What the World Needs Now

Is a good belly laugh

At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities.  ~Jean Houston

By Sharon Lakey

One day my daughter, who lives in Waterbury, called. “Mom, you’ve got to come with me to the next Laughter Yoga class. It’s free,” she enticed. Her voice sounded full of smiles.

I answered with a half-hearted “Maybe,” and a “thanks for the invitation,” but really I never intended to follow through. First, it was a long way to drive to Richmond, VT, and second, the idea of laughter yoga seemed a little forced.  Maybe it was watching night after night of grim news reports that finally pushed me over the edge, because early the next Tuesday morning, I found myself braving snow-covered roads for a chance to lighten up a little.  

And, it was fun. I mean—really fun.  

There were six of us that first day, including leader, Dawn Decker. We met on the second floor of the Richmond library in a beautiful space--hardwood floors, tall church-like windows and walls painted a restful yellow. 

In a short introduction, Dawn explained the basics behind Laughter Yoga, including this piece of research: an average adult laughs five to seven times a day; a child laughs over 300 times, and for no reason at all. I was taken aback by the statistic, and felt sad about my own rusty laugh mechanism. But as Dawn briefly explained it, “Just fake it till you make it.”

Wishing to turn loose my own inhibitions, I entered willingly into the group laughter. Dawn is a superb laugher, and I found it surprisingly easy to join in. With a variety of prompts, we shared everything from titters to guffaws with Kleenex in hand. And the more we laughed, the happier and more relaxed I became. Dawn incorporated gentle yoga stretches into the program, and as our time came to a close, sitting in a circle touching toe-to-toe, I felt warmness toward these women. It seemed as if I had known them all my life.

Later I found out that Dawn, a yoga teacher of 25 years with international certification, is fairly new to laughter yoga.  “I’ve always used laughter in my yoga practice, but this is more focused.” In August of 2008, she attended a two-day workshop in Burlington. “At the end of the workshop, I found I was exhausted, but exhilarated by the possibilities.” Wanting to share this gift with others in her new community of Richmond, she offered free weekly sessions to all-comers.

With just a little research back home, I discovered I had totally missed out on this worldwide phenomenon. The movement began in Mumbai, India, in 1995 by a medical doctor, Madan Kataria, who was writing an article about the connection between laughter and good health. Kataria had studied the writings of American Norman Cousins, who suffered from degenerative, painful arthritis. 

Cousins set out to cure himself with a combination of Vitamin C and laughter, which he stimulated by watching old Marx Brothers movies. He recorded his method in the book Anatomy of an Illness where he reported,  "I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep. When the pain-killing effect of the laughter wore off, we would switch on the motion picture projector again and not infrequently, it would lead to another pain-free interval." 

Wondering how the medicine of laughter could be spread to the general population, Kataria decided to go to a local park and ask people there to join him in laughter. Five strangers agreed to join in the experiment. At first, they laughed by telling each other jokes, but Kataria noticed several things about that; they ran out of good ones rather quickly and not everyone thought a particular joke was funny. But, he noted, it only took one person to laugh at a joke to get the rest of the group to join in.

He decided they should try laughing for no reason at all. It worked. People could laugh at nothing and soon his group of five had grown to hundreds laughing in the park on a daily basis. Laughter clubs were soon to spread infectious good will throughout the world. Information from the American School of Laughter Yoga reports, “At the last count there were an estimated 6000 Laughter Clubs in over 60 countries, the vast majority of which are free and public.” 

Kataria’s wife, a yoga teacher, was the first to introduce gentle yoga stretches into laughter clubs. It was a natural fit. Breathing is one of the five principles of yoga and laughter is an especially good exercise for the breath. According to an article from the American School of Laughter, “It effectively flushes the 2/3 of ‘stale air’ that most people unknowingly keep inside. Repeated practice teaches us to become more and more consciously aware of our own breathing pattern.”

Soon, Kataria felt the unmistakable power and good will generated by laughter could be of help in our world. In 1998, he organized the first World Laughter Day in Mumbai. It caught on and was given a permanent date--the first Sunday of May.  Imagine the sound created by the 10,000 people laughing in the Town Hall Square in Copenhagen, Denmark in the year 2000. Steven Wilson, psychologist, author and head of the World Laughter Tour brought it to New York City in 2001. 

This year, World Laughter Day has made its way to Richmond, Vermont. Dawn invites you to a gathering on May 3, 2:00 p.m., at the Richmond Free Library, 201 Bridge Street. She hopes for at least 100 souls to join her in laughing for world peace. In the words of Steve Wilson, “Regardless of the reason you laugh, the primary purposes of laughter have to do with reducing the terrible effects of stress, and connecting with other people; laughter plays a huge role in maintaining relationships. Actually, we need laughter more now than ever!”

Amen.

For more information about Dawn go to http://dawndeckerbodywork.com/ 

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This article was first published in the May issue of The North Star Monthly: http://northstarmonthly.com/