Laughter yoga?

[iyengar yoga]

Does anyone know about laughter yoga?

[The Dean of Green]

It seems like an interesting concept...I'll ask around and see if anyone I know has tried it....

[YogaEarth]

I have heard of laughter yoga and was curious as to what it is all about. Any feedback would be appreciated

[Judy]

Hey check this out:

Laughter Yoga combines Unconditional Laughter with Yogic Breathing (Pranayama). Anyone can Laugh for No Reason, without relying on humor, jokes or comedy. Laughter is simulated as a body exercise in a group; 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. One gets the same physiological and psychological benefits.

This is the website:
[url=http://www.laughteryoga.org]Laughter Yoga International - A Life Changing Experience[/url]

[gthurnball]

I saw that on a travel show. It looked really cool. Are you a practitioner?

[tysookal]

Here is a video on laughter yoga:
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EGTETc5oFU]YouTube - Laughter Yoga Steps[/url]

[slucas]

Here is an article on the practice:

Laughter yoga? It's not such a stretch

I'm in no laughing mood. Deadline-weary at the end of a long day, I find nothing funny tonight. Nothing.

And this puts me in a bind. I've committed to visiting the One Laugh at a Time Laughter Club. It's a group of intrepid souls who practice something called Laughter Yoga. I have no idea what Laughter Yoga is, but club organizer Lisa Pettersen quite adamantly described what it is not when we spoke by phone earlier:

"This has nothing to do with comedy, jokes or humor."

That sentiment is reinforced by one of the many colorful, laminated signs stuck to the bulletin board of the room where the laughter club meets every Tuesday night in North Palm Beach.

"Don't try to be funny," cautions the sign.

Note happily taken. I decide I'll take my grumpy self and observe the experience from the sidelines as the dozen or so practitioners form a circle of hilarity.

Intended hilarity, anyway.

I come to learn that Laughter Yoga, a practice created by a medical doctor from Mumbai 15 years ago, is kick-started with forced, fake laughter, exaggerated chuckles that build into deep, hearty belly laughs.

Dr. Madan Kataria landed on this idea after researching an article on the health benefits of laughter for a medical journal. He field-tested the "laughter is good medicine" theory at a neighborhood park one morning, asking a handful of passersby to join a "laughter club."

The club had a roaring start, but the chuckles waned when the jokes dried up - or turned offensive. So the Indian doctor who came to be known as the Guru of Giggles issued a new rule: no thinking aloud, only laughing. The body, he believed, doesn't know the difference.

And this is the school of laughter that Lisa Pettersen, a follower of the guru, belongs to. She credits Laughter Yoga for helping lift her from depression and greatly reduce the amount of medication she takes.

It is mindless laughter — on purpose. There's no joke to "get," no punch line to rewind, no satirical thread to unravel. That would require thinking, and thinking flows contrary to what Pettersen is going for tonight. She's going for sheer, playful, silly, tension-releasing laughter.

"Ho HO! Ha-ha-HA!" goes Pettersen, a 49-year-old artist and certified laughter yoga coach from Palm Beach Gardens.

"Ho HO! Ha-ha-HA!" echoes the club.

Pettersen, a blond, sunny woman with a raspy, seemingly amplified voice, snickers as if she's just heard something wickedly funny. She wears sandals - one blue and one yellow - revealing metallic-blue toenails, and a fringed pink T-shirt that reads "Got Laughter?"

Watching her light up the room tonight one might never guess she's an arthritic woman who lives with chronic pain. Her laugh cascades in a way that's infectious. It echoes across the room as she leads the others in a series of exercises and pretend situations.

You're speaking gibberish. You're in a fake panic. You're stuck to the floor. You're playing your favorite sport. You're playing an instrument. You're on a seesaw.

"And it's all pretty funny, so you're laughing," Pettersen reminds the class, which giggles and guffaws in response.

For a good, solid 40 minutes or so, there's miming and squirming, slapstick moves and silly dancing. Walk in on this bunch and you may think you've reached the intersection of Saturday-Morning-Cartoon Avenue and Three-Stooges-Marathon Street.

But after a while you realize there's more to this night than pointless chortling. There are deep, therapeutic breaths and a contagious sense of buoyancy.

Even on the sidelines, it's hard not to laugh - not at the participants but with them. I've never met them. I don't know if any of them can tell a good joke. But tonight, they crack me up. Even when they take turns describing the worst thing that's happened to them in the last week.

"I got a blister on my first golf lesson, and it hurt," says Kimberly Lockey, a currently unemployed bookkeeper who came to this club out of curiosity.

"Ha! Ha! Ha!" replies the group.

"The Rosetta Stone Spanish lessons I ordered arrived - in Mandarin," says Mary Ann Martin, a retired stockbroker, who claims Laughter Yoga has transformed her disposition, making her a "much happier" person.

"Ha! Ha! Ha!"

"I worked like a dog today," says Fred Pettersen, Lisa's husband, who runs the Recovery Resources center on Northlake Boulevard, where the laughter club meets.

"Ha! Ha! Ha!"

I glance up and notice a sign on the bulletin board that declares, "Fake is fine."

Amid the waves of laughter that began with a few fake hoots and cackles, I come to agree that fake can be quite good. Fake can be quite funny.

There is no strict scientific proof, but Dr. Madan Kataria, Laughter Yoga founder, claims that it:

* Boosts the immune system. Laughter increases disease-destroying antibodies.
* Triggers the release of pain-relieving endorphins, a natural opiate, into the bloodstream.
* Releases stress.
* Defuses painful emotions through the painless mechanism of catharsis.
* Generates an energy often compared to the 'runner's high.'

[Greenybee11]

No I don't practice laughter yoga. But it seems interesting and good for the abs!

[patpatrick88]

I liked it, and it help with the mind and soul.....green movement unite

[Saffron]

People have often said that laughing can cure no end of ills. It de-stresses the body and the mind. I must agree with them but I didn't know that there was a yoga technique. I have watched the videos and am determined to do this.