When daily life gets busier and more stressful, genuine opportunities to laugh become rarer. We find ourselves too occupied and distracted to experience the deep, hearty, sustained laughter that truly benefits our wellbeing. Even when we do laugh, it’s often brief and fleeting rather than the hearty, sustained laughter that offers profound health benefits.

Fortunately, there are proven techniques to bring more laughter into our lives, regardless of circumstances or mood. Let’s explore what you can expect from this special workshop.

What to Expect at This Workshop

This workshop combines several approaches to bring more laughter into your life. While it includes elements of “Laughter Yoga,” it’s important to understand what this actually means.

Despite its name, Laughter Yoga doesn’t involve any traditional yoga poses or mats. Rather, it refers to the powerful breathing pattern that occurs during laughter—where you exhale more than you inhale, similar to Pranayama breathing in traditional yoga. This extended exhalation created during hearty laughter provides many of the same respiratory benefits as yogic breathing exercises.

The workshop goes well beyond just laughter yoga exercises. You’ll also experience a variety of games, interactive activities, and playful strategies specifically designed to evoke natural, spontaneous laughter. These additional approaches help even the most reserved participants access genuine, heartfelt laughter. The session blends structured laughter exercises with opportunities for authentic, spontaneous joy in a supportive, non-judgmental environment.

The Science of Laughter

Research consistently demonstrates the remarkable impact laughter has on our health. When we engage in laughter whether it is spontaneous or through deliberate intention, our bodies respond in powerful ways:

Physical Benefits of Laughter:

• Reduces stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline
• Boosts immune function by increasing infection-fighting antibodies
• Decreases pain by releasing endorphins (natural painkillers)
• Improves cardiovascular health by enhancing blood flow
• Relaxes muscles and relieves physical tension
• Burns calories – sustained laughter is hard work!

Psychological Benefits:

• Reduces anxiety and tension
• Creates emotional resilience
• Improves mood and counteracts depression
• Enhances memory and learning
• Provides a natural form of mindfulness
• Strengthens social connections

Spiritual Benefits:

• Creates a sense of lightness and joy
• Fosters a present-moment awareness
• Facilitates connection with others
• Helps gain perspective on life challenges

The Solution: Laughter as Exercise

One powerful approach to reclaiming laughter in our lives is through deliberate laughter practice, such as laughter yoga. The foundational principle is simple yet profound: your body doesn’t distinguish between spontaneous laughter and intentional laughter – it responds with the same physiological benefits either way.

What’s fascinating is that when we begin with intentional laughter exercises, something magical often happens. Due to the infectious nature of laughter, participants typically transition from deliberate laughter into genuine, natural, convulsive laughter. This creates a powerful feedback loop of wellbeing.

Join Our World Laughter Day Celebration!

World Laughter Day was created in 1998 by Dr. Madan Kataria, founder of the worldwide Laughter Yoga movement. Each year, this special day brings people together to promote peace and joy through the universal language of laughter. At a time when global challenges and personal stresses can leave us feeling disconnected, coming together to laugh offers a powerful reminder of our shared humanity.

To celebrate, UK Laughter Yoga Ambassador, Positive Psychologist, and Therapist Lesley Lyle has organised a special laughter workshop at:

The Retreat, Christchurch
Sunday, May 4th, 6:30 – 8:30 PM

This engaging workshop is based on laughter yoga principles but goes beyond to include:

• Insights into the fascinating research behind laughter’s effects
• Games and activities specifically designed to provoke natural laughter
• Techniques to bring more laughter into your daily life
• A supportive environment where everyone can laugh freely

Men and Laughter: A Special Invitation

Research shows that men often have fewer opportunities for social laughter than women. Many men report that as they age, their friendship circles narrow, and occasions for genuine, uninhibited laughter become increasingly rare. This is unfortunate, as the health benefits of laughter are particularly valuable for men, who statistically face higher risks of heart disease and stress-related conditions.

