The Best Medicine?
Well, sometimes!
All of you volunteers out there know the feeling. After coping with an
insane amount of pressure - whether it’s for family, for work, for
charities, for church, for neighbours, for caring responsibilities or for all
six at once - it can sometimes be tempting for us to volunteers to just
pull the duvet over our heads and hide! Katy Williams, however (local
Occupational Therapist and Laughter Yoga expert), showed up to teach
us some new tricks to relieve the stress and clear the mind.
On 27 October, a group of volunteers from Tyneside Welcomes joined Katy
online. This was the first of our bespoke training sessions that have
graciously been funded by the Community Foundation in Gosforth, to whom
we owe many thanks. Although at first it seemed strange to giggle at other
faces on zoom, Katy soon had us laughing, roaring, snorting, cackling and
shaking with suppressed laughter as we learned more about ourselves and
the science behind Laughter Yoga.
Laughter Yoga was initially developed and created by a doctor in India. Since
then, laughter yoga has spread like wildfire and is now practiced in 70+
countries.
A typical class includes: clapping & chanting, laughter exercises, stretching
interspersed with yogic breathing exercises and laughter meditation. One of
the meditation exercises includes around 10 minutes of uncontrolled,
uninhibited laughter. Katy explained that this can be a very powerful
experience, proving to be mood altering and even life altering for some.
Sessions can be held with persons of all ages, from young children through to
more senior groups. Individuals with early onset dementia / cognitive
impairment, or persons with various disabilities, learning difficulties or sensory
impairments are able to enjoy and benefit from laughter yoga. In our
particular session, we found that translated instructions work just as well!
Laughter is a universal language, we are all emotive and experiential beings;
with each of us being able to laugh and experience joy.
Laughter Yoga is beneficial to both our minds and our bodies. Laughter has
scientifically been shown to increase the endorphins in our body giving us the
'feel good factor'. Laughter reduces stress hormones (cortisol) and increases
our heart rate and blood supply to our bodies.
Laughter Yoga is so-called as it incorporates child like behaviour and laughter
exercises with deep yogic breathing (pranayama) which provides our bodies
with the much needed oxygen and helps us in getting rid of toxins.
We generally engage in 'shallow breathing' where around 75% of residual
stale air is left in the body. By engaging in laughter yoga we use 'pranayama
breathing' (yogic breathing) whereby we exhale for a longer period than we
exhale. This was not something that we needed to focus on whilst completing
the session as extended laughter aids this process. By engaging in 'deep
breathing' (pranayama) we flushed out toxins and replenished our bodies with
fresh air. Fresh oxygen is essential for human life and to prevent illness.
The body cannot tell the difference between real / genuine or fake laughter...
therefore we still get the same benefits whether the laughter is real or not.
Fake laughter will generally lead to real laughter for most people as being
surrounded by the sound of laughter and smiling faces proves itself to be
contagious.
To take part in Laughter Yoga is to allow joy into our life!
We are all born joyful, however as adults we seem to need a reason to laugh
- something to laugh at whether this be in good humour, or at someone's
expense. We often hold back laughter for fear of otherwise being
inappropriate and are conditioned to laugh only in certain situations from later
childhood years - these traits are ever more overpowering by adulthood.
By completing Laughter Yoga we once again give ourselves permission to
laugh for no reason and just to feel joyful. Regular Laughter Yoga creates
new neuro-pathways in our brain which mean that we find it easier to laugh in
general and to enjoy life in abundance.
Personally, I found the part where we shouted at each other through laughter
(no words but heavy frowns, waggling fingers and all) - and then forgave each
other through laughter before waggling our fingers back towards ourselves
and laughing at our own follies - to be the most transformative. For a small
charity like Tyneside Welcomes, Laughter Yoga turned out to be a practical,
effective way of helping volunteers to address stress, burn-out and fatigue.
Laughter Yoga is generally practised in groups where laughter is easily
brought about by eye contact, child like playfulness and laughter
exercises. We did ours online, but Katy tells me that she is also available for
face-to-face classes. The feedback scores were all ‘excellent’ for this event:
Laughter Yoga comes highly recommended.
Katy Williams is available at Laughter Love, https://laughterlove.weebly.com/