Laughter yoga

The idea of "laughter yoga" -- if you make yourself laugh for no reason, you will become happy. Link (Thanks, Pandu!)

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Laughing yogi video

• [Mark Frauenfelder]

  @#12: That’s a good tip. I’m going to try it!

• [Doran]

  Never discount the power of a good mock-up.

• [Halloween Jack]

  Doesn’t your diaphragm start to hurt after a while, though?

• [Grimnir]

  Yeah, this is definitely good stuff, but there’s still no substitute for spontaneity.

• [Doran]

  I remember an est laughter process, where the entire workshop group laughed for perhaps an hour or more, constantly being encouraged to go 100% with it. There were many emotions, culminating in something closer to ecstasy rather than just happiness.

• [Kip]

  I certainly laughed when I read this posting on Craigslist. But I don’t think laughing yoga is for me. I laugh enough already.

• [Paul Maurice Martin]

  My sister used to do this incredibly goofy sounding laugh when we were kids; she could crack me up with it at will. That’s the closest I’ve come to laughing for no reason – laughter provoked by someone else’s laughter.

  Hmm – but that means there’s a reason for it, right??

• [mullet]

  There’s actually a new more accessible form of Laughter Yoga called Laughercize:

  http://laughercize.com/

• [jahknow]

  “You laugh, you win?” A meme is reborn.

• [billy]

  practice saying “i never laugh” with a really straight face. it gets the room going !

• [noen]

  This is well supported in the literature. Even smiling can change your mood from mildly depressed to a more positive outlook. It is in fact a part of cognitive behavioral therapy that the patient adopt a “half-smile” as a part of the treatment plan.

  “As you think, so shall you become.”

• [coldspell]

  They should sell laugh track CDs so I can listen to laughter on my commute and all day at work. hmm, that sounds tiring..

• [JackCastile]

  Laughter and Yoga have traditionally gone together as a direct result of Y.I.M (Yoga Induced Flatulence).

• [JackCastile]

  Whoops! Type-O. I meant to type, Y.I.F. In case you’re wondering, Y.I.M actually stands for “Yoga Inclined Monkeys”, which, as many of you have guessed, frequenty suffer from Y.I.F..

• [1020AM]

  It made me laugh (haha) when i saw Laughter Yoga on Boing Boing. My friends and I hold laughter yoga sessions at our college on a weekly basis. And while it is ridiculous, people really find that it elevates their mood and provides a welcome distraction from studies. I would give it a try if there’s any sessions lcoated near you.

• [Bill Simmon]

  There was (perhaps there still is) a group of “laughter therapy” folks here in Burlington, Vermont. They would meet on the Church St. Marketplace (Burlington’s pedestrian mall) in the summer and laugh together. Except the laughter always sounded so fake and forced. It was actually kind of disturbing to watch. It made me uncomfortable in exactly the way genuine laughter doesn’t.

• [teflon]

  I suspect most folks are like me, and dread the 8:00AM start of the work day. I am very much an evening person – I joke to my boss that my body shows up at 8:00, but my brain doesn’t come in until 11. Still, I need to “turn-it-on” every morning like most of us do, and being an evening-energy person, I’ve had to develop a great way to fake it: each morning as I walk across the campus to my office, I contort my face into the biggest shit-eating grin I can muster. By the time I’ve made it to my desk, I am ready to tackle anything with a smile and a positive outlook. Of course the one or two people I run into on the way in wonder why I’m smiling like an idiot, but the technique really does work! A smirk or a half-smile doesn’t do it – You really have to grin like an pie-eating idiot posing for the winning picture. Try it a few times, you’ll see how this simple, silly tactic can transform your approach to the day.