To encourage more men to experience the benefits of laughter therapy, we’re offering 5 free places specifically for men at this World Laughter Day workshop because we believe everyone deserves access to this natural medicine.

About Your Workshop Facilitator

Lesley Lyle is the published author of “Laugh Your Way to Happiness” and brings extraordinary expertise as both a positive psychologist and clinical hypnotherapist. She was personally trained by Dr. Madan Kataria in India in 2011, learning laughter yoga directly from its founder. Lesley has dedicated over a decade to running free community laughter workshops and has taught the science of laughter within university psychology courses.

Under Lesley’s expert guidance, participants discover how to access laughter as a resource for wellbeing, regardless of their mood or circumstances.

Book Your Place Today

Regular tickets are priced at £12 each, or bring a friend and pay just £20 for two.

Men interested in one of the free places should use the code “LAUGHMORE” when booking through Eventbrite.

Spaces are limited to ensure a quality experience for all participants.

Book directly on Eventbrite:
World Laughter Day Workshop

What to Bring

• Comfortable clothes that allow movement
• Water bottle
• An open mind
• Your willingness to laugh!

Join us for an evening of joy, connection, and healing laughter in celebration of World Laughter Day. Your mind, body, and spirit will thank you!

“We don’t laugh because we’re happy – we’re happy because we laugh.” – William James

The post World Laughter Day: The Healing Power of Laughter appeared first on The Positive Psychology People.

And there’s just so many types of humour that can make us happy, and happy is a word that we should remember, after all, if a joke does not make us happy then it is not a joke. Rather it is an offensive joke. The academic literature on the association of humour and wellbeing is vast, how it helps with coping, with stress and a powerful antidote to pain as well (Bennett & Lengacher, 2008).

Let’s see some of these powerful antidotes to sadness, grief and pain:

Physical humour

This is straightforward, ever watched funny cat videos on YouTube, instant karma videos, people falling or tripping in, stumbling on something? This is the kind of humour where the act itself is the humour, think of Charlie Chaplin or Mr Bean. Some say a combination of laughter and a dose of vitamin C is all you need for a healthy life (Cousins, 1977).

Aggressive humour

This is the kind of a joke that is more than likely to be detrimental towards others, using sarcasm, cynicism, criticism at the expense of other people. It’s a bit borderline kind of a joke as it often applies racism and sexism, bullying and discrimination to name a few. Everyone witnessed or experienced this type of jokes, for instance, I as a Hungarian minority from Romania sometimes experience racist type of jokes, but I don’t take them seriously because I know it’s a joke. Moreover, some evidence suggests that aggressive humour help us to reduce the degree of anger (Liu et al., 2019).

Dry humour

This is the kind of humour that not everyone understands, it’s peculiar because there is an element of neutrality of emotions, but once the audience get it, it can be very funny. The only problem with this is sometimes people might not realize that you’re joking. For example, a few days ago I had a bad day and when I arrived back home my sister asked me how my day was, and I said to her I was hit by a car! No emotion, no facial reaction to my words, like someone with anhedonia, just pure words and facts. She just didn’t know how to react to my flat face, but inside I was laughing out my mind. When I have a bad day, I usually ooze dry jokes.

Parodic humour

This humour probably needs no introduction, this is the type of humour that emphasize imitation with mockery and exaggeration. It can be used towards anyone, but usually famous personalities like politicians, an actor or businessman. But poems, videos, movies and music can be parodied. Parodies can be used in health promotion sector, an article in the journal of Extractive Industries and Society (Veiga & Marshall, 2017) proposing parodic songs for policy makers to teach artisanal miners about mercury pollution, that’s clever.

Satirical humour

The grandfather of all humour, the most common type of humour and it is mainly used to shame people, societies, governments, corporations by making fun of them. But on the other hand, satire is one of the best types of humour to use constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to social issues. A good case in point is a late-night show in the USA (Zekavat, 2021) whereas the covid19 pandemic ravaged on, the showman used satiric attempts to change individual behaviour for health reasons.

