ATLANTA (Cox News Service) -- Laughter is good medicine for what ails you at work.

"There's an amazing amount of benefit to just having a laugh break," says Susan Bixler, president of The Professional Image Inc. "Who doesn't think better after they've laughed?"

Professional Image is an Atlanta consulting firm that conducts seminars and workshops to help companies develop effective internal communication.

In times when work-related stress and economic pressures are no joke, a little humor in the workplace might be just what the doctor ordered.

"It can be used as a way of bonding. It can be used as a way of recovering. It can get us back on track," Bixler says. "It takes sharing laughs to have a real business. I don't think I've ever seen a real healthy corporate environment without some laughter, and I've been doing (consulting) for 22 years. Offices have to laugh. It's a good thing."

It's an especially good thing in times of change, says Lee Kricher, who is regional vice president for Linkage Inc., a leadership development firm with offices in Marietta, Ga.

"Because change is so high anxiety, I find humor can be a great way to relieve that tension and help people to keep perspective," Kricher says.

Denial, resistance, exploration and commitment are the predominant phases that people experience in the face of change, Kricher says. "I think it's particularly during the denial and resistance phases that you really try to get people to keep a perspective on what's going on in the situation, and I think humor can help do that. Humor is one way to alleviate some of the tension."

That can be a serious benefit in a fast-paced work environment.

"We use humor on a day-to-day basis," says Lynn P. Hood, president of Hood Marketing Solutions in Atlanta. "We're in a stressful business with tight deadlines, sometimes ridiculously so. To diffuse that, we have a lot of humor."

Exactly what is and isn't funny depends on your workplace, sources say. There is no one-joke-fits-all approach to livening up the work atmosphere.

Some companies, once or twice a week, especially during stressful times, will bring in short funny movies at lunch, Bixler says.

"There are a number of different strategies. I think it's fine to have books of cartoons, some anthologies of"Dilbert" and "The Far Side," or whatever makes you happy, on hand for a five-minute happy break. Or, you can have someone you can call who makes you laugh," she says. "It's a whole lot more to laugh with other people. It's an act of release. It's an act of camaraderie."

When it comes to implementing new procedures or in training situations, adding a little levity to the discussion can be a great way of easing anxiety.

"Humor used within a context of learning can be an effective disarming mechanism because people bring so many different things into a learning situation," Kricher says. "It's a way to make people comfortable. When people are laughing, especially with colleagues, it just creates a positive environment for learning."

Knowing how to use humor effectively is a mark of good leadership, Kricher argues.

"When you think about the fact that such a large portion of our lives is spent at the workplace - for that to be a humorless existence, that really doesn't make sense," he says. "I think a huge part of a role of a leader is to make that extensive time that peoples' lives are in the workplace under your sphere of influence an enjoyable environment. When you talk about retention, one of the top reasons people give is, 'I don't enjoy my job."'

A little humor in the workplace can go a long way to change that sentiment, Kricher says.

Guidelines for humor in business:

Susan Bixler: "It should never be at the expense of someone else. If it's going to be hurtful, sexist, if it's cruel, if it's obscene, if it's racist - all that ends up being so hurtful, and many people don't even find it funny."

Lee Kricher: "I'm not talking practical jokes."

Lynn Hood: "It has to be clean. I think that you really can't be sexually suggestive. That's offensive, and you can't be ethnic. You can't really make religious jokes, either."

Kricher: "Self-effacing humor is the best and safest route. The main person you should pick on in humor is yourself. Then I think you're pretty safe in a work environment." Hood agrees: "You can laugh at yourself for being in a bad mood on Monday morning. You can laugh at yourself for having a messy desk. Mine is atrocious! You can be defensive or you can laugh about it: "Oh, it's probably buried on my desk."

Copyright 2002 Cox News Service. All rights reserved.