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t the sound of laughter in the past my first reaction was to immediately see who was laughing. Were they looking in my direction? What could possibly be so funny? In retrospect it was a panic button response to “What have I done now?” or “Who is picking on me?” It seems crazy to imagine I would ever become someone who encourages people to laugh at one another after years of torment and being laughed at in my childhood. During my hatha yoga teacher training, laughter yoga training was a component of 300 advanced hours to bring me to the level of a serious yoga teacher with extensive training to guide students to nirvana, so to speak. Ha, nothing could have been further from the truth. In the midst of my first laughter yoga session I was hooked and laughing hysterically. My shell of “I’m a professional teacher” was out the window and I had become the class rebel for laughing out of turn, or so I thought. At one point I began to panic a little, as I was laughing so hard that I couldn’t stop and I felt fearful the teacher would get angry. Was I ever relieved to hear her say, “If the laughter’s flowing, keep it going.” Now when I hear folks around me laughing I am able to be at ease and enjoy the sounds of laughter without needing to know any details at all. Dr. Madan Kataria is the creator of laughter yoga. He began a worldwide movement in 1995 in Mumbai, India after reading the unfounded work of Norman Cousins, who allegedly healed himself from a degenerative disease through laughter. When experiencing intense pain, Cousins found that ten minutes of belly laughing could give him thirty minutes of pain-free sleep. Similarly Dr. Kataria theorized through his own medical practice
that many of his patients’ illnesses were stress-related. He awoke at 4 o’clock in the morning one day with the idea to begin a laughter club. With very humble beginnings Dr. Kataria and his wife headed to a local park and tried to convince people to join them in laughter. After a few strange looks and many questions they were able to gather five brave souls. Originally laughter yoga started as a joke club where one person would tell a joke and then everyone would laugh. The group grew quickly in numbers; however, after the first two weeks early participants began to run out of good clean jokes. Dr. Kataria began to notice the group shrinking again, so he decided that jokes weren’t the answer. Observing youngsters, Dr. Kataria noticed that children often laugh for no apparent reason when they play. He surmised that the key to laughter yoga was to laugh for no reason. He developed a series of exercises designed to promote laughter by tapping into the inner spirit of joy instead. At first glance laughter yoga may seem like a class filled with silly nonsense and, for the most part, it is. However, if you can give your inner critic an hour off, you might be surprised with what you notice internally. Some students have shared that they feel more positive about life, a boost in energy and a sense of inner peace. Neuroscientist Dr. Robert Provine is a leading authority on laughter. He says, “Laughter is hiding in plain sight because we always tend to underestimate the oddness and importance of things we face every day. We often spend a lot of time trying to understand the meaning of words and we spend very little time trying to understand laughter, which actually might be more important.” Professor Provine continues, “Regardless of where you were born or what language you grew up speaking, everyone laughs in pretty much the same way. Laughter is a universal language that is understood in every country because it is an innate part of each of us.” Studies have shown that babies in general begin to laugh at the age of 2-4 months. A study in Austria recently found that even babies who have all three conditions of
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