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from Natural Life Magazine, March/April 2005 A group of adults is walking in a circle around a workout studio. They suddenly begin to roar, “Ho, ho, hah, hah” at each other. They belong to a Laughter Club and are practicing an offshoot of yoga called “laughter yoga” or “hasya yoga”. Over the next 20 minutes, the group works through a variety of exercises, from conventional yoga stretching through laughter techniques like hearty laughter, silent laughter, lion laughter, swinging laughter, one meter laughter, cocktail laughter, gradient laughter and many others. Soon, everyone in the room is laughing spontaneously and uproariously. It might seem odd that something as ordinary as laughing has become the focus of an exercise class. But in these stressful times, we have apparently either forgotten how to laugh or just don’t find much that’s funny. According to a study done by Dr. Michael Titze, a German psychologist, in the 1950s people used to laugh 18 minutes a day, but today we laugh not more than six minutes a day. Kids do better, laughing up to 400 times in a day, compared to the adult laughter rate of just 15 times a day. Since laughter is good for our health, some people are “faking it ’til they make it”...and reaping great benefits. According to the principles of yoga, laughter gives a constant massage to the digestive tract and also improves blood supply to all the internal organs. It stimulates blood circulation, which helps to transport nutrients all over the body, and it also strengthens our respiratory apparatus, which supplies oxygen to the body. Boosting your immune system through laughter may prevent the more than 70 percent of illnesses that have some connection to stress, such as ... To read the rest of this article, subscribe to Natural Life's digital edition. Wendy Priesnitz is the Editor of Natural Life Magazine and a journalist with over 30 years of experience. She has also authored nine books. Visit her website. |
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