Laughter Yoga

Laughter Yoga combines laughter exercises with yogic breathing and stretching exercises. This brings more oxygen to the body and the brain, which makes one feel more energetic and healthier. It is cleverly managed by your Laughter Yoga teacher, Mary-Kate, in a fun personalised or group session.

Laughter Yoga is a unique concept where anyone can laugh for no reason, without relying on humor, jokes or comedy. We initiate laughter as an exercise in a group, but with eye contact and childlike playfulness, it soon turns into real and contagious laughter.

The concept of Laughter Yoga is based on a scientific fact that the body cannot differentiate between fake and real laughter if done with willingness. One gets the same physiological and psychological benefits.

Listen to radio interview here.

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Health Benefits:

• Stress and negative emotions reduce communication skills and the motivation to communicate. Laughter Yoga is a perfect exercise routine that counters these effects.
• Laughter enables people to communicate and express their emotions freely.
• People who participate in regular Laughter Yoga do not fall sick easily, and if you have some chronic health conditions, you will heal faster.
• Laughter generates positive feelings and alleviates all negative strains of thought. It allows people to become more open with each other and creates a safe feeling.

Australian Research has found Laughter Yoga

• improves happiness and positive mood
• reduces depression, anxiety and stress
• helps lower blood pressure
• provides gentle fun exercise
• enhances social activity.

Connection Between Yoga And Laughter
The word Yoga arises from the Sanskrit root Yuj which means to get hold of, integrate and harmonize. It means getting hold of our lives, integrating all aspects of life and harmonizing our bodies with our minds, spirits and society. As the concept of Laughter Yoga evolved, Dr. Kataria (reinventor of Laughter Yoga), found a deep connection between the basic fundamentals of yoga and what one did in laughter clubs. He incorporated deep breathing exercises from yoga in between laughter exercises, which helps to increase the net supply of oxygen to the body and brain.

Why Laughter Yoga? A professional comedian’s job is to make you laugh for 3 seconds, every 30 seconds. And most people don’t laugh for more than that when they find something funny. So within 30minutes of a good comedy show you will have laughed for a total of 3minutes. And that’s if you found the comedians jokes funny. Thats subjective, so you may laugh for even less time.

On the contrary, a 30minute Laughter Yoga session, the participants will have laughed for a total of 21 minutes. That is seven times the amount of Laughter you get watching a comedian. In order to get scientifically proven health benefits of laughter, we need to laugh for at least 10 to 15 minutes; it should be sustained laughter. As natural laughter hardly lasts for 3-4 seconds at a time, it is not sufficient to bring about physiological and psychological changes in our body. Since in Laughter Yoga laughter is done as an exercise, we can prolong our laughter as long as we want. It brings measurable physiological changes like increasing the oxygen level in the blood, muscle relaxation, blood circulation and release of certain hormones in the body.

Stress and depression on the rise: In this high pressure, high tension, modern world, laughter is fast disappearing. Stress is the number one killer today, while depression has become the number one sickness. More than 70 – 80 percent illnesses are related to stress. Medical treatment is becoming expensive and people are spending huge amount of
their hard earned money on it.

Scientific research on laughter: Many scientific studies in the last few decades have proved that laughter has a profound impact on the body and mind.
It not only helps prevent sickness; but also helps in healing long term chronic illnesses like heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, arthritis and even cancer.

In Laughter Yoga, the participants may feel awkward at first. Some have to fake it before they make it. But every participant that’s had the privilege of experiencing Laughter Yoga, conclude that the benefits are definitely felt by the end.

How Often Should One Laugh?
Ideally, we should laugh every day. In order to keep ourselves in a good mood, to keep
our mind positive and to make our immune system stronger we would need to laugh 15-20 minutes daily. This is only possible by doing Laughter Yoga exercises, which provides deep and sustained laughter.

Book a Laughter Yoga session for your company, team building workshop, hen’s night or personal session TODAY! Fees vary based on each situation.

Breath is life: Breathing is fundamental to life. One can live without food and water for several days but cannot survive if breathing stops for even few minutes. According to yogic philosophy, we are alive because the cosmic energy from the Universe flows into the body through the breath, which is the life energy force or Prana, as called in yoga.

From a medical point of view, the most important component of breath is oxygen. Due to stress and negative mental state, breathing becomes shallow and irregular. We tend to hold our breath whenever the mind is upset or in a state of turmoil. This leads to lack of oxygen and accumulation of carbon dioxide in the blood which further causes anxiety, stress arousal and emotional reactions.

More oxygen from exhalation: The hallmark of yoga breathing is that we should exhale longer than inhale so as to get rid of as much of the residual air from the lungs and bring in fresh air and more oxygen for the next breathing cycle. Have you ever realized what we are doing while laughing? Actually, we are exhaling.

During laughter, exhalation lasts much longer than in regular breathing. In normal breathing we inhale and exhale only 500 ml of air while there is 1500 ml of residual and stale air (expiratory reserve volume) which has more carbon dioxide. This can be forced exhaled by laughter exercises which bring more oxygen to our body and brain.

