Laughter Yoga and Your Health

"Your body cannot heal without play. Your mind cannot heal without laughter. Your soul cannot heal without joy." -- Catherine Rippenger Fenwick

Laughter strengthens the immune system.

Scientific studies have proved that hearty laughter has a powerful and immediate strengthening effect on our immune system. Medical studies around the world have shown that ten minutes of hearty laughter has a sudden and dramatically powerful effect in strengthening the immune system. This is where Laughter Yoga can play an important role in bringing laughter from the body, not from the mind. Laughter as a physical exercise helps to bring similar physiological and biochemical changes without involving the mind. Laughter quickly increases immunoglobulin levels that help fight infection and increases the number of Natural Killer Cells (NK cells) in the blood. Natural killer cells play a key role in cancer prevention, for example. Dr Berk took blood samples from subjects watching humorous videos and found that natural killer cells increased significantly with laughter. The NK cells in blood samples from laughing subjects quickly killed cancer cells he introduced into the samples.

Laughter yoga approaches laughter as a body exercise that can easily be done regardless of mood. Hearty laughter quickly counters depression and negative outlook, especially when practiced within a group of peers. This is partly due to chemicals released by the brain and partly caused by a powerful emotional response to the group dynamics of laughter yoga.

Benefits of Laughter:

• Reduces stress: Hearty laughter causes the brain to release chemicals that reduce stress within minutes. It is typical to measure a 70% reduction in stress indicators after just 10 minutes of laughter. A rollicking laugh fires up and then cools down your stress response, and it can increase your heart rate and blood pressure. The result? A good, relaxed feeling.

• Helps deal with pain: Hearty laughter causes the brain to release endorphin, a natural morphine that is also responsible for the ‘runner’s high’. A typical laughter yoga session can provide two hours of pain relief without drugs, making it easier for patients to retain full control of their mental abilities and keep their spirits high.

• Stimulates many organs: Laughter enhances your intake of oxygen-rich air, stimulates your heart, lungs and muscles, and increases the endorphins that are released by your brain. Nobel Prize winner (twice in the field of medicine) Dr Otto Warburg has shown the strong connection of oxygen in the cells to health. He says we fall sick due to lack of oxygen in our body cells. The lack of oxygen is due to poor breathing habits caused by stress and negative mindset. This causes us to breathe shallow, irregular breaths and hold our breath when under stress.

• Soothes tension: Laughter can also stimulate circulation and aid muscle relaxation, both of which can help reduce some of the physical symptoms of stress.

Laughter yoga uses a combination of laughter exercises and yoga breathing to train our diaphragm and abdominal muscles to breathe deeply.

Come try it out! If nothing else, have a good time. Ho Ho Ha Ha Ha!