LAUGHTER YOGA / WORKOUT / THERAPY

Recently, I came back from India and learn Laughter Yoga, IN-PERSON with its Founder, Dr. Madan Kataria. Even though my research work is more on the Humour Research & Cognitive Psychology but, by attending this course has open up my mind that WE CAN LAUGH WITHOUT REASON !!! ... . . . . . . I wish I could write more... but something hold me back .... so I just copied one of the five reasons why LAUGHTER YOGA is important... and the ONE that I choose is that ... WE DONT NEED SENSE OF HUMOR TO LAUGH ... . . . . We Don’t Need Sense Of Humor To Laugh . . . What is the relationship between a sense of humor and laughter? Is it possible to laugh for no reason? Most people believe that one must have a sense of humor to laugh but Laughter Yoga has proven otherwise. No one is born with a sense of humor, which is the brain’s capacity to perceive, relate, and experience a situation and judge if the situation is funny or not. We acquire this judgmental skill as our mental abilities develop during mid and late childhood. Sense of humor is a very mental and intellectual phenomena. Laughter arising out of humor is conditional. It depends upon the person’s intellectual ability, state of mind and level of happiness and life satisfaction. But laughter can be achieved unconditionally. Children laugh without any mental or cognitive ability to aid them in comprehending humor. Most of their laughter is an outcome of playfulness and inherent joyfulness. To develop the ability to laugh joyfully once again, adults must remove layers of inhibition, programming and mental roadblocks created by self, family, and society. Beneath these barriers lies an infinite ability to laugh for no reason. Teaching an inhibited person to develop a sense of humor is like flushing a drain blocked with rocks and rubble. Once the rubble is removed, water will start flowing. Similarly, mental inhibition and shyness is like rubble that blocks our sense of humor. Laughter Yoga facilitates this cleaning process. As years of programming are cleared, natural joyful laughter inside of us is released and begins to flow. Laughter Yoga techniques are effective even for people who have lost their laughter or have absolutely no sense of humor. People often say, “I am depressed”, “I cannot laugh”, or “I don’t feel like laughing”. We tell them, “It doesn’t matter. Just bring us your willing body and we will make you laugh.” Once released, natural laughter is hard to stop. Even in a country like India where we don’t have a great tradition of humor and comedy, hundreds of thousands of people laugh daily in public parks. People, who never smiled, now laugh at small things. They have also started telling jokes and acting funny - something they never did before. Playfulness has helped to develop their sense of humor and has brought more laughter to their lives. In fact, laughter and humor share a cause-and-effect relationship. They are in unison and cannot be separated. One leads to another. Sometimes humor is the cause, which is more mental and cognitive, while the effect is laughter - more of a physical phenomenon. In Laughter Clubs, laughter is the cause and the effect is humor. I realized that most people do not identify with a sense of humor. They find it easier to laugh physically in a group. This has led to the growing popularity of Laughter Clubs. So, even if you don’t have sense of humor, don’t worry. Just join a Laughter Club and you will soon develop one *********************** WE HAD CONDUCTED FEW EXPERIMENTS IN USING THIS TECHNIQUE FOR MALAY RESPONDENTS ... WOW !!! IT WAS HILLARIOUS -----> of course .. without any reason! haha hoho haha hoho VERY GOOD VERY GOOD YEAAAHHHHHH