Burlesque

We all enjoy caricatures, they are there to ridicule and make fun of serious works of art, literature, theatre or important people. And the emphasis is on seriousness, precisely that, why so serious? But it’s important that the audience knows the background of that work of art or important person, so they must have prior knowledge of them otherwise it might not be funny. Burlesque has been used by the scientific community to teach students in the form of scientific caricature to stimulate critical inquiry and to fuel debates (Clary & Wandersee, 2010).

So here we are, jokes are here to stay with us because they are fun to listen to and fun to tell in front of an audience. I really hope people will not become lifeless skin and bones in the future, who do not understand humour, it would be a boring world without smiles and laughter, wouldn’t you agree? Whether you’re into affiliative or self-enhancing humour, which by the way helps with coping in difficult situations (Cann et al., 2010) or aggressive humour, in order criticise the inefficiency of the government for example, it is good in many ways. In times of health and care crisis like now with all this covid pandemic, please don’t forget to tell jokes, to enjoy humour, to laugh at a good banter and all the jest that comes with that.

References

Bennett, M. P., & Lengacher, C. (2008). Humor and laughter may influence health: III. Laughter and health outcomes. In Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (Vol. 5, Issue 1). https://doi.org/10.1093/ecam/nem041

Cann, A., Stilwell, K., & Taku, K. (2010). Humor Styles, Positive Personality and Health. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 6(3). https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v6i3.214

Clary, R. M., & Wandersee, J. H. (2010). Scientific caricatures in the earth science classroom: An alternative assessment for meaningful science learning. Science and Education, 19(1). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-008-9178-y

Cousins, N. (1977). Anatomy of an illness (as perceived by the patient). Nutrition Today, 12(3). https://doi.org/10.1097/00017285-197705000-00008

Hook, L. van, & Grant, M. A. (1925). The Ancient Rhetorical Theories of the Laughable. The Greek Rhetoricians and Cicero. The Classical Weekly, 19(8). https://doi.org/10.2307/30107730

Liu, X., Chen, Y., Ge, J., & Mao, L. (2019). Funny or angry? Neural correlates of individual differences in aggressive humor processing. Frontiers in Psychology, 10(AUG). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01849

Veiga, M. M., & Marshall, B. G. (2017). Teaching artisanal miners about mercury pollution using songs. In Extractive Industries and Society (Vol. 4, Issue 4). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2017.10.006

Zekavat, M. (2021). Employing satire and humor in facing a pandemic. Humor, 34(2). https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2021-0001

Read more about Roland Majla and his other articles HERE

‘We Are The Positive Psychology People’

The post Are You Joking? appeared first on The Positive Psychology People.

Origins of laughter yoga

In 1995 a medical doctor in India was looking for ways to improve complete health.  Not just physical health.  Not just mental health.  Complete health, including physical, psychological, social and spiritual health.  He believed that laughter was good for all aspects of health and started to explore how it might be used.

Dr. Madan Kataria had read about the healing power of laughter.  The moving story by Norman Cousins, in his book “Anatomy of an Illness” tells of his struggle with a potentially fatal disease that gave him considerable pain, interfering with his ability to get comfortable and rest.  What he found was that, after laughing for several minutes, he could rest and sleep.  He attributed his recovery to the use of laughter, his belief in designing his own treatment and a close supportive relationship with his physician.

Laughing in the park

Dr. Kataria and his wife and a few friends started going to the park in the early mornings and generating laughter by telling jokes.  After only a few days the jokes became unfunny, verging on the offensive.  There had to be another way of generating laughter.  Dr. Kataria came up with the idea of using laughter exercises that did not use humour to generate laughter.  He invented many exercises to get people laughing together.

The yoga part of laughter yoga

Dr. Kataria’s wife is a yoga teacher.  Laughter exercises were combined with yogic breathing.  Deep breathing exercise, pranayama is part of many yoga practices.  Prolonging and extending the breath and slowing breathing down are powerful ways to access the parasympathetic nervous system which has a calming effect.  In laughter yoga, the laughter exercises are interspersed with deep breathing which acts to calm and restore balance following the physical effort of laughing.

