September Monthly Luncheon Phillipa Challis OAM

September 2020 Monthly Luncheon

Phillipa Challis OAM

It’s always a good time to have a laugh, so laughter it was at the September Monthly Luncheon on Wednesday, 2 nd September with our guest speaker, Phillipa Challis, CEO of Live Life Laughing, also known as The Laughter Lady. Phillipa first spoke at Graduate House in 2011 and was warmly received, so she was invited back for a second time, as we could all do with a good laugh! This was an online only event due to the continuing pandemic and Stage 4 restrictions in Melbourne, but Phillipa had all attendees warming up their homes and offices and filling it with laughter. Phillipa’s story with laughter started with her growing up in Fairfield, Melbourne in a home “filled with laughter”. The eldest of three girls, Phillipa had a large extended family – her father was one of 12 children and her mother one of 10 – so there was “lots of people there and lots of laughter”. When she left school and started work, she said, “I was blessed. I always picked good executives to work for, which meant they had a balance in their work life, and because of that, again, lots of laughter.” She married, moved out of Melbourne, lived in Anglesea for 10 years, worked in retail there (“I did particularly well, because everyone said, ‘I love coming in here – it’s always good for a laugh’ and I did lots of business while I laughed with them!”) and in the corporate sector in Geelong, then moved to Geelong, where she now lives (her OAM is “for service to the community of Geelong”) and from where she travelled the world. In 1984, Phillipa started her own business, PPS – Phillipa’s Promotional Services, which dealt with promotions and public relations, “and in those days, secretarial support which became special events, hence the MCing (Master of Ceremonies)”. She then became a public speaker and her most requested topic then, as it is now, was “Your Number One Asset is You”. A dean at The University of Adelaide, many years ago, introduced her as “Phillipa Challis … Phillipa has a degree from the University of Life and she has a PhD in people and her speciality is laughter”. In 1995, she realised “there was an opportunity to take it to the community”, to spread the word about the benefits of laughter to improve people’s lives, resilience, productivity and wellbeing. “There are many people that don’t have laughter in their life.” She took laughter seriously enough – “I thought there’d be benefit in people knowing more about it” – to take it to the level of being trained and becoming a certified professional laughter practitioner, a laughter yoga teacher, a laughter yoga leader and, now, a laughter yoga master. In 2002, she started her company, Live Life Laughing and her job title is Laughter Practitioner and Trainer. Phillipa has never been busier than during the current pandemic, doing lots of one-on-one consultations and speaking to people in organisations to talk about laughter, and to share some laughter with them. “It’s so important during this episode that we’re living through.” Phillipa took the attendees through a series of breathing, smiling and laughing exercises

(including the silent laugh – smiling and laughing without making any noise): with lots of clapping, arm waving, imaginary hand washing, making an imaginary milkshake and drinking it (vanilla and dark chocolate were the two flavours chosen), doing a “mental floss” with an imaginary piece of dental floss passed through the ears!, the “lion laugh” – holding your hands up as claws, and then trying to touch your chin with your tongue while laughing, the “telephone laugh” – holding an imaginary phone to your ear, and then pretending you are laughing at something you are hearing on the call.

Phillipa Challis OAM, The Laughter Lady (top row, third from the left), making Members and friends laugh at the September Monthly Luncheon via Zoom.

Laughter helps you in a physical and psychological way. While laughing, nobody thinks about “the chores you’ve got to do, the aching parts of your body, things like that. That’s what laughter does. It puts you right in the moment.” Your internal organs get a workout – physical, psychological – releasing different neurotransmitters and hormones that help you. “You get a dose of laughter. A dose of dopamine … if you release the dopamine, it’s going to be a real motivator for you.” Laughter also releases endorphins – “the happy hormone” – one of the numerous scientific tests and studies undertaken around the globe show that a hearty laugh for one minute is equivalent to ten minutes on a rowing machine (and a lot more fun!), she said. In Norman Cousins’ book, Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient: Reflections on Healing and Regeneration, he tells of the variety of activities to ease the pain of his ankylosing spondylitis (an inflammatory disease that, over time, can cause some of the small bones in your spine to fuse). He found that if he could have 10 minutes of hearty laughter, then it would give him two hours of pain-free sleep. “Don’t watch the news before you go to bed … what you need to do is watch a good old movie, TV show or comedy”. Phillipa encourages everyone to have a laugh every day. “Most people don’t laugh enough. If you can do that, the benefits for yourself are a healthy environment, which is what we’re looking for, whether at work or at home. What laughter does is that it energises people, makes you more alert, elevates your wellness and you can achieve more. “In business it increases productivity amazingly. Ultimately, what people want in business – and I guess that’s why I’m in high demand during the pandemic to run a Zoom laughter session for remote workers currently working in isolation – is it connects everyone in the business or organisation. Hearty laughter, happy people, healthy profits: and that to me, can be for the individual as well”. The Monthly Luncheon address was well received by her online attendees, who all participated and laughed along and forgot all their woes for the hour. Laughter is free and healthy for you, Phillipa reminded everyone and closed by saying, “May you all live life laughing!”