Your body cannot heal without play. Your mind cannot heal without laughter. Your soul cannot heal without joy. That’s why you need to include “The Laughter Yoga Therapy” in your life 💚.
Introduction
It is well said that body heals itself but it can only heal when a person is in jovial, enthusiastic and full of positivity.
It is believed that laughing can produce a number of physical and psychological benefits, and advocates of laughter therapy hold that it is useful both for those in the midst of a serious crisis and those facing everyday stresses.
The purpose of this blog is to increase curiosity and broaden the reflection on the use of laughter in the psychotherapeutic relations.
It is a kind of therapy involving a natural laugh or artificial laugh weather in group or alone.
Laughter produces beneficial effects for both body and mind. It not only helps in relieving stress and tension but also helps in curing many diseases. It speeds up the healing process.
Taking note of such potential health benefits, many doctors and researchers began to develop the concept of laughter therapy in the late 20th century.
Laughter Miracles
“Endorphin” the natural pain killer: It is a group of peptide hormones that bind to opioid receptors and act as neurotransmitters which reduces the sensation of pain and affect emotions.
Keeping in glance the effect of endorphin, laughter therapy helps in producing the neurotransmitter “endorphin” which helps the body to become light and stress free.
And it is ultimately understood that when body is stress free it heals at a faster rate.
Evidence
Dr Lee Berk of Loma University Medical Centre, California, has been conducting laughter therapy research since the late 1970s. In 1989, Berk studied the effects of laughter in 10 healthy males.
Five experimental subjects watched an hour-long comedy while five control subjects didn’t. Blood samples taken from the 10 subjects revealed that cortisol (the hormone our body releases when under stress) in the experimental subjects had decreased more rapidly in comparison to the control group.
Berk’s research has also shown that the level of natural killer cells (a type of immune cell that attacks virus and tumour cells) is increased through laughter. These same cells are suppressed if the body suffers consistent long-term stress.
Where does it come from?
The therapeutic effects of laughter have been clinically studied since the 70s, but Dr Madan Kataria – who developed laughter yoga in Mumbai – is credited with bringing laughter therapy into the mainstream. Kataria set up the first laughter club in 1995. There are now more than 5,000 laughter clubs worldwide.
Health Benifits
A laughter therapy session may leave you feeling elated and exhausted in equal measure. Muscle tone and cardiovascular functions may be improved, and oxygen levels in the blood may be boosted.
In the long term, laughter therapy teaches us that we don’t just have to laugh when we are happy. Laughing in the face of anger, stress or anxiety, even if it’s forced laughter, can actually lift your mood. And it’s infectious, so you can expect to see those around you benefiting from a good giggle too.
Elderly groups, young people in care and mental health patients are all thought to benefit especially from laughter therapy. Each age group is benefitted from laughter therapy and as such there is no contraindication for this therapy but laughter therapy is quite vigorous and can leave you feeling light headed, especially if you laugh lying down.
Consult a doctor before taking part if you have recently had surgery, if you suffer from glaucoma, hernias, haemorrhoids or if you are pregnant.
Social Benifits
It draws people together in ways that trigger healthy physical and emotional changes in the body. People come together, get socially interacted and live the way in full joy and cheer. Social behaviour gets enhanced and their quality of life get improved.
People living in solitude after getting retirement from job, feel the loneliness but all it can be eradicated through laughter yoga therapy.
People start getting attached between themselves, become friends of each other, share thoughts among themselves and feel light being together and happy no matters for just few minutes but its effects last longer.
Mental Benefits
Adds joy and zest to life, eases anxiety and tension also relieves stress, improves mood. As laughter becomes integrated into our life, our creativity will flourish and new opportunities for laughing with friends, co-workers, acquaintances, and loved ones will occur to us daily.
Laughter takes us to a higher place where we can view the world from a more relaxed, positive, and joyful perspective.
Laugh To Restore Health
However, there is no specific time, place, season or situation to laugh. Laughter is an unconscious process, its an emotion which appears when person is happy and in joy.
Sometimes it becomes necessary to take out time and laugh to keep body healthy and stress free. Lets just follow the simple steps to laugh:
Learn about the importance of Laughter Yoga.
- Accept that you don’t need a reason to laugh – just start laughing.
- Clap your hands in front of the heart chakra.
- Lay your hands on your head.
- Do the laughing wave.
- Extend your hands to heaven.
- Think of the mantra: “May all beings be happy. Let there be a world of laughing.”
- Sing the Om Song.
- Just be happy!
Laugh Naturally
- Find humour in your daily life
- Memorize funny jokes and references
- Laugh with other people
- Watch comedies and stand-ups.
Breath Awareness
To an untrained ear, fake laughter might be indistinguishable from real laughter. There is one key difference to an expert: the person’s breath. A real laugh is usually more “breathy” than a fake one, meaning that the most convincing laughs balance breathiness and the sound of laughter.
Practice this if you need to laugh on cue and try to add a bit of an exhale to your laugh. Breathing is again an unconscious process, we breathe to live.
The thing to observe is that when we laugh we breath more deeply, lungs get fully filled with air, proper exchange of gases occur. The oxygenated blood runs more frequently in the body, this makes skin to blush while we laugh. Haemoglobin level in the body increases.
Positivity flows inside the body. Body adapt the breathing control and feels lighter.
Let’s Laugh To Enlighten Up
Laughing is just not only for fun, enjoyment but it also solve life problems, helps to connect self with other, make social wellbeing good, people who incorporate laughter into their daily lives find that it renews their behaviour and their adaptability.
Life brings challenges that can either get the best of you or become playthings for our imagination. When you “become the problem” and take yourself too seriously, it can be hard to think outside the box and find new solutions. But when you play with the problem, you can often transform it into an opportunity for creative learning.
Playing with problems seems to come naturally to children. When they are confused or afraid, they make their problems into a game, giving them a sense of control and an opportunity to experiment with new solutions. Interacting with others in playful ways helps you retain this creative ability and hence naturally we deal with our problems in a better way.
Let’s laugh, stay connected, stay healthy and live life to the fullest because laughter is timeless, laughter has no age and laughter stays forever without any cost.
Dr. DIKSHA Ojha Saxena
BNYS
Director, Premroop Hospital
Madhusudangarh, Guna Madhya Pradesh
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