Article About Leigh from the "Bodies in Motion" Series, c-ville weekly magazine

This is an article written by Cathy Harding, editor of c-ville weekly, about her Laughter Yoga experience with Leigh Meredith, Certified Laughter Yoga Teacher.

Laughing robustly to oneself for no apparent reason: It’s a sign of madness, yes? Not if you’re Leigh Meredith. For her, it’s a sign of a life pointed in the right direction.

Meredith teaches Laughter Yoga, a highly physical practice that is almost zero percent yoga in the traditional sense and 100 percent laughter in the nontraditional sense. Meredith guides people towards their internal wellspring of joy and acceptance by getting them to laugh for no reason whatsoever.

“We’re very used to living in our logical minds and they say, ‘Something is funny and therefore I laugh.’ Laughter Yoga says, ‘I laugh and therefore something is funny.’”

In her classes, Meredith builds through a series of laughing exercises (chucking, laughing without sound, laughing melodically, laughing in character—a party hostess, or a hale businessman) to a five-minute crescendo of uninterrupted—and contagious—laughing. You lie back, gaze at the ceiling and pump that diaphragm to keep the sound coming until your stomach muscles ache and your lungs are refreshed and you can’t quite remember what had you so stressed an hour ago when you walked in.

Still, let’s face it, the rational mind, as Meredith terms it, might scoff at such foolery, harrumph at such hearty letting-go. In that case, Meredith herself is an inspiration. With her corkscrew curls and sparkly eyes and that wide-open, at-the-ready smile, Meredith is…twinkly. Lighted from within. Joyful. Easy to laugh with.
It was not always so.

Meredith struggled for years with depression and anxiety, she says. But a course in Laughter Yoga at Yogaville motivated her to dedicate time every day to laughing—and she’s seen big changes in her life ever since. “The more I practice, the less depressed I am, the less stressed,” she says. “I laugh so much more and have noticed…it’s so much less problematic for me to be kind and more loving and less judgmental of myself and others.

“We teach,” she says of her new calling, “what we need to learn.”

She says there’s real science to back up these observable changes, too. Laughing releases feel-good endorphins, promotes greater absorption of oxygen, increases mood-lifting seratonin, and more. Indeed, it was reintroduced as a therapy in the past couple of decades by an Indian physician. And it’s said there are more than 5,000 Laughter Yoga clubs that meet around the world.

Locally, Meredith teaches workshops at Studio 206 and has plans to take her courses into the regional jail and city parks, where she hopes to connect with homeless people.

And along the way, she’s chuckling and smiling and guffawing and tittering to herself as much as you can. “The more you laugh, the more you laugh. The more you laugh,” she says, “the more you love.”—Cathy Harding