The contagion effect of laughter yoga

Laughter is an innately contagious behaviour.  Humans are hard-wired to want to join in when they hear other people laughing.  They don’t need to know the reason for the laughter.  Although laughter yoga starts off with pretend laughter, it quickly progresses to real laughter.  The normal group setting promotes a ripple effect.

Qualitative study of the impact of laughter yoga suggests stress inoculation.

In 2019 I carried out a study as part of my Masters in applied positive psychology.  I interviewed nine members of a laughter club who met once a month for one hour. The aim was to explore the experiences and perceptions of laughter yoga.  They reported beneficial effects on mood, stress release, confidence and physical health.  Participants told me that laughter yoga had led to a change in perspective on life with a lighter, more open and confident outlook.   Laughter yoga, at a dose of one hour per month, was regarded as a valued coping strategy for dealing with the ups and downs of life.  At that time, pre-pandemic, people told me that laughter yoga had the effect of inoculating them against the stresses of daily life.

Laughter yoga alleviates loneliness

During lockdown laughter yoga has often been delivered virtually.  A 2021 paper by Dr. Christopher Williams and colleagues from Cambridge University reported the potential for laughter yoga as a scalable and deliverable intervention for people who were shielding during the pandemic.  Their study reported that laughter yoga had beneficial effects on loneliness in people in care homes.

Scientific study of laughter

Laughter is a naturally occurring social behaviour that is context based.  It is not an easy subject to study.  As soon as people attempt to study it, it becomes illusive.  Laughter yoga has been shown to be potentially useful in the alleviation of anxiety and depression.  The scientific study of laughter is still in it’s infancy but this accumulating evidence is compelling.

Scalable, sustainable and available

Laughter is a universal language.  Everybody knows how to laugh and it’s available to us all.  Laughter yoga is a low cost and accessible activity which has many reported benefits.  As we emerge from lockdown and regain our social connectivity and confidence, laughter yoga is a scalable and sustainable complete health activity from which we may all benefit.

How to laugh your way to better wellbeing

We all know how to laugh.  It’s free and it’s fun.  The phrase “laughter is the best medicine” is a familiar one and most people would agree that laughter is a positive contributor to wellbeing.

Talking to David Wilkinson, editor of the Oxford Review about our work on laughter yoga was a wonderful experience.  David describes our conversation as “a hoot”.  It certainly gave me a boost.

In this podcast we discuss our article “No laughing matter: Qualitative study of the impact of laughter yoga suggests stress inoculation” which was published in the European Journal of Applied Positive Psychology earlier this year.  It’s an easy read and the link is here.

References

Bressington, D., Mui, J., Yu, C., Leung, S. F., Cheung, K., Wu, C. S. T., … & Chien, W. T. (2019). Feasibility of a group-based laughter yoga intervention as an adjunctive treatment for residual symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress in people with depression. Journal of affective disorders, 248, 42-51.

Cousins, N. (1979). Anatomy of an illness.  W.W. Norton & Company.

Hatchard, A., & Worth, P. (2021). No laughing matter: Qualitative study of the impact of laughter yoga suggests stress inoculation. European Journal of Applied Positive Psychology, 5(2), 2397-7116.

Williams, C. Y., Townson, A. T., Kapur, M., Ferreira, A. F., Nunn, R., Galante, J., … & Usher-Smith, J. A. (2021). Interventions to reduce social isolation and loneliness during COVID-19 physical distancing measures: A rapid systematic review. PloS one, 16(2), e0247139.

We all know how to laugh.  It’s free and it’s fun.  The phrase “laughter is the best medicine” is a familiar one and most people would agrethat laughter is a positive contributor to wellbeing.

Talking to David Wilkinson, editor of the Oxford Review about our work on laughter yoga was a wonderful experience.  David describes our conversation as “a hoot”.  It certainly gave me a boost.

