FAQs: About Laughter Yoga
FAQs: About Laugh and Laughter Yoga
- Are there any contra-indications to these exercises?
- Do people laugh more when they drink alcohol?
- How do you plan to achieve world peace through laughter?
- I am an actor and can laugh on command. How is this different?
- I already laugh a lot. Why do I need this?
- I can’t laugh. Terrible things have happened to me. Can this method help?
- I’m depressed, sad and stressed out. How can I laugh?
- Is this kind of laughter real?
- Laughter Yoga Is Goofy, Silly, Childish. What’s so funny?
- Should I laugh every day?
- Sounds and Looks Fun, But I Can’t, Because…
- Will laughter heal me?
1. Are there any contra-indications to these exercises?
Laughter Yoga is contra-indicated for people suffering from uncontrolled high blood pressure, heart disease, epilepsy, any kind of hernia, severe backache and major psychiatric disorders. This list is for guidance only and is not meant to be exhaustive. If in doubt, do not try it, and consult your trained medical professional for guidance. Anyone already undergoing physician-prescribed therapy should seek the advice of his or her doctor before reducing the dosage or stopping such treatment. Even a normal person experiencing discomfort while laughing, must discontinue immediately and seek expert medical help. Please use your common sense: no strain, no new pain.
2. Do people laugh more when they drink alcohol?
Not sure, but even if it did why pull a weight behind you when you can run faster without one?
Laughter Yoga allows you to achieve a much greater “feel-good” result without drinking, at no cost and with no side-effects whatsoever.
3. How do you plan to achieve world peace through laughter?
With a lot of patience and no agenda. Human beings will either retreat or move closer together depending on what they believe about each other. Who I think you are will determine what I am willing to do on your behalf. Laughter connects all and puts all in touch with their humanity. Please also read this. World Peace Through laughter is not just an idea. It’s potentially a biological fact.
4.I am an actor and can laugh on command. How is this different?
Laughter Yoga is different from other fake laughter in that it is practiced exclusively as a form of healthy exercise and not just an enactment of emotions. When actors act, they are not doing laughter as an exercise; it is a part of their play and entails different thought processes. On the other hand, Laughter Yoga is done as a form of an exercise and does not rely on any reason or sense of humor. It is purely a physical act and not a mental phenomenon. Here are some significant differences:
- Motivation: Health vs Job Necessity. Laughter Yoga practitioners laugh for themselves, not anybody else, because they want to feel good and be healthy. Health is a priority. Actors on the other hand “must” laugh if this is part of their role. They are therefore concerned about skills for performance. Health is not their main concern. They are doing it just for a living.
- Inner Feelings: Freedom vs Stress. Laughter Yoga practitioners are not being judged because they always laugh on their own terms as and if they want. This gives them freedom from anxiety of performance because there is no performance. Actors on the other hand suffer from the stress of being judged all the time as they have to perform. If their performance does not get the required appreciation of others they won’t have a job much longer.
- Motivation: me vs them. Laughter Yoga practitioners and motivated by a feeling of well-being, whereas performers are motivated by the audience and their judgments.
- Audience: active vs passive. In Laughter Clubs / laughter yoga sessions there is no audience. Each person is an active participant, which means they have no time to think and be critical. Everybody’s ego is on vacation and all you have is happy chemistry without thoughts shared by everybody at the same time. Actors on the other hand are primarily performers. They have to face audiences who are passive participants most of the time. People who are not engaged physically have a lot of opportunity to think and be very critical.
- Technique: on demand vs on command. Laughter in Laughter Yoga is done on demand (I laugh if and when I want to) whereas actors laugh on command (not laughing is not an option if it is part of a role. If you don’t laugh you simply don’t get the job). This may appear to be a subtle difference, and yet it has major implications. Clowns and comedians frequently experience lots of sadness and depression in their private life, and occasionally even commit suicide. This is unheard of in the Laughter Yoga world. Look at it this way: some people have the gift of “being” funny. Funniness is part of their very being and it is what they exude. They barely need to talk. Anything they do will make people laugh. Some one day decide to make laughter their profession and come up with a show, and the show takes them on the road by necessity: even if you are funny it’s both very hard to make people laugh at the same jokes /pranks every day, just like it’s very hard to reinvent yourself and come up with 1.5h of new jokes and pranks every single day. So the show is a hit and they go from city to city and people love it. Everything seems to be great and perfect, except that it’s not. For the vast majority of comedians and clowns, quickly the show will stop becoming enjoyable. It will just be the same thing over, and over, and over, and yet over again regardless of how they feel inside. Every night they’ll have to be in top shape and pretend they’re at the top of their game. “Being” soon becomes “pretending”.
5. I already laugh a lot. Why do I need this?
A good sense of humor is a blessing, and what do you laugh at?
