Laughter is music to ears
LAUGHTER is the best medicine for all kinds of sicknesses, including worries and pains. So let me help you discover some of the things that laughter can do for you.
Being a habitual early morning walker in the neighbourhood park, I found many people standing together in a corner and laughing boisterously without any rhyme or reason. Initially, it came to me as a great surprise, for I found no reason for them to laugh at all.
But as the mystery was soon unfolded, I was given to understand that all of them were active members of a laughter club who laughed daily as a ritual to provide their lungs with the much required free flow of oxygen.
Laughter is a powerful antidote to stress, pain and conflict. Nothing works faster or more dependably to bring your mind and body back into balance than a good laugh.
The sound of a roaring laughter is far more contagious than any cough or sneeze. When laughter is shared, it binds people together and increases happiness and intimacy. Laughter also triggers a healthy physical changes in the body.
Humour and laughter strengthens your immune system, boost your energy, diminishes pain, and protects you from the damaging effects of stress.
Best of all, this priceless medicine is free and easy to use. When people laugh together, it brings them closer and improves their relationship. It also helps them to enhance their communication.
With so much power to heal and renew, the ability to laugh easily and frequently is a tremendous resource for surmounting problems, enhancing your relationships, and supporting both physical and emotional health.
Hearty laughter increases your respiratory activity, oxygen exchange, muscular activity, blood pressure and heart rate.
Laughter is a drug-free tranquilizer that has no unpleasant side effects. A cheerful attitude towards life gives one the strength to face adversity boldly and courageously. Everyone likes a cheerful person.
He is like the bright sunshine for others. Laughter is music to people’s ears and it fills us with light and drains our hidden pain. The ability to laugh is a durable gift that never loses value.Here’s what Audrey Hepburn, the British film actress has to say about laughter: “I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it’s the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills.
It’s probably the most important thing in a person.” Charlie Chaplin, the famous comedian said, “Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease for pain”.
The very first Laughter Day was celebrated in the year, 1998 on May 10 in Mumbai and the man behind this revolutionary idea was Dr Madan Kataria, founder of the World Laughter Yoga Movement in 1995.
While forming the Laughter Yoga Movement, Dr Kataria worked on the facial feedback hypothesis, according to which, one’s facial expressions have a deep impact and effect on one’s emotions and feelings.
He carried forward the same ideology while initiating the Laughter Day. Since then, Laughter Day has made its way into the heart of the rest of the world. The very first Laughter Day celebrated outside India, was in the year, 2000 and was called the ‘HAPPY-DEMIC’.
Celebrating World Laughter Day is as easy as smiling with hundreds of people gathering in a public place and laughing their hearts out for the sheer joy of it.
It is said that the shortest distance between two points is a smile but in this case, the curve of a smile has now joined more than 108 countries in this celebration of laughter through more than seven thousand Laughter Clubs.
What began as a Laughter Club, has now brought the world together for a non-racial and non-profit cause with only happiness behind it. Dr Madan Kataria once said, “When you laugh, you change, and when you change, the whole world changes around you.
” Here are some of the health benefits of laughing: Relaxes the whole body: Laughter relieves physical tension and stress, leaving your muscles relaxed for up to 45 minutes after.
Boosts the immune system: Laughter decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, thus improving your resistance to disease.
Protects the heart: Laughter improves the function of blood vessels and increases the blood flow, which can help protect you against a heart attack and other cardiovascular problems.
Burns calories: Laughing for about 10 minutes a day, can burn about 40 calories, which could be enough to lose about 10 to 12 kg of your weight over the course of a year.
May even help you to live longer: Studies have shown that people with a strong sense of humour outlived those who don’t laugh as much. So laugh whenever you can. It is the best and the cheapest medicine which no doctor can ever give you.
—The writer is contributing columnist, based in Mumbai, India
