Laughter yoga founder and guru Dr. Madan Kataria leads his students in a laughter yoga session outdoors.

laughteryoga.org

When she attended a Laughter Yoga class for the first time, Vrinda Kohli was skeptical.

She didn’t think that it was possible to alleviate her end-of- semester stress through something as simple as laughing.

But after the class, held at Oakham House last week, was over, the first-year social work student had changed her mind.

“I totally proved myself wrong and felt more relaxed and at ease,” she says. “I even had more energy.”

For stressed students coping with the pressures of essays, assignments and exams, Laughter Yoga’s benefits may be just what the doctor ordered.

“Personally, one of the best (health benefits) is that it reduces stress,” says Wendy Woods, a Laughter Yoga instructor in Toronto. “Laughter relaxes muscles and it gets your breathing back on track. Research has shown that stress hormones reduce after you’ve been laughing.” And when we laugh, we’re in the present moment so we’re not dealing with all the different stresses that we have in our lives, she says.

 Laughter Yoga began in Mumbai, India in 1995 when Dr. Madan Kataria was writing an article on laughter for a health journal. During his research, he discovered many scientific studies that described the proven benefits of laughter on the human mind and body, and so he created the first Laughter Club.

 While the meetings initially used jokes and storytelling to elicit laughter, problems arose when members started getting offended.

 The solution? He told members to fake it.

 “Dr. Kataria said it best,” says Woods. “The body doesn’t know the difference between real or fake laughter. It responds the same way. Even when you’re faking laughter, your muscles still tense and after you relax, you still get your breathing back on track. So it doesn’t matter because the body is reacting the same way whether it’s forced or whether it’s natural.”

The classes combine laughter exercises with yogic deep breathing, stretching and a bit of meditation with the ultimate goal of good health, joy and peace through world laughter.

Woods starts her sessions with hearty laughter. “You count to three, throw your arms up to the ceiling and laugh.” She says that it’s a great icebreaker as no one is looking at each other, so it helps with any initial awkwardness.

Participants will say their names and laugh, say something about themselves and laugh. This is so that the pressure is taken off.

“When I say my name and laugh, I just can’t take myself too seriously,” Woods says.

“And when we get stressed, we do take ourselves too seriously. We think we’re the centre of the universe. So that’s another great activity that reminds us, hey, I’m not that important in the grand scheme of things.”

Woods says that laughter yoga is a great reminder that, when it comes to school, we need to manage our stress.

“Stress impedes our ability to think clearly or to be creative and when you’ve got to study or write a paper you need to be able to manage the stress. To put it to the side so you can get your work done and get it done effectively. And when we’re stressed, it’s very hard to do that.”

At Ryerson, RyeAccess was responsible for bringing the Laughter Yoga class to Oakham House.

RyeAccess co-ordinator Elissa Uhlmann says that since most of their events this year were educational, they wanted to offer an exercise-based activity that was accessible for everyone.

“It’s March madness right now and everyone could use the stress release.”

This was the first time Laughter Yoga classes were held at Ryerson, Uhlmann says.

Currently, there are more than 6,000 social Laughter Clubs in about 60 countries.

For more information on Laughter Yoga, visit laughteryoga.org.