In this podcast we discuss our article “No laughing matter: Qualitative study of the impact of laughter yoga suggests stress inoculation” which was published in the European Journal of Applied Positive Psychology earlier this year.  It’s an easy read and the link is here.

‘We Are The Positive Psychology People’

The post How to Laugh Your Way to Better Wellbeing appeared first on The Positive Psychology People.

Three types of laughter

Ruch and Ekman (2001) distinguish three types of laughter in non-clinical contexts:

– Speaking or singing “hahaha”

– Fake laughter

– Real laughter

The type of laughter generally associated with happiness is the real laughter, also referred to as Duchenne laughter. It is recognisable by the wrinkles around the eyes when a particular set of facial muscles are activated. Positive emotions are at the root of this type of laughter: We need to be happy first, before we can produce a real smile.

The other two types of laughter don’t require any positive emotions because all a person does is say “hahaha” or raise the corners of the mouth. It is a controlled action, maybe to be polite or to hide real thoughts or emotions. But only because positive emotions are absent at the start, doesn’t mean they can’t emerge through fake laughter.

Getting from fake to real

The physical act of laughing – especially when sustained – is hard work. Laughing for 10-15 minutes can burn between 10 and 40 kcal (Buchowski et al., 2007). Research suggests that laughter exercises the trunk muscles (Wagner, Rehmes, Kohle, & Puta, 2014) and increases the depth of our breathing. This results in a surge of endorphins – and endorphins make people feel happier (Dunbar et al., 2012). This is especially true if done in a social context because laughter is contagious and Laughter Yoga aim precisely for that effect. In a typical Laughter Club they combine 20-30 minutes of unconditional laughter (i.e. no jokes) with an element of childlike playfulness (i.e. laughing just for the sake of it) and typically finish with a short meditation.

Does fake laughter really make people happier?

It would seem so. A Laughter Club pilot study in Australia (Weinberg, Hammond, & Cummins, 2014) found:

– significant improvement in positive emotions,

– a reduction of anxiety and stress symptom severity, and

– improved general life satisfaction.

In brief, the study suggested an increase in subjective wellbeing (i.e. happiness) in non-clinical participants.

Similarly, promising results were observed with children and the elderly and in a variety of clinical settings, for example with dialysis and cancer patients. Because the exercises can be done standing or seated, don’t require equipment and can be adapted to the participants, this intervention lends itself to a wide range of applications. Next time you wash the car or do your ironing, why not just laugh the time away and lighten both the chore and the mood?

Broaden and build

The effects of laughter and frequent positive emotions go beyond the moment. The Broaden-and-Build Theory (e.g. Cohn & Fredrickson, 2009) posits that positive emotions broaden a person’s thought-action repertoire. Based on this, they can then build lasting resources for the future which results in an upward spiral.

Thus, positive emotions not only make us happier, they help us stay happier – especially when life throws its challenges at us (Kuiper & Martin, 1998). This reservoir of happiness allows us to cope with stressful events more creatively and – because positive emotions tend to be linked with stronger relationships – we may receive more social support to see us through.

Before and after happiness

Just to be clear: That doesn’t mean we should deny or suppress the experience of negative emotions. For example, when somebody has lost their spouse, giving them time, space and support to grief may arguably be more important and helpful than sending them to the next Laughter Club. Negative emotions are part and parcel of daily life, even if we may not like them. But laughter (and humour) may offer an additional tool for coping with stressful events, and it may help build resilience to make the negative emotions bearable when they do occur.

Building this reservoir of happiness during the good (or better) times is a worthwhile activity and may as well be fun. And the good thing about laughter is that we don’t need to be happy first before we can practise our laughter muscles. A smile and a laugh can be the before and after of happiness.

‘We Are The Positive Psychology People’

The Positive Psychology People is co-founded and sponsored
by Lesley Lyle and Dan Collinson,
Directors of Positive Psychology Learning and authors of the
8-week online Happiness Course

The post Laughter – the before and after of happiness appeared first on The Positive Psychology People.