UK charity, Comic Relief has raised millions and millions of pounds to help people in need around the world with its popular Red Nose Day. Taking place every other year., Red Nose Day brings together comedy and fundraising activities to raise money – and smiles. Red Nose Day 2025 takes place on Friday 14 March and details of TV programmes, fundraising campaigns and comedy events happening across the country are easily available online.
A laughing matter
Laughter is well known to have many health benefits, so it needn’t – and shouldn’t – be restricted on once day every two years. According to neuroscience research, laughing is really good for us. It reduces tension in the body by causing our muscles to contract and relax and lowering cortisol, the body’s stress hormone. Laughter increases positive chemicals inside us too, such as endorphins, serotonin and dopamine, which are all linked to feelings of pleasure, happiness and resilience.
Laughing regularly also boosts our mental health, keeping our brain active through processing humour and responding to it. It can even lessen pain or discomfort, lower blood pressure and strengthen the lungs, pumping your body with air that is rich in oxygen. Laughing with friends, family members or colleagues also helps foster stronger relationships and friendships, which offer crucial support in more difficult times of life.
A laugh a day
Think about bringing more laughter into your care home – it is easy to do if you introduce comedy, fun and humour as much as possible into everyday activities and events. You could start by finding out what makes your care home residents laugh. Record what they tell you on the personal record in Care Vision. This can help build up ideas of more effective ways to bring laughter into the group – and can bring people together with similar senses of humour.
Some ideas for humorous activities could include holding regular comedy film nights. Get people to write a list of funny films and take turns choosing one or two to watch. You could include TV sit coms and stand-up comedy programmes to mix it up a bit. Make sure people are sitting in easy chairs with lots of blankets, cushions, drinks and snacks to help them feel comfortable for the duration of the film or TV show.
More ideas
You may not realise it, but there could be several comedians residing in your care home, under your very nose. Try asking if anyone would like to share a funny story from their past, tell a joke, sing a humorous song or even try some longer stand-up comedy to entertain the others. If this is not a popular idea, suggest writing funny stories down instead, or looking up funny excerpts or anecdotes online which can be read aloud. Keep things clean, however, and make sure you are not upsetting or offending anyone in the group. Setting some gentle rules ahead of the session should help keep people’s expectations in line and prevent anyone being made the butt of the joke, inadvertently or on purpose.
Comedy can also be visual. Consider holding a fancy dress competition or catwalk modelling afternoon for people to create outlandish costumes and show them off to each other. You could take funny photos and make an album to look back on and enjoy the laughter all over again. Drawing funny pictures can also be great fun, as can creating crazy collages by cutting faces and clothes out of magazines and mixing and matching them in amusing ways.
Quick wins
There are many ways to introduce more humour into the routine without having to maker a huge effort to come up with different ideas each time. Look online for a joke of the day to read out at meal times. Blow up a balloon and have an impromptu balloon volleyball game in the lounge. Check out some funny cat or dog videos online and vote for your favourites ones. Put on a silly tune and dance to it to raise a smile among those watching. Create a laughter box, where you can keep jokes written on small pieces of paper, silly toys, red noses, funny glasses, masks etc. When someone feels like they need a laugh, they can look through the box to see if anything tickles their funny bone. You can also keep a list of funny activities and ideas your team comes up with on Care Vision to provide inspiration when you need to cheer people up and get laughter back in the room.
