Here's Why You Should Do Laughter Yoga
Technology advancement is at a pace that is so fast and unimaginable in the world today. We live in a world where most people want things fast and instantaneously.
With such a pace, most people have stressful thoughts on wanting to catch up with it or they may lose out in the race of competitiveness.
As a public transport commuter, I get to see other fellow commuters having that morning stressful look on their faces.
It feels as if every day is a drag, and being an observer I get to feel what they are feeling and the conversations they have in their head, it's like:
"Shards, I'm late!"
"Can't the train move faster?"
"Why is the train delaying?"
"How long more do I have to wait?"
"Oh, not again..."
And there are many other weird behaviors happening on the train which I won't talk about further (some of them are too weird).
So now here's the thing, have you ever felt so stress before that you have forgotten how to laugh?
If your answer is yes, it is perfectly normal, and you are not late to start laughing.
If your answer is a no, then that's great, and continue to laugh more.
What is Laughter Yoga?
If you go online and search for Laughter Yoga, I'm pretty sure you will get to find out a lot about it backed up with health and medical research on its health benefits.
1. Laughter Yoga was started by a medical doctor, Dr. Madan Kataria in Mumbai India in the year 1995.
Image Source
He started off with a small group of people together with his wife Madhuri Kataria in Mumbai Park India.
Till today, Laughter Yoga has reached a Worldwide stage.
There are Laughter Clubs all over the world, in countries such as USA, France, Germany, Iran, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Japan, Singapore, Korea, Australia, Italy, United Kingdom and many more.
2. Laughter Yoga is a special concept where it is a combination of Laughter Exercises with Yogic Breathing methods.
[Image Source](Photo credit: Kables on Visual hunt / CC BY-NC-SA)
Laughter Yoga uses laughter as a form of exercise. In Laughter Yoga, it encourages people to really laugh out loud, and breathe in more air to the body. There are way too many benefits that Laughter can bring to the body.
It ranges from reducing bodily pain, relieves stress, elevation of mood, improves body immune system and a lot more.
3. It does not require humor, comedy or jokes in order for someone to laugh.
Whenever we leave laughter to comedy, jokes, and humor, we are actually leaving our laughter to chances.
Every time when there is a comedy, joke or humor, we tend to think through and go through some kind of internal process before we can comprehen to laugh or not.
Not every joke or humor is understood by everyone. Because it is understood based on culture, language, or topics.
4. It involves eye-contact and childlike playfulness.
Now here's the part where I would like to ask everyone. Who has not ever been a child before?
It's everybody. Somehow as we grow older, we start to put logic and analyzing to process everything. As we get too much into our head, we tend to feel less.
Have you ever seen how a child play? They let themselves play all out and enjoying the fun in the process fulfilling it with laughter and happiness. When we play, laughter comes naturally.
So remember to park sometime in your schedule to play!
When it comes to childlike playfulness, we put ourselves into the part of being playful and celebrate. If you can recall, whenever a child gets something that they wanted, guess what would they do? They celebrate!
Celebrating our success and wins may become lesser as we grow older, and most of us forgotten to celebrate. As we celebrate our little wins and successes, we build our confidence and acknowledge ourselves for the great work done.
So acknowledge yourself and celebrate!
5. Laughter Yoga is based on the scientific fact that our body does not differentiate between what's fake or real laughter.
Afterall, most of us have underestimated the benefits of laughter and how it can impact our daily lives.
I would like to urge everyone to laugh every day.
There is a saying:
Laughter is the Best Medicine
So what are you waiting for? Start Laughing!