History Of Laughter Yoga

Posted On April 6, 2010 In Category About Laughter Yoga, Start Here

Laughter Yoga did not appear in a vacuum. While it was first conceptualized by an Indian medical doctor in 1995, it followed decades of ground work done by many great people around the world – some famous and others not – who helped raise mass consciousness about the preventive and therapeutic benefits of laughter.

First Conceptualized in Mumbai, India, In 1995

Dr. Madan Kataria and Madhuri Kataria, Founders of Laughter Yoga International

In March 1995 Dr. Madan Kataria, a family physician from Mumbai, India, decided to write an article called “Laughter – the best medicine” for his monthly health magazine “My Family Doctor”. The outcome of his research for this article surprised him greatly. Decades of scientific research had already proven that laughter has both a substantial preventive and therapeutic effect.

In particular he was impressed by the findings of Norman Cousins, an American journalist was was diagnosed in 1964 with a degenerative disease and given at best 6 months to live, yet managed to heal himself completely using laughter as his main form of therapy. Norman Cousins died in 1991.

Dr. Kataria woke up on March 13th, 1995, with what he thought was a great idea: he would start a laughter club. At 7 am he went to his local park and somehow managed to motivate four people to laugh with him. This small group quickly grew to over 50 participants within a few days. The format was the turn-by-turn telling of jokes or anecdotes.

Within days the stock of good jokes was depleted and participants complained. They did not want to listen and even less take part in the telling of stale or vulgar jokes.

Rather than abort the experiment Dr. Kataria had the idea of dropping jokes altogether. What he had observed was that when the joke or anecdote being told was not funny, one person laughing was usually enough to get the whole group to laugh: laughter is contagious. He experimented with this idea of laughing for no reason and it worked very well.

The brain cannot distinguish self-induced laughter from the laughter from external stimuli, and what to some may seem like a silly and artificial beginning almost always leads into a natural euphoric state of hearty laughter.

His wife Madhuri Kataria, a Hatha Yoga teacher, helped build upon the yoga connection of laughter. Together they designed a sequence of simple laughter exercises with gentle yoga breathing exercise (Pranayama) for maximum benefits.

A journalist heard of this unusual club and wrote an article about it in the local newspaper. Inspired people started to come to Dr. Kataria for advice on how to start their own “Laughter Clubs”. Everything else is history.

Dr Madan Kataria and Steve Wilson

Since its humble beginnings in 1995, this unique idea has grown into a worldwide movement of many thousands of Laughter Clubs all over the world. Laughter Yoga and Laughter Clubs have been featured in every single major media network around the world (press, radio, television). Laughter Yoga is currently referred to as the “latest exercise craze to hit the United States of America”.

The American Chapter

The American Laughter Yoga movement owes a lot to the ground work realized by psychologist Steve Wilson from Ohio who invited Dr. Kataria and his wife to the USA for 1.5 months in 1999 and was the first one to expose them to the American media. Although Mr Wilson never taught nor promoted Laughter Yoga afterward but his own curriculum, he gained some level of popularity and introduced the essence of the concept of simulated laughter exercises to the American public.

Sebastien Gendry

It wasn’t until 2004 that California based Sebastien Gendry, another American of French origin, became highly interested in this subject and went all the way to India to train with Dr Kataria. A strong connection ensued and Sebastien went on to serve as World Operations Director for Laughter Yoga International for 2 years. He facilitated several Certified Laughter Yoga Teacher trainings for Dr. Kataria in the USA, which led to still more, and tirelessly promoted Laughter Yoga with the national media. He organized the first All American Laughter Yoga conference in 2006 which led to a national television coverage of Laughter Yoga on CNN, the Associated Press, and not long after that ABC Dancing With The Stars, ABC Good Morning America, the Oprah Winfrey Show and many many more national, state and local media outlets.

Today (2010) over 400 such Laughter Yoga Teachers have been personally trained by Dr Kataria, training in turn several thousands class instructors (Certified Laughter Yoga Leaders.) These trainings also indirectly led to the creation of an estimated 450 Laughter Clubs (as of 2010) nationwide, and growing.

Sebastien Gendry and two of his own students have been appointed by Dr Kataria as master Laughter Yoga trainers and will start offering Certified Laughter Yoga Teacher tranings starting in 2011.

Laughter Yoga is here to stay.