merely a reaction — your reaction to something going on around you. So, if you can choose to react to it, you also can choose not to react to it. Instead, you can choose to find ways to laugh and have fun that, in turn, stimulate blood flow, strengthen your immune system and reduce levels of stress-inducing hormones — all of which could have positive effects on your creativity and productivity.

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