We Youth Workers are a funny bunch but none of us are laughing!

Well it’s not entirely true of course, but now that I’ve got your attention – see what I did there – no? Ok, anyways, I digress. I’m a youth worker by profession and have been involved in that particular profession for almost 30 years. And I would argue that the single most consistent resource we as a community have is our sense of humour – not even stretching budgets comes close - our ability to build and mend relationships, deal with conflict, make light of a tricky situation, break the ice, ease tensions, calm people and poke fun at ourselves - more often than not comes through the use of humour.

Just in case I've lost you already – best joke of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2013 – “I went on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday, never again!” (Tim Vine)

Stay with me – it gets better. The most natural resource we have – our ability to laugh and see humour in things is of course, free. You don’t have to buy it, it isn’t dependent on funding and we all have it. We all use it (to varying degrees), it’s not restricted to the club, cafe or street, no-one can actually take it away from us, it doesn’t threaten our health in fact it only enhances it, it has been around for millennia, it tends to happen when we are in the same room with people or even when we’re not or even in the oddest of places and yet right now I hear youth workers say we need a sense of humour more than ever. The most natural, obvious and blatantly underused resource we have we don’t use anywhere near as much.

Why? Well, in youth work circles we’re busy doing other stuff – our thoughts are of trying to survive the various decimation of services across the sectors, the lack of resources and funding, lack of recognition, policy dictated by whoever is in power whilst at a broader level the challenges of immigration, rise of nationalism, fear created by terrorism, seemingly increasing mental health related issues and so on and so on, these tend to concentrate our minds.

If we need to laugh more than ever and humour is our most natural gift and resource I have one simple question – why isn’t it on any youth work policy agenda, promoted in any strategy document or touted as an art form among the youth work fraternity or feature in any seminars or training programmes (no I won’t use this as an opportunity to promote one particular programme – nope I won’t even mention the ‘Humour is Serious Business’ Training Programme, not a word...well maybe four!).

In Youth Work we use musicians, DJ’s, artists, actors, singers, motivational speakers, poetry and so on. We use all the arts but when was the last time a youth worker brought in a comedian to their club? When is the last time a group or club had a workshop about humour or developing a comedy? When has a youth policy ever been launched by a comedian? When the youth work fraternity get together at local, regional, national and international level they catch up, ‘chew the fat’, relay stories, reminisce, discuss and debate, make plans and ......damn well laugh a lot.

Yip, the one thing they all do at some point is laugh, sometimes too much, but once the night is over, the meeting is closed and they’ve all gone home, the thing they did more anything else, i.e., laugh, well it just, well it just doesn’t do anything. It added to the buzz, created nice memories but doesn’t feature again until the next time they meet. It doesn't find it's way into documents, strategies or policies. When have you ever been to a meeting and Humour was an item on the agenda.

Now just in case I am starting to lose you (I do like this one), "What do we want!? More research into a cure for ADHD! When do we want it!? Let's play swingball!" (Joe Lycett, 2012)

So for all you Youth Workers out there (and those who are not but might be interested) here’s where it get’s interesting. The EU Youth Report 2012 proposes priorities including the development of the innovation and creativity of young people whilst one of the four strategic objectives of ET2020 is enhancing creativity and innovation. The 2nd European Youth Work Convention also lent weight to this when it referred specifically to imagination among five areas as part of its vision for youth work. Ok, I know not terribly exciting but the next bit is where it gets really interesting.

Edward De Bono (who is viewed as the guru of creativity) asserts that, “Humour is by far the most significant behaviour of the brain.....Humour indicates, better than any other mental behaviour, the nature of the information system that gives rise to perception....The neglect of humour by traditional philosophers, psychologists, information scientists, and mathematicians clearly show that they were only concerned with passive, externally organised information systems”. Poet, novelist and writer, Victor Hugo, said that "Laugher is the sun that drives winter from the human face". Canadian writer and author Grenville Kleiser said of humour, "Good humour is a tonic for mind and body. It is the best antidote for anxiety and depression. It is a business asset. It attracts and keeps friends. It lightens human burdens. It is the direct route to serenity and contentment".

