The Story Behind Our Workplace Stress Support Method: Creating The MacLaughter Method

Understand and redirect stress. Our workplace stress support method

I was asked recently what inspired The MacLaughter Method.

The short answer is that it did not come from one moment, one qualification or one type of work.

It has been years in the making.

A lot of the thinking behind it began much earlier, through my own experience of cancer and the coping strategies I developed at a time when, for the first time, my life felt as though it was happening to me rather than being directed by me.

How Personal Adversity Shaped My Approach to Workplace Stress

I was diagnosed at 26 with a rare cancer with a 30% five-year survival rate.

I have long surpassed that, thankfully, but the experience permanently changed how I think about time, work and the idea of finding work-life balance now rather than assuming that would somehow happen at some future date.

Before my diagnosis, I had always believed that if you wanted something enough and were prepared to put in the work, almost anything was possible.

Cancer was different.

I could not work harder and guarantee a different outcome. It was happening to me, while other people were responsible for treating me.

For the first time, I needed to find a way of coping with something I could not simply fix.

Turning on the light

The best way I can describe it is like being the child who believes there is a monster under the bed. I had a choice: stay frightened by everything I imagined might be there, or turn on the light and see what I was actually dealing with.

I chose to turn on the light.

That did not give me control over cancer. But it gave me a starting point.

When my hair started falling out during treatment, I chose the date I was going to shave the rest off rather than waiting for it to gradually disappear.

Physically, it was a simple action. Emotionally, it was huge. Mentally, it was my choice. My decision.

I could not control my diagnosis or treatment, but I could reclaim a little piece of my life — and enjoy the sense of peace that came with making that decision.

That one simple physical action created a wider chain reaction. It changed how I was thinking about what was happening and, in turn, how I felt.

Looking back, I can see the roots of Respond were there: one simple physical action creating a chain reaction that can ultimately change an established pattern.

Staying in the present

During treatment, the nurses often told me I needed to find ways to keep myself in the present.

That was much easier said than done.

The past could pull me into the “Why me?” of what had already happened. The future was where the “What if?” quickly took over.

I needed practical ways to stay with where I actually was.

Looking back, there were a few things I kept coming back to because they helped the most.

One was taking small actions where I still had some choice. Choosing when to shave my hair was one example.

Another was the mantra I used on difficult days:

Today is a good day. Today is not going to be the day I die.

It sounds bleak, but at the time, I took comfort from it. It meant I had more time. And on the difficult days, finding a little comfort was good enough for me.

Thankfully, the bar for what counts as a good day has risen considerably since then.

Reiki helped in a different way. It taught me the value of simply putting the weight down for a while.

Not fixing everything. Not pretending the problem had disappeared. Just creating enough space to stop carrying it for that moment.

I also instinctively reached for light-hearted books, television and comedy. Looking back, I can see that this was doing something similar — helping me interrupt the heaviness and put the weight down for a while.

Had I known then what I know now, I would also have used intentional laughter regularly.

Using Intentional Laughter as Active Mindfulness

I describe intentional laughter as a form of active mindfulness because it meets a stressed or busy mind where it is, without asking it to quieten down first.

Breath, movement, sound and laughter give the mind something immediate to engage with and help bring attention back into the present.

Intentional laughter would have given me a more active way to interrupt the heaviness.

There is something quite full-circle about the fact that I now use intentional laughter with people affected by cancer through Rainbow Valley, where laughter has been part of their residential support for years.

Only much later did I recognise that these different coping strategies were pointing towards two distinct tools.

One helped me Respond — introduce a simple physical action that could create a chain reaction and begin to change the pattern.

The others helped me Reset — interrupt the pattern and create some space around it.

Both helped bring me back to the same place:

Where am I now?

That is where I can now see the roots of Notice & Name too — bringing attention back to what is actually happening, rather than becoming completely consumed by what has already happened or what might happen next.

The parts were never really separate

For a long time, I kept different parts of my life and work in separate boxes.

