Celebrate life with Laughter

IIn today’s business world, Love and Laughter are the only areas where we will gain more than what we invest and it comes at no expense. M.S. Vijaya Nagamani from C-DAC, Bangalore tells us how.

C-DACians in Bangalore had an opportunity to know more about "Laughter and Laughter Therapy" in a program named "AMUSEMENT UNLIMITED" organized by CCC (C-DAC Cultural Club) on 23 Feb 2001. This Laughter session was presented by Shri. M.R. Basavaraju, Chief Anchor, Laughter Club International, Bangalore.

Participants were expecting jokes and laughter throughout the program. But, at the end of the program the experience beat expectations and we were overwhelmed with joy since we experienced a different type of enjoyment.

We were told more about laughter: What is laughter? What are the advantages and necessity of laughter? How do we keep ourselves happy and free from mental stress followed by a laughter demonstration.

Studies show that a newborn baby will laugh around 300-400 times per day. But, how many times in a day will a grown up laugh? They are so few and far between, that your can count them on your fingers.

This happens because, as man grows and learns to live in this tough world, his innocence will be overridden by ego and good health by his guilt, anger, fear, jealously and mental stress and as a result, has forgotten to laugh from his heart.

A working person, most times, spends more time with his colleagues and friends in his work place than with his family. In any work-place / organization employees can be under mental stress in some way or the other due to work load, deadlines, productivity pressure, illness, trying to make ends meet with their income, family problems and so on. Similarly even executives and managers will be living their own stressful lives. Most diseases like High blood pressure, heart disease, peptic ulcers, insomnia, depression; allergies and even cancer have some relation to stress, which contributes to absenteeism, poor performance and addictions.

Hence laughter and laughter therapy play a vital role in an organization. Managers hesitate to encourage laughter in the apprehension that it might be ridiculed or may cause indiscipline. But, remember, a smile is a small curve which makes many things straight. Laughter helps to improve inter-personal relationships at all levels in an organization, replacing mutual lack of trust and confidence with a more positive outlook and co-operative attitude towards one’s colleagues and sub-ordinates. This will in turn definitely help to improve the prevalent work environment and overall performance of an organization.

Some of the medical benefits of laughter are:

• Increases blood circulation.
• Increases oxygen levels in the body and releases endorphins (feel-good hormones) from the brain cells -this will bring a sense of well being and feeling of freshness throughout the day.
• Increases body resistance by stimulating the immune system of the body and significantly reduce the frequency of coughs, colds and throat & chest infections.
• Helps control many diseases as well as aches and pains due to arthritis, cervical spondylitis and backache.

Also, laughter has got its own definition, name and position in the field of Yoga and is popular as "Haasya Yoga".

We, at the laughter session learned something about Laughter Therapy by doing the following activities:

• Welcome/Greeting laugh - beginning with AH HA HO HO
• Accupressure - Clapping of hand
• Hasta Parashevasana - Swimming in the air
• Silent laugh
• Lion’s laugh
• Internal jogging
• Cocktail laughing
• Garland laughing
• Jhula laughing
• Shooting laughing and many more.

These man-made types of laughing in Laughter Therapy really made us laugh from the heart and enjoy ourselves.

Laughter Therapy is one of the easiest types of meditation, which brings instant relaxation. It disconnects your mind from the physical world since while laughing you cannot think of anything else. In other types of meditation you need to concentrate a lot to take your mind away from unwanted thoughts.

Laughter Therapy will help cultivate the spirit of laughter by following ways and means of sensible living, like giving compliments, the art of forgiveness and understanding human relationships.

Laughter Therapy makes people aware of the power of group effort. Anything practiced in a group becomes easier to manifest rather than trying to do the same thing alone. Not only do we laugh and do stretching exercise together, we are also learning to understand the ways and means of sensible living together.

Every human being has infinite potential to perform and achieve anything he desires, but most of his power lies dormant and untapped. Through Laughter Therapy and meditation, one can release one’s infinite potential and achieve greater heights in life.

Happiness and Laughter are states of mind and should be unconditional, irrespective of the ups and downs of life. If you are in a happy and positive frame of mind you can solve your problems in a much better way.

So friends, let us all discover our own sense of humor and celebrate life with laughter in spite of its tough challenges.