Your EAP Employee Newsletter has the following tips to enhance your work and life.

Humor and Laughter Strengthens Relationships

Humor and laughter work to reduce stress, ease pain, and lift your mood. Positive humor also draws people together and strengthens the bonds in relationships.  A sense of humor is attractive. People who can make you laugh are a pleasure to spend time with. People who draw out your sense of humor help you keep worries in perspective and make you feel better about yourself.

Laughter helps with the awkward moments as people get to know each other. Positive humor can help friends and couples work through conflicts. It helps long-term relationships continue to feel fresh and exciting. Sharing laughter and funny moments together builds intimacy and strengthens feelings of connection.

Laughter isn’t a cure-all for relationship problems, but it can help you through rough patches. If you have a history of laughing together, you’re more likely to be flexible, open-minded, and forgiving as you deal with disagreements and disappointments. Knowing how to make each other laugh can help keep your relationship resilient.

Opening Up Appropriately

You probably know the importance of being a good listener, but you may not realize that being a good talker is just as critical to your relationships at work, at home, and with your friends.

A primary way to build rapport and connect with people is a skill called self-disclosure—the ability to tell people about yourself in a way that lets them to get to know you easily and naturally. Done appropriately, self-disclosure enhances trust and intimacy in your relationships.

Telling people about yourself also can boost your own self-esteem and personal development.  Describing your values, goals, and dreams leads you to define them in terms that others can understand—and that you can act on.

It can be intimidating to tell people how you feel and think, and what you want out of life or a relationship. But you’ll probably find that most people will accept you for who you are. In any case, it’s up to you to choose what information to disclose.

Read more about these topics in your EAP Employee Enhancement Newsletter for February 2023.

Deer Oaks Employee Assistance Program (EAP) is a free service to UHD benefits-eligible employees and their dependents and household members.  Services provided by the EAP are confidential.  For EAP contact information, visit Employee Assistance Program on UHD-ESO’s website.