Laugh yourself well!



Tutor Judith Hardy leads a Laughter Yoga group in York


They say laughter is a tonic, so I've popped along to a Laughter Yoga group in York to help locate my feel-good funny bone...



HO, ho, ho! Hee, hee, hee! Ha, ha, ha! The belly laughs fill the room; amplified by the vaulted chamber, they create a cacophony of cackles that any stand-up in a comedy club would welcome.

 But this isn't an open-mic night in a basement bar. We're in a York church hall; there are only ten of us, and we're practising laughter yoga.Our instructor, Judith Hardy, is leading tonight's class. Most people have brought mats or blankets, although there's not much in the way of yoga poses during the one-hour class.

And although there is plenty of laughter, most of it is “fake” released through a series of exercises directed by Judith.

“The body doesn't know the difference between real laughter and fake laughter,” explains Judith, a mum of two from Deighton, just outside York.

That means if we can learn to laugh to order, we can reap the benefits of a good old guffaw.

“It can lower blood pressure and release endorphins, the feel-good hormones,” says Judith. “Researchers at Oxford University found that laughter has an effect on pain relief.”

Laughter yoga was invented in India in 1995. Dr Madan Kataria was researching the benefits of laughter for a journal paper and assembled a group of people together every morning. After two weeks the jokes ran out, but he kept the group going anyway, encouraging them to practise laughing. His hypothesis was proven, that our bodies cannot tell the difference between acted and genuine laughter and that both produce the same “happy chemistry”.

Laughter yoga is now available the world over, and slowly taking off in the UK. “England is about the last country to offer laughter yoga,” says Judith.

Her classes are for both sexes, although the group I attended at St Edward the Confessor's church hall on Tadcaster Road in York was all female.

And you don't need to be light hearted to get the most out of it. One woman I spoke to afterwards told me: “I'm a really serious person.” Minutes earlier, I'd watched her charging round the room pretending to keep a run-away lawn mower under control and making noises to put Macbeth's witches to shame.

Judith says: “You don't need a sense of humour to do laughter yoga. It's not really about yoga, or laughing, it's about breathing.”

At the start of each class, Judith guides participants in a warm-up. We start with a deep Santa-esque “ho, ho, ho” which rumbles straight from our abdomens. The breathing is the same as that used in yoga pranayamic and requires you to push out your abdomen as you let out your laugh and pull it in as you inhale.

It's this inner body work-out that does the magic and mimics the same physiological and psychological responses from a genuine laugh.

So do we really need to learn to laugh? Judith thinks so. Mostly when we laugh, she says, it's only for a few seconds at a time. But to get the real benefits, you need to laugh for about 15 to 20 minutes in one go.

To this end, Judith has regular laughter “work-outs” at home. “My family think it's a bit mad,” she confesses. “So does the dog!”

But it makes her feel great. She says: “In my laughter exercises, it's not spontaneous. I am faking the laughter, but it feels good.”

She became a devotee after attending her first class about a year ago, when she became redundant. “I found laughter yoga at a very stressful time in my life. I was very sceptical about it; I thought it sounded stupid, crazy,” admits

Judith. “But what I learned is you have to get your mind out of the way; get rid of that voice in your head so you can listen to your body.”

At the end of the session, we all lie on the floor, in a flower formation, heads almost touching at the centre. We begin to practise our laughing. Judith tells us to “throw our thoughts” into the centre. I understand what she means. You need to “switch off”; not think about what's in the pack-up for tomorrow's lunch; not worry about that unpaid bill, and certainly ditch any notion of self-consciousness. It is, says Judith, about connecting with the child in us all and re-discovering a sense of playfulness.

So we laugh. Gently at first, but then it builds, a giggle into a chuckle, and then into a real tummy rumbling roar. By the sound of it, some women even get to the hysterical, tears-in-the-eye, stage. For some, it will be genuine (it is rather funny after all, so the giggles can naturally take over). For others it will be forced. Whichever; it doesn't matter. When we all stop, we all feel great.

For first timer Belinda Levy, the class has had a real impact. “I was hoping to have some fun and have a laugh, and I did,” she says. “I feel lighter with a feeling of openness on the inside.”

One thing's for sure, we are all smiling as we walk out into the cold, dark, wintry night.

Judith runs her drop-in laughter yoga session on the last Monday of each month at the St Edward the Confessor church hall, Tadcaster Road, York, from 7pm-8pm, cost £3.

She is also running classes at  Briar House Resources, next to The Healing Clinic, Museum Street, York: Saturday Laughter: 11am-12 noon (cost £20 for four-week course); Laughter Blaster Stress Release Sessions; 30-minute sessions: 12.10-12.40pm, 12.45-1.15pm (£3)


To find out more, email Judith at judithhardy1@btinternet.com, telephone 01904 728342, and visit laughteryoga.org