Learn To Laugh More

Research has consistently shown real health benefits from laughter ranging from strengthening the immune system to reducing food cravings, to increasing a person’s threshold for pain. There's even an emerging therapeutic field known as humour therapy to help people heal more quickly.

Laughter connects us with others. Also, laughter is contagious, so if you bring more laughter into your life, you can most likely help others around you to laugh more, and realise these benefits as well. By elevating the mood of those around you, you can reduce their stress levels, and perhaps improve the quality of your experience with them which helps to reduce your stress level even more!

Laughter is one of the best stress management strategies because it's free, convenient, and beneficial in so many ways. Here are some great ways you can get more laughter in your life:

T.V. and Films:
There's no shortage of laughter opportunities from the entertainment, both at the theatre and in the aisles of the video stores, as well as at home with T.V. comedies. Every month or so, my friend and I visit one of the Laurel and Hardy evenings that take place in and around the region. We join other Laurel and Hardy fans and watch these classic old films and just laugh. Even though we’ve all seen them countless times they never fail to reduce everyone to tears of laughter.

When you hear laughter, move toward it.
Sometimes humour and laughter are private, a shared joke among a small group, but usually not. More often, people are very happy to share something funny because it gives them an opportunity to laugh again and feed off the humour you find in it. When you hear laughter, seek it out and ask, “What’s so funny?”

Laugh With Friends:
Going to a comedy club with friends is another great way to get more laughter. The contagious effects of laughter may mean you'll laugh more than you otherwise would have during the show, plus you'll have jokes to reference at later times. Having friends over for a party or game night is also a great setup for laughter and other good feelings.

Look For The Humour In Your Life:
Instead of complaining about life's frustrations, try to laugh about them. If something is so frustrating or depressing it's ridiculous, realise that you could 'look back on it and laugh.' Think of how it will sound as a story you could tell to your friends, and then see if you can laugh about it now. With this attitude, you may also find yourself being more light-hearted and silly, giving yourself and those around you more to laugh about. Approach life in a more jovial way and you'll find you're less stressed about negative events, and you'll achieve the health benefits of laughter.


'Fake It Until You Make It':
Just as studies show the positive effects of smiling occur whether the smile is faked or real, faked laughter also provides the benefits mentioned above. So smile more often, and fake laughter; you'll still achieve positive effects, and the fake merriment may lead to the real thing.

Join a laughter club.
This is where participants gather in the early morning for the sole purpose of laughing. They are becoming as popular as Rotary Clubs in the United States. In this country there are even telephone laughter clubs where you dial into a conference call to laugh with other people prior to going to work so you all start the day in a great and inspiring way.


Laughing doesn’t just boost the immune system and lessen stress; it can also shave off those calories! Researchers from Vanderbilt University in America locked people in a room to watch comedy clips on TV and found that those who laughed used 20 percent more energy than those who didn’t. So, start laughing for 10 to 15 minutes a day and you will be able to burn off 2.2 kilograms of calories a year!

Laughter is a birthright, a natural part of life. The part of the brain that connects to and facilitates laughter is among the first parts of the nervous system to come on line after birth. Infants begin smiling during the first weeks of life and laugh out loud within months of being born. Even if you did not grow up in a household where laughter was a common sound, you can learn to laugh at any stage of life. Why not start now?

Great Telephone Interviews

More and more organisations are saving time and effort by conducting an initial round of telephone interview before calling you for a face to face meeting in their office. Often they ask you in the advert to call them and interview you there and then. If you’re job hunting and you haven’t experienced this yet, it’s likely that you will in the future. A phone interview needs a slightly different approach and needs to be done well if you want that all important second chance, your voice and the way you project yourself over the phone can make all the difference.

Here are some good ways to make the process easier.

1. Visit the employers' website
Prior to the interview, (not just an hour before!), Visit the employers' website and learn about the firm. Most companies upload the job specifications in the 'career' or 'work with us' section of the website. This will give you a fair idea about the key skills required for a certain role. It may be that you can find some snippet of news or information regarding something you have experience or knowledge of that you can drop into the conversation if appropriate.

