Hello and welcome to 2015. I am going to get back to basics and share some eliminatory information with you. Laughter is the best medicine. How often have you heard those words? Do you really believe it? There is truth in it and two full pages of images on Google come up for this search title, which seems to prove there is are strong beliefs to that effect.
Would you care to try it now, observing first how you are
feeling, then you do a little exercise. Take a deep breath and as you breathe
out, focus and laugh with your whole body. Continue this exercise for a couple
of minutes or more, taking care to not hyperventilate. Then observe the
difference, how different do you feel, whether a little lighter, more
energised, joyful? Notice that much of the time we laugh superficially, which
is fine but not what we want in order to improve our health through laughing
more. And yet if you started with a superficial laugh, the chances are that it became
genuine and even with practice, real genuine body shaking laughter. If you need
a list of more laughs to do,
Did you know that the body does not know the difference
between real laughter and pretend laughter? That is why at the Ferntree Gully
Laughter Club and within the laughter yoga movement, we choose a laugh and go
for it. New members may find it difficult at first and are more likely to ‘fake
it till they make it’, however when we start pretend laughing, it very quickly
becomes completely engrossed laughter.
With practice, the laughter improves and we lose all
feelings of self-consciousness. Then we are walking the talk, taking the spirit
of laughter with us wherever we go. Being contagious, other people benefit and
we become one of those lucky ones who find it easy to laugh naturally. Some
people I meet say they do not need to come to the laughter club, because they
laugh a lot at home already. Then others say they need to laugh more and come
and it is a good, healthy habit to get into. It gets better with practice and
after laughing, we find that we leave the half hour session feeling uplifted
and invigorated.
Dr Madan Kataria and Lynette Mitchell |
By coming regularly, which is on the 2nd, 4th
and 5th Sunday of the month, you will definitely be using laughter
as the best medicine for your health and wellbeing. This of course carries
forward into our lives as we take the spirit of laughter with us wherever we
go, sometimes calling on it in moments of stress when we need to have a sense
of humour.
Did you know that Laughter Clubs have been going for twenty
years? They began as the brainwave of Dr Madan Kataria, an Indian physician,
who started the first laughter club in a park in Mumbai in 1995 with 5 other
people. Initially they told jokes, finding that jokes can help us to laugh but
did depend on one’s sense of humour and can be limited due to belief systems.
By discovering how to ‘laugh for no reason’ laughter club were internationally
born, to the extent that there are over 6,000 clubs worldwide in 60 countries.
Lynette Mitchell is available for holistic counselling and
laughter yoga sessions and runs the free community Ferntree Gully Laughter
Club, phone her on 0425 799 258.
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