We Teach A Professional, Original & Dependable Approach To The Joyful & Therapeutic Practice Of Laughter Yoga
We are America's leading Laughter Yoga Education Center and guarantee fun, satisfaction and success!
2012 is promising to be an exciting year for Laughter Yoga in North America! We are currently planning the 2012 All America Laughter Yoga Conference in Chicago from Thursday Sept. 20th until Sunday, Sept. 23rd. This is America’s oldest and largest annual Laughter Yoga gathering.
We are looking for experts from all horizons to contribute to the educational experience of this conference. Apply now … Continue Reading
It’s easy: all you have to do is look here once a week.
This week:
Depression is on the rise. Know your statistics. Quote official sources. This is invaluable in helping your prospective clients understand that Laughter Yoga is not a frivolous expense but a very valid investment. What we do is scientifically proven to work.
Caregivers need Laughter Yoga. Have you contacted your local groups lately?
More and more people are making Laughter Yoga their full time job. Network. Learn from them.
Seniors need to laugh and greatly benefit from it. There are 75 millions of them out there. Why not contact your local retirement communities.
What’s happening around the world can help you. Apparently ” the school syllabus somewhere in India has an entire chapter about laughter clubs and the importance of laughter to human health. If it’s done there, it could be done here. Why not contact your local schools and propose a demo session to either staff or students?
Are you hesitant to take action? Know that we have been working for months now on creating an online Laughter Yoga University to train, help and support professionals in the field. Check it out. It will be completed soon and provide you with all the tools and knowledge you need to be successful.
Laughter may be good medicine for elderly dementia patients — and best of all, it doesn’t have side effects.
Australian humour therapist Jean-Paul Bell was originally a clown doctor working with sick children, but now he makes the elderly laugh through a programme called Play-Up.
Bell was also the key humour therapist in a Sydney-based study into the impact of humour therapy on mood, agitation, behavioural disturbances and social engagement in dementia patients, a study that showed those who took part seemed happier.
“The whole idea behind the Play-Up programme and what we’re doing at the Arts Health Institute is encouraging them to play more because we believe that they’ve got potential to keep playing right until you take your last breath,” Bell said.
He set up the Arts Health Institute to train aged-care staff in fostering playful relationships with their patients, particularly those with dementia.
The study, called the SMILE study, took place over three years, involving 36 nursing homes and 400 residents.
Dressed in a bright blue jacket with brass buttons and shoulder tabs, Bell uses a combination of games, jokes and songs — accompanying himself on a ukulele — to get the elderly to laugh.
In addition to seeming more content, the dementia patients involved in the study seemed less agitated by 20 percent, said lead researcher Lee-Fay Low at the University of New South Wale’s School of Psychiatry.
“Twenty percent sounds like a small effect but it’s about the same amount, the same effect as you would get if you gave them an antipsychotic medication — medication you would use to treat schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder,” Low said.
Best of all, the dementia patients weren’t the only ones who benefited from the study.
“The staff were invigorated, they felt that their jobs were enhanced,” said therapist Joanne Rodrigues.
“They were part of something that they could see the real benefits (of).”
Read more at http://www.artshealthinstitute.org.au/News/SMILE-Study-results.aspx
Links of interest:
A World Health Organisation report has proclaimed the French as the most likely to suffer a depressive episode in their lifetime. This is probably why Laughter Clubs are flourishing across France. Participants report a heightened sense of relaxation, while doctors hail the many psychological and physical health benefits. Laughter Yoga strengthens immune system. It has been proven to alleviate mild forms of depression by releasing neurotransmitters that improve your mood and make you feel good.
I had been talking about it for a long time, and this is now a done thing.
The photo albums of the past 4 Australasian Laughter Yoga conferences where I was invited to speak are online.
Check it out.
(I am including a youtube video here in case you would like to have some music as you watch these pictures. If so, just play this video at the same time)
I had been talking about it for a long time, and this is now a done thing.
The photo albums of the past 6 All America Laughter Yoga conferences are online.
Check it out.
(I am including a youtube video here in case you would like to have some music as you watch these pictures. If so, just play this video at the same time)
Pictures talk louder than words.
Here is a slideshow of the 2011 All America Laughter Yoga Conference that took place on 09/22-25 in San Diego, California, at the beautiful Town & Country Resort & Convention Center. A group of heart-centered people got together from all 4 corners of North America and as far as Ethiopia and Australia. The energy that this created alone gave participants already more than they were expecting. Then there was the program and close to 40 presenters who shared their knowledge and passion. This was our best conference to date.
Laughing with friends for around 15 minutes boosts a person’s pain threshold by an average of 10%, an international study has found.
A research team led by evolutionary anthropologists from Oxford University in the UK has concluded that the endorphins released by a big belly laugh in a social setting can make pain more bearable.
Noting that previous studies had found laughter was more likely when in a group than when alone, the researchers conducted experiments where groups of participants watched comedy clips, including Mr Bean, or live comedy at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. A control group was shown factual videos like golf tournament footage.
After viewing, the participants were given pain tolerance tests such as seeing how long they could withstand cold, a tight blood pressure cuff or do strenuous exercise.
“We tested the hypothesis that social laughter elevates pain thresholds both in the laboratory and under naturalistic conditions. In both cases, the results confirmed that when laughter is elicited, pain thresholds are significantly increased, whereas when subjects watched something that does not naturally elicit laughter, pain thresholds do not change (and are often lower),” the researchers wrote in their paper, which was titled “Social laughter is correlated with an elevated pain threshold” and published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
“These results can best be explained by the action of endorphins released by laughter.”
Are you really, truly capable of laughing at yourself?
If so, it’s a good sign that you have an optimistic personality and a good sense of humor, a new study suggests.
A small, new study in the journal Emotion of 70 people reveals that those who are really able to laugh at themselves are more cheerful and less serious than people who fake it.
Researchers tested the phenomena by first asking the study participants if they are able to laugh at themselves. Then, they took secret footage of the study participants as they saw — and laughed at — distorted pictures of themselves.
Researchers found that ability of people to laugh at themselves was not connected with how much they laughed at the images of other people — suggesting that it has more to do with a specific character trait, rather than just recognizing a funny photo when you see one, TIME reported.
In addition to being good for spirits, laughter has also been shown in past research to boost health. A small study presented this year at an American Heart Association meeting showed that listening to funny jokes or your favorite music could lower blood pressure possibly even as much as cutting salt from your diet or losing 10 pounds.
I have been extremely busy over the past few weeks (months) and haven’t had the opportunity to devote as much time as I would have liked to reporting recent news coverage on Laughter Yoga in the world media. While the names and locations of the stories that are being reported differ, the content of the articles however remains the same. Let’s look at this week’s news for example:
Have a Ha Ha Happy week.
Purchase the 2011 All America Laughter Yoga Conference Video Pack before Tuesday 10/25/2011 and pay only $89. Learn from the best in the laughter biz! Click here to read more.