2. Also prior to the interview Make notes
Keep some notes ready about the job description and your key strengths and accomplishments. It's a good idea to keep your CV in front of you as well. It all helps to jog your memory and prevent you forgetting things you really wanted to get across. Remember, they can’t see you so they can't see if you’ve got these documents for review.

3. Make some Practice calls
Call a friend from the actual phone you will use for the call and ask them to listen to your voice on the phone. Maybe your voice shrills; you speak too softly or too fast to be understood. You might discover a poor quality or dodgy microphone on the handset you didn’t realise you had. Ask for feedback and request that they critique your voice. If you need to then use another phone – Remember you won’t get a second chance!

4. Once you call them Get to the point fast
Make sure you choose an appropriate time and find a comfortable and relaxed setting for the call. Many bosses can tell you about calls people have made during their lunch breaks and needed to go outside the building for privacy and ended up losing reception on their mobile phones. Don’t put yourself in this position. Instead schedule the call for a more convenient time when you know you will be in a quiet, uninterrupted location without the concern of being overheard. This also gives you the chance to relax and gather your thoughts before the call.
The employer is already expecting calls from candidates. They know why you’re calling, so don't waste their time by giving them a reference of where you saw their advertisement or asking them, if there are any openings. Greet them, state your name and get to the point. Keep a glass of water ready next to you. Sometimes nerves can give you a dry mouth.

5. Keep a note pad and pen ready
Listen to what they ask and write down their questions so that you can stay on topic. Too often, people forget the original question and beat around the bush like a politician, sometimes saying something they later wish they hadn’t. Stay on target Put yourself in the shoes of the interviewer and provide clear, well thought-through answers to give them the information they require.

6. Keep your voice positive and energetic
Your voice is the only sales tool you have. At all costs stop yourself from sounding tired or uninterested over the phone. Stay energetic and excited, even if they've asked you the same question again. Sometimes an interviewer will ask you the same question in a different way to try to spot inconsistencies. Speak clearly and allow the interviewer time to make notes and probe further on your answers.

Also try to be standing up - an erect and confident poise will help your voice come across more confidently.

7. Be courteous
Be courteous and try not to speak over the interviewer or cut them off. If you do, say "I apologise for interrupting, please complete your question" and let the interviewer continue.

Sooner or later, if you are determined about your career progression it is an audition you will have to get through, so it makes sense to get up to speed with the fundamentals now.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT TO SET GOALS ?

"If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there." In order words, how do you know where you want to go if you don't have a goal?

Having a goal enables you to focus your energies on devising ways to achieve it. When you make a decision and begin focusing on achieving a specific goal (and even better in a specific period of time), your unconscious mind goes to work and begins testing ideas and developing strategies of various ways to successfully complete it.

Your conscious and unconscious start working on it and begin to develop an action plan. You will find you begin asking yourself questions about what needs to be done so you reach your goal. You may find yourselves coming up with amazing ideas and solutions to problems or obstacles that might have been in the way of achieving it.

Our unconscious mind is an extremely powerful tool. The more often you remind yourself of your goal, the more your mind will work on ways for you to achieve it. Some people find answers come to them when they are asleep and dreaming.

Have you ever noticed that there is no correlation between being wealthy and having a high IQ or a university degree? If there were, every doctor and university graduate would be wealthy, and as statistics show, most of them end up in the same situation as 95% of the population. The biggest thing that the majority of independently wealthy people have in common is that they set goals for themselves and achieved them.

Setting Goals.

1. Pick ONE Goal: This is important! You can only achieve your goals if you focus on them one at a time. Once your goal has been accomplished or made into a stable habit you can start on the next goal.

2. Start Small and Easy: The best way to succeed with your first goal is to pick something you are already doing, once in awhile, but want to do daily. This will build your self confidence as you achieve the goal and help prepare you to work on future goals.

3. Simplify: Choose a small, specific goal, or break up larger goals into small pieces that can be done on a daily basis. Big successes start with little ones.

4. Write It Down: Write your goal in large letters and place it where you will see it several times a day. Putting your goal to paper makes it official: You Want It!

5. Keep Track Every Day: This step is VERY IMPORTANT! If you don't keep track of your daily progress you won't progress. Everything we accomplish takes DAILY steps which turns the goal into a habit.

