'After deep breathing everybody starts chanting Ho-Ho, Ha-Ha-Ha. Slowly increasing the speed of Ho-Ho, Ha-Ha-Ha they suddenly burst into hearty laughter.'

 

The idea of laughter yoga came to Dr Madan Kataria, a practising physician in Mumbai, India, in March 1995, writes Geraldine Royds.

After writing an article for a health magazine about the benefits of laughing Dr Kataria decided to start a laughter club. Several hours later he tried out the idea with the regulars at his local park in Mumbai. Initially they thought he was crazy but he eventually motivated four of them to start laughing in a corner of the park. Although others ridiculed the idea, they were quickly converted when the health benefits became clear.

Laughter yoga reduces stress and blood-sugar levels, lowers blood pressure, reduces depression and alleviates insomnia, says Dr Kataria, adding that he routinely hears stories from people whose lives have changed simply by laughing regularly.

Laughter is a positive energy that brings good health and well-being but people have forgotten how to laugh, says German Psychologist Dr Michael Titze. In the 1950’s, people used to laugh for 18 minutes a day but today we laugh less than 6 minutes a day. Children can laugh up to 300-400 times in a day, but when we grow into adults this drops dramatically to less than 15 times a day, if at all.

Furthermore, Dr.William Fry, a psychiatrist at Stanford Medical School, reports that 1 minute of good laughter is equal to 40 minutes of deep relaxation and that 100 laughs equals 10 minutes of rowing.

‘I was born and brought up in the countryside with a farmer family. I observed that people in the countryside laugh for small things and when I became a Doctor I saw it was much harder for educated and intellectual people to laugh. Their laughter comes more from their brain by making evaluations and judgments about what is funny while innocent hardworking people from the villages laugh from their heart like children,’ says Dr Kataria.

‘Another reason why we are not laughing more is that we have learned to laugh only when there is success and achievement,’ he says. ‘We have not learned to laugh and celebrate our mistakes, failures and difficulties.’

Today, more than 200,000 people in India laugh every day in Laughter Clubs, which are non-political and non-religious, and there are 6000 clubs worldwide.

Try it out for yourself! 

Or find out more with this Discovery Channel report.