Life’s Purpose #16 - Bringing Others Joy
“Simply put, I want to make others laugh. Laughter is healing. I want to give people the good feelings, relief, and connection that comes with sharing a good laugh together. Even when there's sadness, laughter can provide a glimpse of hope and joy. I want to provide the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Laughter is healing. Laughter can stimulate many organs. Laughter enhances your intake of oxygen-rich air and stimulates your heart, lungs and muscles. Laughter increases the endorphins that are released by your brain and activates and relieves your response to stress. Endorphins secreted by laughter can help when you are uncomfortable or depressed. Laughter boosts immunity, decreases pain and may even help you to live longer.
Laughter therapy is an alternative treatment for stress and depression. The therapeutic effects of laughter have been clinically studied since the 1970’s. Dr. Madn Kataria is credited with developing laughter yoga in Mumbai. He set up the first laughter club in 1995 and now there are more than 5,000 laughter clubs worldwide.
Laughing yoga called Hasya Yoga is an exercise involving prolonged voluntary laughter. This popular movement and breathing exercise aims to cultivate joy and help you let go of daily life stressors. During a 20-minute laughter session one performs a blend of stimulated laughter, deep breathing and stretching exercise. One bout of laughter lasts for 30-35 seconds followed by two deep breaths in order to give a break. This avoids exertion and tiredness.
Some classic Laughter Yoga exercises include Greeting Laughter, Cell Phone Laughter, Gradient Laughter, and Hearty laughter. For the Greeting Laughter exercise you greet everyone the way you normally greet someone and replace your words with laughter. In Cell Phone Laughter you hold an imaginary cell phone to your ear and laugh. For Gradient Laughter you fake a smile, giggle, and then laugh slowly and gradually increase the tempo and volume of your laughter. With Hearty Laughter you spread the arms up, laugh and direct your laughter to come straight from your heart. Then bring the arms down and raise them up again.
Laughing is a type of therapy that uses humour to help relieve pain and stress and improve a person’s sense of well-being. It can be used to help people cope with a serious disease. Laughter therapy may include laughter exercises, clowns, comedy movies, books, games and puzzles.
Bring some hope and joy to someone today.
# living life abundantly # published author # travelling tuesdays