6. You Have To Want It: If you don't really want to do it, you won't succeed. Pick goals you want to achieve or change your attitude so you REALLY do want it.

7. Make the Time: You have to MAKE the time or you won't MAKE the goal. Pick a time when you will work on your goal, such as early in the morning, late at night, during lunch, when children are occupied. If you "just don't have the time" then wake up earlier. Most people only need 6 hours of deep sleep.

CityTalk 105.9 Interview

Last Sunday I recorded an interview with CityTalk DJ Roy Basnett. We talked about what hypnosis is, how it works and how it can help. We ended up with me hypnotising Roy during the interview. That part will be broadcast in the near future.

In the meantime you can listen to the interview here:

David Laing CityTalk Roy Basnett Show 10.03.08

Reduce Your Workload

Everyone is so busy at work. We say "yes"to superiors because we want to please them. But when eventually we take on too much and can't continue, we let them down, we become stressed out and we feel guilty. Here's a terrific way to reduce your workload and your stress levels:

When a superior asks you to do a new urgent task;

1. Say that you've no problem doing the new task but remind them that you are working on other projects that they've already identified as top priorities. Managers are very busy people. It's possible that your boss has forgotten the many other things they've already asked you to do today.

2. Ask your boss for help in deciding where the new task should fall on the list of priorities – which do they want you to do first? This takes the pressure off you. If your boss says put another task on the back-burner, it's their decision not yours and you're in the clear if it's a bad judgement call.

3. Point out that you might be able to do everything, but not to the usual high standards that are expected.

If it's really urgent your boss will reallocate either the new task or one of your existing to a colleague with a lower workload. This takes the pressure off you!

Planning Your New Year's Resolution

At the beginning of 2007 an estimated seven million Britons made New Year's resolutions - half of whom apparently make the same resolution every year, according to surveys.

A total of 46% of people pledged to sort out their finances, Of 1,000 people questioned, a fifth planned to lose weight and eat more healthily and 8% to give up smoking.

One in four said they had given up on their previous years resolutions within a week.

And 39% of good intentions had been abandoned by the end of January.

Of those planning financial changes, half wanted to save more and half wanted to budget better.

A third pledged to get out of debt and the same amount wanted to invest more.

A quarter of people hoped to get on to the property ladder during the year and one in 10 people planned to sort out their pension.

Just under a tenth promised to take more exercise and 4% said they would cut down on alcohol.

Over the next few posts I'll be giving you some help to enable you to keep that commitment strong and make those New Year resolutions a reality. But first you might want to think about it properly beforehand:

Is this the right time for you?
If you're deciding to make a new start in your life, then you have to be 100% sure that the time is right for you. Just because January is the most obvious time to make resolutions, it doesn't mean that you'll stick to them. There's no point whatsoever making a resolution if you don't even think you'll make it through the first day. Be true to yourself. If you don't feel ready, spend a while longer getting your head around it. If you're serious about changing your life, why not consider a date that isn't so loaded with expectation - one which you can work towards on your own terms?

One of the ways you can determine if it's the right time to change is by using a method called Cartesian Logic:

Cartesian Logic
In order to ensure that this is definitely the right time for you to change, it's important that you examine this decision from every perspective. There are many parts of your life, for example family, work relationships,friends etc. This decision may have an effect on those parts so it's helpful to make sure that we don't gain from one area at the expense of another.

Find a pen and paper. Divide the paper into four sections and write down the following questions as headings:

What WILL happen if I do this?

What WON'T happen if you do this?

What WILL happen if I DON'T do this?

What WON'T happen if you DON'T do this?

Now answer these questions as honestly as you can. Review all that you've written and only if, having done the exercise, you are certain that your commitment remains strong should you consider the resolution.

Radio City Phobias Phone In

It was a really good show the other night. A surprising variation!

Click below to hear the show again:

Radio City Phobias Part 1

Radio City Phobias Part 2

I'm On The Radio Tomorrow

I'm a guest at Liverpool's Radio City on the Pete Price show this Wednesday 14.11.07 from 10pm GMT talking about phobias. I'll hopefully attached a link to the interview with my next post. But if you want to listen live you can click here:
Listen Live