You are not limited to just one way of doing any particular laughter exercise. There is technically an infinity of possible variations for each. Here is how it works.

First, understand that in Laughter Wellness we use laughter as a choice – you laugh just because (you want to be the cause of your health and wellness.) It has no prerequisites and requires no explanation beyond “I wanted to.” This is very useful because it means you can be as creative with it as you want. At the end of the day it does not matter whether someone can follow or even understands what you are proposing or not. All they have to do is simulate a laugh.

Start with the most obvious, which is how you physically move. Are you using locomotor, or non-locomotor movements?





Locomotors
Movements that travel from one space to another one
Non-Locomotor
Movements on the spot not going anywhere
Safe Playful Out of context Safe
  • Climb
  • Flip
  • Hop
  • Jog
  • Jump
  • Leap
  • March
  • Meander
  • Move
  • Scoot
  • Shuffle
  • Spin
  • Spring
  • Step
  • Step Hop
  • Stomp
  • Stroll
  • Trip
  • Tumble
  • Waddle
  • Walk
  • Zigzag
  • Crawl
  • Creep
  • Drive
  • Fly
  • Grow
  • Moonwalk
  • Polka
  • Roll
  • Run
  • Scamper
  • Skate
  • Skip
  • Schottische
  • Slide
  • Tiptoe
  • Two-step
  • Waltz
  • Waltz Run
  • Wriggle
  • Bear-walk (Dinosaur Walk)
  • Cat-walk
  • Crab walk
  • Dash
  • Gallop
  • Lame Puppy Walk
  • Prance
  • Slither
  • Balance
  • Bend
  • Bounce
  • Burst
  • Carve
  • Chop
  • Close
  • Dig
  • Dive
  • Dodge
  • Fall / Sink
  • Flap
  • Flick
  • Float
  • Freeze
  • Glide
  • Grab
  • Grow / Rise
  • Hit / Jab / Kick / Poke / Punch / Smash / Strike
  • Hang
  • Hug
  • Inflate
  • Mold
  • Open
  • Pluck
  • Pose
  • Pull
  • Push
  • Rock
  • Rub
  • Shake
  • Shove
  • Shrug
  • Spin / Sway / Swing
  • Spread
  • Squeeze
  • Stamp
  • Straighten
  • Stretch
  • Tap
  • Tickle
  • Turn
  • Twist
  • Twitch
  • Wave
  • Whisk
  • Wiggle
  • Wrap / Wring
  • Zip
  • Zoom





A movement-based laughter practice does the following:

  • Adds even more joy to a laughter class because it further increases our sense of well-being.
  • Allows for more ways to personal expression.
  • Brings more life to the exercises: Helps participants to be more awake, aware, and balanced.
  • Builds confidence.
  • Combined with the invitation to move as you breathe and breathe as you move, it is an easy way to get people flush their body and brain with more oxygen.
  • Relaxes the body.
  • Releases energy.

Then you have five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Here are some very basic ideas:

  • How would you do your chosen exercise if you could see well, not well at all, or were blind?
  • What if you could barely hear but really wanted to hear?
  • What if you had something tasty/not tasty in your mouth?
  • How would an overwhelmingly pleasant/unpleasant smell impact your behavior?
  • What if you wanted to touch everything you see? Had shaky/sweaty/heavy/magnetic hands?





This standard list of five senses, however, doesn’t really give our body credit for all of the amazing things it can do. There are many more different things we can sense. Here is a more comprehensive list:

  • Sight: color and brightness;
  • Taste: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami (umami receptors detect the amino acid glutamate, which is a taste generally found in meat and some artificial flavoring);
  • Touch;
  • Pressure;
  • Itch;
  • Thermoception: (ability to sense heat and cold);
  • Sound;
  • Smell;
  • Proprioception (the ability to tell where your body parts are, relative to other body parts);
  • Tension sensors (they monitor muscle tension);
  • Pain (nociception);
  • Equilibrioception (the sense that allows you to keep your balance and sense body movement in terms of acceleration and directional changes);
  • Stretch Receptors (found in such places as the lungs, bladder, stomach, and the gastrointestinal tract);
  • Chemoreceptors (involved in detecting blood born hormones and drugs, as well as the vomiting reflex);
  • Thirst;
  • Hunger;
  • Magentoception (the ability to detect magnetic fields);
  • Time (some people can perceive time);
  • Intuition? (many people can sense when someone else is looking at them).





