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Stress Management: Concept
Published in Arvind K. Birdie, Employees and Employers in Service Organizations, 2017
Laughter acts as a curative and relaxes the bodily muscles, increases blood circulations, and reduces blood pressure (Sengupta, 2007). Humor helps in reframing of the stressful situation, reduces the social distance, and creates playful and creative work environment (Deshpande, 2012). There are many stand-up comedians nowadays who help in mitigating the stress of corporate clients.
Intervening as a behavior-change agent
Published in E. Scott Geller, Working Safe, 2017
Humor. Safety is certainly a serious matter, but sometimes a little humor can add spice to our communications, increasing interest and acceptance. It can take the sting out of what some find to be an awkward situation. In fact, researchers have shown that laughter can reduce distress and even benefit our immune system.
Social and Emotional Development
Published in Krystina Castella, Designing for Kids, 2018
People who laugh may even have an increased resistance to illness or physical problems. Have lower heart rates, pulses, and blood pressure; and have better digestion. Laughter may even help humans better endure pain, and it improves our immune function.
Specific types of sports and exercise group participation and socio-psychological health in older people
Published in Journal of Sports Sciences, 2020
Taishi Tsuji, Satoru Kanamori, Masashige Saito, Ryota Watanabe, Yasuhiro Miyaguni, Katsunori Kondo
In this cross-sectional study, we evaluated self-rated health, depressive symptoms, and frequency of laughter as socio-psychological health indicators based on specific group sports and exercise. Self-rated health and depressive symptoms are valid predictors of mortality regardless of other medical, behavioural, or psychosocial factors (Idler & Benyamini, 1997; Royall, Schillerstrom, Piper, & Chiodo, 2007). The potential benefit of laughter is increasingly recognised in relation to improved biomarkers and vascular function by moderating stress, improving mood, and enhancing immune system function (Gonot-Schoupinsky & Garip, 2018; Hirosaki et al., 2013). Frequency of laughter might be increased if one participates in a group rather than exercising individually due to the positive social interaction and enhanced enjoyment (Kanamori et al., 2015); however, these effects might differ with different sports and exercises.
Detect depression from communication: how computer vision, signal processing, and sentiment analysis join forces
Published in IISE Transactions on Healthcare Systems Engineering, 2018
Aven Samareh, Yan Jin, Zhangyang Wang, Xiangyu Chang, Shuai Huang
Another voice characteristic the scientific community agrees aids in detecting depression is laughter. The influence of depression on the reduction of laughter frequency in speech has been shown in Fonzi et al. (2010). It has been found that laughter is able to improve negative consequences of stressful events and depressive symptoms. This characteristic of sound can be found through changes in spectral/cepstral biomarkers (Truong and Van Leeuwen, 2007). As shown in Table 5, the spectral/cepstral biomarkers were significant for both females and males. However, we found cross-relations across speech patterns. Any changes in the intonation or the rhythm of speech could reflect the spectral/cepstral biomarkers and could be considered as either laughter or anger. This shows, despite the great value of sound to determine an emotional state of the speaker, further investigation is required for drawing any conclusion. The complete list of vocal characteristics and their relationship with audio biomarkers is shown in Table 6.
Compassionate design for dementia care
Published in International Journal of Design Creativity and Innovation, 2019
Cathy Treadaway, Aidan Taylor, Jac Fennell
LAUGH is an acronym: Ludic Artefacts Using Gesture and Haptics and the project is predicated on the understanding that playfulness, fun and laughter benefit wellbeing (Fredrickson, 2004; Killick, 2013; Tonkin & Whitaker, 2016). Hand-use has also been found to benefit positive thinking and lift depression (Lambert, 2008) and so the LAUGH research team have specifically developed concepts for hand-held objects to stimulate positive emotions for people living with advanced dementia in residential care. Playfulness is particularly important for people living with advanced dementia since the disease compromises semantic and declarative memory (i.e. memories of events, places, names etc.) (Killick, 2013). In addition, perception can be altered (colours, shapes, sound) and the familiar often becomes unfamiliar (faces, objects and places). Playful play (ludic play) however, is something that takes place in the moment and does not rely on memory of facts or events; it is not goal orientated, there is no right or wrong and it is very useful for stimulating fun and laughter (Woodyer, 2012). Playful play at its most complicated may involve imagination but can be as simple as fiddling, twiddling or ‘potching’ with the hands. For people who are chair or bed bound and unable to physically do very much, simple ludic activities can bring great satisfaction and generate pleasure. Although research has found that playful play benefits health and wellbeing (Rogerson, Treadaway, Lorimer, Billington, & Fyfe, 2013), a negative attitude towards adults playing and having toys, continues to be prevalent in society (Kane, 2005). Relatives often feel uncomfortable about seeing their loved one living in residential care playing with a doll or teddy bear and may feel that it infantilises them and denies their dignity (Mitchell, 2016; Mitchell & O’Donnell, 2013). LAUGH research has sought to understand how to overcome this negative preconception and examine the key issues concerning playful play, memory, hand-use and ways to elicit positive emotion in the context of the later stages of the disease (C Treadaway, Prytherch, Kenning, & Fennell, 2016). Working in collaboration with Pobl Group Gwalia Care, the research has endeavoured to keep people living with advanced dementia and their families at the heart of the research.