Teaching was one thing. Laughter was another. Reiki sat somewhere else. Cancer was personal. Mrs MacLaughter was the business.

Only more recently did I recognise how much they had all been shaping the same way I approached pressure, change and wellbeing.

It was less a neat sequence and more a crucible of experiences — each one influencing the others without me fully recognising its impact at the time.

(Sorry, drama teacher moment — I couldn’t resist. The Crucible by Arthur Miller has been with me for over 30 years: as pupil, student and teacher. If you know, you know.)

The MacLaughter Method began to come together when I stopped looking at those experiences individually and started noticing the common threads running through them.

· Helping people see what is happening.

· Giving them something practical to do.

· Creating space when action is not the answer.

· And helping them notice what changed.

That was when Respond and Reset stopped feeling like separate ideas and became two tools within one Method.

From the Drama Classroom to Workplace Wellbeing

There was another influence that took me much longer to recognise: teaching. It gave me another important piece of the puzzle — how to make an invisible shift visible.

Years in the classroom have shaped how I think about learning, participation and what helps something actually stick.

As teachers, we have long used approaches that encourage learners to actively take part rather than simply sit and listen, because active participation can help learning become more memorable and meaningful.

I have also learned how important it is for people to understand why they are being asked to do something.

Without that context, an activity can feel too simple, too small or even a bit of a joke. Once people understand what they are exploring and what to pay attention to, the same activity can land very differently.

I have also used approaches influenced by Harvard Project Zero’s Visible Thinking and Artful Thinking for years — helping learners make their thinking visible, explore how their thinking has developed and reflect on how their thinking has changed.

That practice found its way into The MacLaughter Method too.

Why workplace stress support needs to be experienced, not just explained

I did not want to simply tell people about Respond and Reset. I wanted them to understand the purpose behind each activity, experience the tools for themselves and then notice what happened.

Because some of the most important changes are difficult to see.

A shift in your thoughts, or your feelings, building your confidence or your understanding does not leave a physical trail behind it. Being able to look back at where you started, what you tried and whether anything changed can make that journey much more tangible.

That is where Capture began to matter.

For the participant, it provides a way to make some of that internal change visible and recognise what has actually shifted.

How We Measure the Value of Workplace Stress Support

But I also wanted Capture to be useful beyond the individual.

If an organisation is investing in workplace stress support, it needs something more meaningful than:

“Everyone seemed to enjoy it.”

The aim is to capture useful, anonymised information about what participants recognised, what shifted and what may be worth paying attention to next.

I have positioned the information gathered to link closely to the HSE’s 5 Rs framework and Working Minds campaign. I also want that information to fit as easily as possible into systems an organisation already uses.

The Method can be shaped around the organisation and its existing priorities, so bringing in an outside provider should reduce workload rather than create another task.

The reporting element is still receiving its final tweaks as I refine the questions, wording and structure to make sure what is captured is useful, proportionate and appropriate.

When it finally became a Method

Looking back, I can now see the missing links that took years to come together.

· The lived experience gave me some of the principles.

· Reiki and laughter gave me different ways of working with them.

· Teaching helped me understand the importance of making the purpose, the experience and the journey visible.

· And developing the workplace offer added another question: how do I make that value useful to the organisation too?

The MacLaughter Method is now one workplace stress support Method, with two tools and four simple steps.

First, Make Stress Visible through Notice & Name.

Then Respond or Reset.

Respond helps change the pattern.

Reset helps interrupt the pattern.

Then Capture the change.

And finally, Embed what helps.

The Method emerged when I recognised that Respond and Reset had always belonged together.

For me, it finally felt complete when the wider process became visible.

There was never one single thing that inspired The MacLaughter Method. It took years for all the pieces to come together — and now they finally have.

I am excited to see how The MacLaughter Method can support workplaces and staff across Scotland. While it cannot remove stress completely, it offers practical tools to help people respond to and reset pressure patterns, alongside a way of capturing what changed and making some of that impact visible.

Contacts

hello@mrsmaclaughter.co.uk
07900217088