You can easily combine up to three of these senses as an add-on idea to any laughter exercise (people get confused after that), so if limit myself to just 19 options (listed above), then that’s 19x18x17= 5814 possibilities. Play with it.

Below are 57 variations (up to 57x56x55= 175,560 possibilities) to make this process easier for you. There are lots more, but this list is a good place to start.

  • >0 min. means you can use these ideas at anytime in your session.
  • >5 min. means you should wait at least five minutes before you introduce them.
  • >10 min. means this is really bizarre and you should laugh and play for at least 10 minutes before you introduce them.

How would you behave and/or laugh differently if you were…

  1. >0 min. | able to engage only half your face (the other side must remain frozen)
  2. >0 min. | forced to only use your non-dominant hand
  3. >0 min. | freezing cold: shiver lots!
  4. >0 min. | looking for your keys everywhere
  5. >0 min. | plagued with a hiccup
  6. >0 min. | running late to a very important meeting
  7. >0 min. | trying to hide food stains on your clothes
  8. >0 min. | trying to wipe grease off your hands
  9. >0 min. | unable to stop smiling from ear to ear
  10. >0 min. | very reluctant to touch anybody
  11. >0 min. | with one foot glued to the floor
  12. >0 min. | with your mouth wide open and unable to close it
  13. >05 min. | a happy fairy: you can’t resist from blessing all with your magic wand
  14. >05 min. | a secret agent on a mission
  15. >05 min. | asked to make your movements more interesting
  16. >05 min. | Charlie Chaplin (he walked like a penguin)
  17. >05 min. | competing at the laughter Olympics for this exercise
  18. >05 min. | constantly seeking to feel the texture of everybody’s clothes
  19. >05 min. | father Christmas
  20. >05 min. | having a hot flash (fan yourself)
  21. >05 min. | ice skating
  22. >05 min. | interacting with a huge object
  23. >05 min. | interacting with a tiny person or very small object
  24. >05 min. | laughing normally but doing everything else in super slow motion
  25. >05 min. | magnetically pulled forward by your [leader defines: chin, left hip, right knee, etc.]
  26. >05 min. | on the moon and almost weightless!
  27. >05 min. | only able to laugh on the inhale
  28. >05 min. | the queen of England
  29. >05 min. | trying to perfectly mirror whoever it is you are looking at, close or far
  30. >05 min. | trying to tickle everybody
  31. >05 min. | trying your best to contain a burst of laughter
  32. >05 min. | very shortsighted blinking lots and getting close!
  33. >05 min. | walking on a tight rope
  34. >05 min. | walking on your tippy toes (feet apart, knees touching)
  35. >05 min. | wearing happy shoes that force you to dance
  36. >05 min. | wearing underwear that are too tight
  37. >05 min. | with a partner (try to do this exercise as if you were the same body)
  38. >05 min. | with one hand stuck above your head
  39. >05 min. | with others (how can you all do this exercise together as a team?)
  40. >10 min. | a crab (be in constant motion walking sideways)
  41. >10 min. | a dinosaur (make big, fierce movements!)
  42. >10 min. | a drama queen: release the diva in you!
  43. >10 min. | a farm animal in an emotional state (e.g. angry, sad, happy, etc.)
  44. >10 min. | a giggling toddler
  45. >10 min. | a robot
  46. >10 min. | a very inquisitive goldfish with a two seconds attention span
  47. >10 min. | blowing kisses to everybody
  48. >10 min. | deeply attracted by your own and the scent of people and objects around you
  49. >10 min. | distracted because eating a delicacy: make noises of enjoyment!
  50. >10 min. | drunk on joy
  51. >10 min. | excessively shy and/or flirtatious
  52. >10 min. | infatuated with your hair
  53. >10 min. | making the sounds of a backfiring car
  54. >10 min. | moving in curves only (you can’t follow any straight lines)
  55. >10 min. | suffering from laughter sickness
  56. >10 min. | unable to stop your arms and legs from shaking
  57. >10 min. | urgently needing to urinate

This being said, creativity is time consuming. Save yourself the learning curve! Discover the coolest tool to unearth your mirth, consistently. Learn more about the online laughter session planner at http://www.laughteronlineuniversity.com/planner/. Planning high quality short laughter sessions or day-long workshops has never been easier! The online Laughter Session Planner is the ultimate tool for complete beginners and seasoned laughter professionals alike. It allows you to identify and print the exercises you want and all those you have not yet thought of, within minutes. Includes over 1001 joy-filled activities split in 10 main categories, and available through 24 different search criteria.