One of the eternal arguments to support the development of youth work is the need for evidence (usually from government, even though of course governments tend to ignore all sort of evidence about anything).

There is a mountain of evidence about the benefits humour, from the philosophical to the scientific - Aristotle for example defined comedy as one of the original four genres of literature; clowns were used in the 1930s in U.S. hospitals to cheer up children hospitalised with polio (and most recently there are examples of ‘clowns’ going into refugee camps including ‘The Jungle’ during the on-going Refugee crisis); Dr Norman Cousins cured himself of Anklyosing Spondilitis through laughter and published ‘Anatomy of an Illness’ to tell the story; U.S. Doctor Hunter 'Patch’ Adams founded The Gesundheit Institute - a home-based free hospital to bring fun, friendship, and the joy of service back into health care.

There is plenty of research to show that humour has many, many health benefits - physically, mentally and emotionally - and in an age when there is a need for integrated services and policy, humour actually represents a cheap and cost effective medium to support and promote policy reform. The arts (and all that it encapsulates) play a part in youth work delivery and is embedded in policy in many areas, so why not humour?

One final attempt to keep your attention - "I was watching the London Marathon and saw one runner dressed as a chicken and another runner dressed as an egg. I thought: 'This could be interesting'." - Paddy Lennox (2009)

A feature of western culture over the decades has been the culture of consumption and even though we have had many advances in science, technology, medicine and health we live in an age where we suffer from such an array of ailments not merely restricted to the physical, psychological or the physiological - the instances of stress alongside more serious issues such as depression and suicide are reaching epidemic proportions.

It’s estimated that the majority of adults laugh an average of 15 times a day, unlike children who laugh and giggle between 300-500 times each day. Wake Forest philosopher Adrian Bardon explains that The pursuit of humor represents a kind of play that contributes to conceptual flexibility.... (Humor) actually helps sharpen our ability to respond to cognitively challenging situations.

Humour is also a force for change, for example, in 2009, comedian Jon Gnarr (from Iceland) helped to form the ‘Best Party’ and won 34.7% of the vote at the 2010 municipal elections. He became Mayor and helped to turn around the fortunes of Iceland taking it from near bankruptcy to a growing if not a thriving economy.

The health benefits of humour are also very clear - it makes a major contribution to health and well being. Humour lowers blood pressure, works your stomach muscles, boosts your immune system, releases natural painkillers in the body, reduces your stress level and boosts the body’s production of infection-fighting antibodies. It has been estimated by scientists that laughing 100 times equals the same physical exertion as a 10 minute workout on a rowing machine or 15 minutes on a stationary exercise bike. Laughing works out the diaphragm, abdominal, respiratory, facial, leg, and back muscles.

Humour is an underlying character trait associated with the positive emotions used in the broaden-and-build theory of cognitive development. Research investigating the psycho-neuroimmunological effects (interaction between the nervous and immune systems) of laughter has found that there is a strong relationship between good health and good humor.

Psychologist Steve Sultanoff, Ph. D., who is the president of the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor, explains, with deep, heartfelt laughter, it appears that serum cortisol, which is a hormone that is secreted when we’re under stress, is decreased. So when you’re having a stress reaction, if you laugh, apparently the cortisol that has been released during the stress reaction is reduced.

Studies at the University of Maryland found that when a group of people were shown a comedy, after the screening their blood vessels performed normally, whereas when they watched a drama, after the screening their blood vessels tended to tense up and restricted the blood flow. Studies also show stress decreases the immune system.

So, the most natural and blindingly obvious gift we have that we can use in our work, promote across our sector and embed in policy and strategy, we constantly ignore and fail to use to its true potential.To parody one famous British comedian, 'when they asked me when I was young what I wanted to be when I grew up, I wanted to be a Youth Worker – they laughed at me – they’re not laughing now.'

We Youth Workers definitely are a funny bunch.

P.S. The final, final one, ‘Did I tell you the joke about Incongruity Theory? Don’t Worry – it’s not what you’d expect!’ (Fergal Barr, 2016)