Consider this:
- Humor nowadays has become “horizontal” rather than “vertical”. It is “aimed at” and puts people down, involves sarcasm and overall aims to ridicule. This is not empowering at all. Laughter exercises are a form of “vertical” humor. You laugh with others for the pure joy of it, never at them. They empower all and boost self-confidence.
- Would you still be able to laugh if your partner were to die or divorce you? If your house burned down and your car was stolen? If all your savings were wiped out and you found yourself penniless overnight? If your children got into drugs? If you were diagnosed with a terminal disease and given months to live? The answer is most probably no, and this is why Laughter Yoga can be of great benefit to you, even if you already laugh a lot. It puts the reason for your laughter “inside”, not “outside”. It will teach you how to laugh as and when you want to, even in the face of adversity.
6. I can’t laugh. Terrible things have happened to me. Can this method help?
Forgive us if this sounds too harsh, and how long do you want to keep punishing yourself? Ashes are ashes and nothing can be done about it. How you feel now is and always remains your personal choice. Get whatever weighs on you out of you: keep a journal, join a support group, just cry, redefine normal, get some professional help even. These exercises work for all because they are a body-mind approach to health and happiness, not mind-body. As long as you can breathe you can laugh. Go through the motions. Fake it. Before you know it you will genuinely laugh. We have seen this happen more times than we can remember.
7. I’m depressed, sad and stressed out. How can I laugh?
This is a popular myth: “I need to be happy to laugh”.
No, you don’t.
You do not need to be in any particular mood to laugh. The mind does impact the body, but the body equally impacts the mind. Try faking laughter with physical enthusiasm for 10 consecutive minutes and you’ll see for yourself how it affect your moodstate (you’ll feel better than before, guaranteed).
Laughter Yoga makes that “faking” process easy and effortless.
8. Is this kind of laughter real?
Whether your laugh becomes real or not does not really matter. The body does not make the difference between simulated laughter (as long as you are willing to laugh) and real laughter and produces the same “happy” body chemistry. You will find when you experience Laughter Yoga that laughter is very contagious. Considering that laughter is hard-wired into your system (it is the very nature of life to be joyful), laughter seen / heard or even just felt in a group setting creates more laughter as the body quickly overrides the artificial limitations imposed by the mind (e.g. shyness, inhibitions, etc.) and reconnects in a way with its true nature.
9. Laughter Yoga Is Goofy, Silly, Childish. What’s so funny?
Humor is in your head. Humor can be “goofy”, “silly”, and “childish”.
Laughter Yoga however is a physical activity that has nothing to do with humor (we don’t even try to be or look funny). We fake laughter just because we can, and it means nothing. It is fun, playful and childlike.
- Laughter Yoga is a body-mind approach to laughter, it’s “outside” of the mind and therefore free of judgment.
- there is always a beginning and an end. There is a time to laugh and play, and a time not to. You can certainly deny yourself the human right to feel good, and why should you?
In short: Laughter Yoga has nothing to do with humor. You can’t use this method to you shine in society, it’s actually better. It will inspire you to shine on your own strength, making you feel good about who you are, as you are, where you are, always now.
10. Should I laugh every day?
Of course not. Only if you want to feel good.
11. Sounds and Looks Fun, But I Can’t, Because…
If you think you’re not fit enough
Laughter Yoga revolves primarily around different types of breathing exercises, laughing being one of them. Inherently, you don’t even need to have limbs (it’s of course much more fun with them!) If you can breathe, you can laugh. Laughter will help you breathe significantly better and ALSO make you feel good at the same time.
If you think you don’t look good enough
Whether you are green or blue, whole or in pieces does not matter. Anybody can breathe without having to justify why or feeling ashamed or worthless for doing so, whether alone or in a group. Same thing with laughter. It will teach you to accept yourself, be at peace inside, and overall feel good about your very existence. Your body doesn’t think. What you feel and the meaning you assign to your feelings are two different things. Nerve impulses are just that and nothing more: nerve impulses. As such understand that we don’t laugh because we’re happy. We’re happy because we laugh.
If you think others won’t accept you and/or laugh at you
Laughter Yoga is exercise, not comedy. it comes with no judgements and does not even leave enough time to participants to have any. It gets you out of your head and into your body. One of the most common feedback at the end of any Laughter Yoga session is actually precisely that “it was so nice to not be judged”.Anybody can practice Laughter Yoga and benefit.
12. I’m sick. Will laughter heal me?
Don’t know and that is not our claim. Laughter as a form of exercise is a powerful form of complementary medicine. We do not recommend nor suggest in any way shape or form that you discontinue your current treatment plan if you have one. Please share what you are doing with your doctor and follow his/her advice.
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