Breathing capacity and laughter: The principal organs of respiration are the lungs. Due to sedentary lifestyle, we do not utilize the full capacity of our lungs. As a result, part of our lung cells does not participate in oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange. Laughter and deep breathing exercises open up all the cells of the lungs and also the respiratory passages. This leads to an increase in breathing capacity, also called vital capacity.

Diaphragm activates parasympathetic system: It is important to know that diaphragm is a major muscle of respiration which separates the thoracic and abdominal cavity. Two thirds of breathing takes place by the movement of the diaphragm and only one third by the expansion of the rib cage. Under stressful situations, most people breathe from the chest and do not use their diaphragm.

Both laughter and yogic breathing exercises are intended to stimulate the movement of the diaphragm and the abdominal muscles. The diaphragm is connected to a special branch of the autonomic nervous system called the parasympathetic system or the calming branch responsible for relaxation. The opposite is the sympathetic system, also known as the stress arousal system. One can turn off the stress arousal system simply by learning to move the diaphragm. The most important exercise done in laughter clubs is the chanting of ho ho ha ha ha, which helps people to focus on abdominal muscles so that they can learn to train their diaphragm and laugh from the belly.

Change your breathing, change your mind: There is a direct relation between the breathing pattern and the state of mind. When under stress breathing becomes fast, irregular and shallow. There are spells of breath-holding according to the number of disturbing and negative thoughts crossing the mind. In contrast when the mind is at peace, breathing becomes more slow, regular and deep.
Breathing is the only process that has a dual character. It goes on automatically and is under the control of the unconscious mind, but it can also be consciously regulated or changed. Through the practice of belly laughter and deep breathing, we can learn to change our breathing pattern from shallow to deep and easily alter the thoughts in the mind. Even if one has disturbing thoughts, with deep breathing, the body will not experience stress response.

Laughter Yoga connects people: Unconditional laughter connects people from different cultures, countries, no matter what language they speak or how they live. Laughter Yoga promotes a strong union between those who laugh together resulting in family-like bonds, providing social interaction and networking – essential for happiness. The goal of Laughter Yoga is to connect people with one another at heart level without judgment – this is the true meaning of yoga.

Laughter Yoga promotes spiritual growth
Laughter Yoga goes beyond just laughing. It not only fosters a feeling of physical well-being, it enhances the spirit and touches the emotional core. It has the power to change the selfish state of mind to an altruistic state of mind. It has been proven that people who laugh are likely to be more generous and have more empathy than those who don’t laugh.

This inner spirit of laughter becomes apparent as people develop a state of internal peace. The worries and intense goals that have driven their lives become less important. People become aware that true happiness comes from giving unconditional love, caring for others, and sharing with each other. Laughter Yoga inspires members to make the world a better place not only for themselves, but for everyone.

Scientific rationale of yoga and laughter
According to the yogic philosophy the food we eat should be digested properly and the nutrients must be well circulated in the body and finally be metabolized to produce energy. For doing all this, the most important component is oxygen. Therefore, the digestive, circulatory and the respiratory systems should all be equally efficient so as to maintain optimum health.

Let us examine how Laughter Yoga contributes to strengthen the digestive, circulatory and respiratory systems.

Toning the digestive system: All the principal organs of digestion like the stomach, intestines, liver and pancreas are situated in the abdominal cavity and are supported by strong core muscles on all sides. The movement of the abdominal muscles and the diaphragm during normal respiration naturally provides a gentle massage to these organs.
In Laughter Yoga we have different styles of belly laughter that exercise the abdominal muscles and the diaphragm simultaneously. Scientists have referred to laughter as ‘internal jogging’ that goes right inside the belly and readjusts the internal organs. Regular laughter exercise not only strengthens the abdominal muscles and gives an internal massage, but also holds the abdominal organs in their proper places. This ensures proper digestion and absorption.

Strong circulatory system: All the body’s nourishment is absorbed into the blood. It is processed in the liver, passed on to the central pumping system of the heart, and pushed throughout the body through a network of blood vessels. Similarly, the blood, after supplying the nutrients, collects the wastes of metabolism and returns to the heart and lungs for purification.

The most important organ of circulation is the heart. Laughing promotes a healthy heart. A
constant change in intra-thoracic pressure while laughing and breathing helps to draw in venous blood, returning from all the major vena cavas of the upper and lower body.
In a good bout of laughter, there is dilation of blood vessels all over the body. We’ve all seen or experienced this as a flushed appearance and feeling of warmth.
Pulse rate and blood pressure rise as the circulatory system is stimulated before settling down, below the original levels. In a nutshell, laughter helps tone the circulatory system of the body.

Strengthens respiratory system: Once all the nutrients are carried to the tissues, they need oxygen to metabolize. Laughter and breathing exercises help to increase the breathing capacity of the lungs and increase the net supply of oxygen to the body.

One ticket to Laughter Yoga – $20+, Overall Benefits – Priceless!