Ho, ho, the Laughter Yoga master is in town!
Laugh and the whole world not only laughs with you; it also changes you and so does the whole world. This is exactly what the founder and master of International Laughter Yoga Clubs, Dr. Madan Kataria, and his wife Madhuri, have been doing in their almost non-stop travels to all parts of the world through the easiest, fastest , and best way Laughter Yoga!
In March 1995, Dr. Madan Kataria, a medical doctor from Mumbai, India, was researching for an article, “Laughter The Best Medicine,” when he stumbled upon several modern scientific studies proving the incontrovertible and amazing effects laughter has on a person’s mind and body.
Norman Cousins greatly influenced and inspired Dr. Kataria. Considering Cousin’s impact on the evolution of Therapeutic Laughter and Laughter Yoga Clubs, I am writing about him again for those who have not read or heard about him.
Norman Cousins was a respected editor of Sunday Review in New York City, when he was diagnosed with a fatal, incurable spinal column disease. When all sorts of medications, including the alternative ones, failed, and against the advice of his doctors, Cousins checked out of the hospital and closeted himself in his apartment for one month, doing the things he enjoyed most reading humorous books and watching comedy movies. He even wrote humorous jokes that he would read to himself to keep him laughing all day long like crazy, and noticed: 10 minutes of mirthful laughter gave him two hours of pain-free sleep!
A month later, Cousins returned to the hospital for a checkup. Lo and behold! The medical staff was unbelievably surprised Cousins was not only healed, no trace at all of the dreaded spinal disease he had was found! Asked what extraordinary thing he did, he replied, “All I did was to laugh myself to health.” As a living testimony to the miracle that Laughter did to him, he wrote a book titled Anatomy of an Illness. Laughter, indeed, is the best medicine!
Dr. Lee Berk, with a PhD from Loma Linda University Medical Center, and was also inspired by Norman Cousins, was another great influence for Dr. Kataria. Dr. Berk and his researchers, specializing in the field of psycho-neuro-immunology (PNI), studied mirthful laughter and its benefits. They studied some heart attack patients and divided them into two groups - one group was put under standard medical care, while the other group was made to watch humorous, funny videos for 30 minutes every day. After a year, it was found the “humor” group had fewer arrthymias, lower blood pressure, lower levels of stress hormones, thereby requiring only lower doses of medication. The “non-humor” group had two-and-a-half times more recurrent heart attacks than the humor group.
Inspired greatly by his discoveries, Dr. Kataria immediately field-tested on himself and others the impact of laughter, and below is his personal account on how he started it all.
“At 7 a.m. on the 13th of March, 1995 Dr. Kataria went to a local public park and managed to persuade four people to join him in starting a ‘laughter club.’ They laughed together in the park that day to the amusement of bystanders; the small group quickly grew to more than 50 participants within a few days. In the initial meetings they stood in a circle while one person would step to the center to tell a joke or a funny story. Everybody enjoyed and felt good for the rest of the day.
“After two weeks, they hit a snag. The stock of good jokes and stories ran out, and negative, hurtful and naughty jokes started to emerge. Two offended participants complained that it would be better to close the club than to continue with such jokes. Dr. Kataria asked the club members to give him just one day to develop a ‘breakthrough’ that would resolve the crisis. That night, he reviewed his research and finally found the answer he was looking for: Our body cannot differentiate between acted and genuine laughter. Both produced the same ‘happy chemistry.’ The next morning, he explained this to the group and asked them to try to act out laughter with him for one minute. Amid skepticism, they agreed to try the results were amazing.
“For some, the acted-out laughter quickly turned into real laughter this was contagious and very soon others followed. Soon, the group was laughing like never before. The hearty laughter that followed persisted for almost 10 minutes. This breakthrough was the birth of Laughter Yoga.”
Being yoga practitioners, Dr. Kataria and his wife Madhuri Kataria (co-founder of Laughter Yoga) found similarities between laughter and Pranayama exercises. They integrated elements from the ancient yoga form and poses into Laughter Yoga, which included deep breathing exercises done in between laughter exercises to deepen the effect. The result was a blending of yogic deep breathing, stretching, and laughter exercises that cultivate child-like playfulness. Worldwide, it became known as Laughter Yoga.
The Laughter Club Movement started in Mumbai, India, with barely five people in 1995, and spread like wildfire all over India. Dr. Kataria’s first debut in the international arena was in 1999 upon the invitation by Steve Wilson, a psychologist, to the United States. Laughter Yoga is a worldwide phenomenon, with thousands of clubs worldwide, including the Philippines.
Laughter Yoga Club of the Philippines’ ardent desire is to put up Laughter Yoga Clubs in all provinces, cities, down to the barangays to enable our kababayans to experience the magic of free-flow laughter, with yoga breathing and stretching exercises. To transform negativism and curb crab mentality mindsets among the great majority of our kababayans that block and hinder our progress to being positive, healthy, happy, constructive, productive peoples … through the wonders and amazing effects of Laughter Yoga. Thereby, help chart our beloved motherland’s long-delayed and much-deserved journey to its destination called peace and prosperity!
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Please visit Laughter Yoga Club Facebook. E-mail author at mega_abundant_lv@yahoo.com.
