Page 89 - PR COMMUNICATION AGE July - December 2020
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         World's deepest diving             learn and to train in order to dive  Aaker, psychology professor at the
                                            safely in open water," said Przemyslaw  Stanford Graduate School of Business,
         pool opens in Poland               Kacprzak, a 39-year-old diving     and Naomi Bagdonas, a lecturer at the
         A 45.5-metre deep diving pool with  instructor.                       university.
         artificial underwater caves and Mayan
         ruins, the world's deepest such    "And it's fun! It's like a kindergarten for  In the book, Aaker and Bagdonas
         structure, opened near Warsaw this  divers!" Jerzy Nowacki, a 30-yearold  outline the findings from a survey of 1.4
         weekend. The complex, named        forestry officer and diving novice, said:  million people from 166 different
         Deepspot, even includes a small wreck  "For my first time, we went down five  countries that measured how many
         for scuba and free divers to explore. It  metres but you can see all the way to  times they laughed or smiled a day.
         has 8,000 cubic metres of water -  the bottom - the wreck, the caves - it's
         more than 20 times the amount in an  magnificent!" Braszczynski said the  The two researchers found that the
         ordinary 25-metre pool. Unlike regular  pool "will also be used by the fire  average age at which people began to
         swimming pools, Deepspot can open  brigade and the army. There are many  smile and laugh less was 23 years old,
         despite coronavirus restrictions in  scenarios for training and we can also  leading them to believe that entering
         Poland because it is a training centre  test different equipment". Some 5,000  the world of work could be to blame.
         that offers courses.               cubic metres of concrete were used
                                            over the two years it took to build the  "We grow up, enter the workforce and
         A hotel with rooms from which guests  pool and it cost around 40 million zloty  suddenly become 'serious and
         will be able to watch divers at a depth  ($10.6 million).             important people', trading laughter for
         of five metres is also planned. "It's the                             ties and pantsuits," the authors write,
         world's deepest pool," Deepspot    Why 23-year olds start             according to The Times.
         director Michal Braszczynski, a 47-
         yearold diving enthusiast, said at the laughing less                  The issue with this, Aaker and
         opening day. The current holder of the  People start to lose their sense of  Bagdonas claim, is that humour is
         Guinness world record is in        humour at the age of 23, new research  "under-leveraged" in the working
         Montegrotto Terme in Italy and is 42  suggests.                       world and, when used correctly, can
         metres deep. The Blue Abyss pool                                      become a corporate "superpower".
         planned to open in Britain in 2021 will  In a study conducted by two business
         be 50 metres deep. Around a dozen  school academics from Stanford     Both professors specialise in teaching
         customers  came on the first day,  University in California, it was revealed  their students how to use humour to
         including eight seasoned divers who  that the frequency at which people  their advantage in the workplace.
         hoped to pass an exam to become    laugh or smile every day begins to
         instructors.                       plummet when they reach the age of  Their research found that the average
                                            23.                                four-year-old laughs up to 300 times
         "There are no magnificent fish or coral                               per day, while the average 40-year-old
         reefs here so it is no substitute for the  The findings are published in the book  laughs 300 times over the course of 10
         sea, but it is definitely a good place to  Humour, Seriously, written by Jennifer  weeks.

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