LAUGH!


Madan Kataria (2018). Laughter Yoga: 

                                     Daily Practices for Health and Happiness.


Kataria is a medical doctor that began laughter yoga in the park with a handful of people...over time, yoga of laughter has grown into a worldwide organization with live in-person and on-line zoom groups that meet daily/weekly

Karatria presents a strong case (with research evidence) for the mental, physiological, and emotional benefits of laughter, and laughtger is free...to receive the full benefits takes 15-20 minutes a day.

The key attitudinal shift is expanding our conventional idea of laughter as spontaneous natural laughyer resulting from a humorous stimulus in our everyday life to intentionally choosing to laugh for no particular reason, faking the laughter until it turns into genuine laughter...several activities are suggested to choose laughter, the most effective method is to laugh as part of a small group (if a group is not available, or you prefer not to, you can do the activities alone in front of a mirror) where you can make eye contact, smile, and feel the contagious effects of others laughing--laughing aloud with others also reduces inhibitions and encourages child-like playfulness which spills over into daily life as positivity and positive health outcomes...in addition, yoga laughter includes deep abdominal breathing (exhaling all the way out to release stale/residue air and then inhale fresh oxygenated air) and stretching as one laughs.


Some of my favorite laughter starters for practicing/experimenting:


clap in rhythm 1-2, 1-2-3 while saying ho ho, ha ha ha, first on one side of the body, then on the other...increase the speed and loudness with each repetition, aim for 3-5 minutes.


breath in while bringing the hands toward the chest, clenching the fists, then release the fists all at once while stretching the arms out and laughing heartily 


gradient laughter...start out with elongating a vowel (experiment with: eeee, oooh, or ahhh) three times, each time getting louder and longer, after the last elongation, burst out laughing, repeat 3-5 mins.


point to any part of the body or any object and laugh like something funny is happening at the place you are pointing to


look in the mirror (or into someone's eyes) and start to giggle softly, then a bit louder, and louder...until you're laughing hard


MSRT technique (mind sound resonance technique)--this works well if you can't laugh aloud in a particular situation...train yourself to feel laughter in a private place by make a laughing sound and feeling the sound in the body (head, chest, and/or belly), then close your eyes and imagine sounding the laugh and feeling the effect in the body, repeat many times until you can easily feel the effect of the laughter silently inside the body...thus, you can silently laugh anytime, anywhere  

 


 

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