Health Topics
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Healthy Living
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Laughter Clubs No Laughing Matter
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Sherry Roy
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“Popularisation is seemingly one of the things Dr. Kataria has achieved, with celebrities like Hollywood actress Goldie Hawn, talk show hostess Oprah Winfrey, laughter-man Patch Adams and comedian John Cleese etc endorsing this laughter method. |
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He admits that there is similarity between his laughter and what sex guru Osho had advocated through his ‘mystic rose meditation,’ where one had to laugh for a week followed by crying for yet another. “His methods would produce deep catharsis, but not everyone could endure it. My laughter yoga, or even laughter meditation, is very user friendly,” he points out. It is also supposedly different from the Buddhist ‘forced laughter’, because this is more like “stimulated laughter.”
Medical benefits of laughter
“These 14 years of laughter yoga was not about just laughing,” Dr. Madan remembers, “it was about being playful; about returning to the world of children who would laugh almost unconditionally.” Statistics support this claim, showing that children laugh 400 times a day; adults only about 15. This is because our definition of what is laughable and what is not gets restricted as we grow up. We think more before we laugh. In fact, those who continue laughing at inappropriate times are said to be ‘laughing like fools.’ This guru of all laughter challenges has been redefining that stereotype. He says that the medical benefits of laughter flow through only when you have a deep laugh for 10 minutes or more. “This deep laughter from the belly exhales the residual carbon dioxide from our lungs, and only extended laughter can provide that,” states this laughter prescriber, “and it is the rhythmic movement of your diaphragm when you say ‘ho-ho-ha-ha-ha’ that achieves it. It doesn’t matter if you chant ‘hee-hee-hoo-hoo’ or ‘ha-hi-ha-ho’; what matters is that you are doing it, helping the happy hormones to release.” Exercise of the regular kind also might help a similar hormonal release, but a good laugh supposedly is more preferred. In fact, Dr. Williams Fry of Stanford University claims that 10 minutes of hearty laughter is equal to 30 minutes on the rowing machine! Dr. Kataria makes similar claims, even insisting that 30 minutes of laughter is better than a morning jog or aerobics, as laughter exercises the entire body.
On the medical validity of laughter therapeutics, Dr. Kataria quotes a research conducted in December 2006, on 50 IT professionals in Bangalore by a research organisation. They found: |
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- Significant reduction in stress levels after a laughing session, as shown by reduction in cortisol levels in saliva.
- There was a significant drop in heart rate, blood pressure and cortisol levels.
- Negative emotions dropped by 27 percent, and
- Alexithymia dropped by almost 9 percent, indicating a significant improvement in emotional intelligence.
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Laughter yoga is currently practiced by school children, prison inmates and even Iraqi war veterans of the American Army. Numerous websites claim that it improves communication skills, creativity, leadership, hair growth, work-life balance, business conferences, HR trainings, sales figures… (Ok, I was kidding about hair growth) and almost anything that you can imagine. Panacea for all illnesses; cheap and best.
Don’t laugh it off – laughter yoga is here to stay. This is no laughing matter. |
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