Use Humor to Build Happiness Start the year with a gale of laughter. It will relieve stress, entertain, and encourage intimacy. Charlie Appelstein, mentoring coach extraordinaire, encourages youth workers to use humor to strengthen relationships. Laughing together can help form bonds. For example, when interviewed at the end of the year, one mentee said, “We have fun. We laugh together a lot.” This mentee recently called his mentor to ask for homework help at the start of the school year so he can stay up to speed. That relationship started with the bonds of laughter. As mentoring researcher Jean Rhodes pointed out in an article recently, “we tend to…"