How the Second Brain Gets a Workout with Laughter Yoga

When we laugh for a while, our diaphragms create a powerful "inner jogging" workout for our guts, what scientists now call, The Second Brain. 

"Laughter is inner jogging.” - Norman Cousins

Have you ever laughed so hard, you're not laughing anymore? It's just one giant gut muscle contraction? 

These two women work together and were laughing so hard at the end of the Laughter Yoga Leader Training last August -- they couldn't actually laugh much: 

Not only does this "gut workout" give your organs a flood of fresh oxygen, a deep massage and a detoxing squeeze, it stimulates the release of serotonin. According to recent research, 95 percent of the body's serotonin is found in the bowels. 

Serotonin is often called, the "confidence molecule." 

From Pyschology Today: Serotonin plays so many different roles in our bodies that it is really tough to tag it. For the sake of practical application I call it “The Confidence Molecule.” Ultimately the link between higher serotonin and a lack of rejection sensitivity allows people to put themselves in situations that will bolster self-esteem, increase feelings of worthiness and create a sense of belonging. 

People who attend weekend laughter yoga leader trainings leave glowing with relaxation and confidence. I wish I had before and after pictures! This isn't because we're such great trainers. It's their own prolonged laughter that does this work for them. 

A deep breathing exercise ER nurses ask patients having panic attacks to do: Breathe deeply, expanding gut muscles down into the bowels, as if trying to push out poop (sorry for the gross factor). The patient is asked to fully engage the bowels and pelvic floor muscles. Why? This releases the serotonin in the bowels. The expansion and release of the diaphragm and gut muscles also trigger the vagus nerve, which then activates the parasympathetic nervous system, bringing calm and relaxation. Nurses find this kind of breathing is hugely effective to calm down the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) driving the panic.

There are ridiculous numbers of physiological reasons deep, prolonged laughter is so good for us. The release of serotonin and activating the parasympathetic nervous system are just two. The gut is getting much more attention these days, and we're learning how crucial good gut health is to every kind of health. 

Could Laughter Yoga be the new Prosac? When I laugh regularly in laughter yoga sessions, the process undeniably lifts depression and shifts my perspective to the "lighter side" of life. 

"Life is easier when you're laughing." - Dr. Madan Kataria, Founder of Laughter Yoga.

Read more about your "Backup Brain" here. 
Read more about The Neurochemicals of Happiness here. 

"The Challenge" Laughter Yoga Game

"In actuality, misery is a moment of suffering allowed to become everything. So, when feeling miserable, we must look wider than what hurts. When feeling a splinter, we must, while trying to remove it, remember there is a body that is not splinter, and a spirit that is not splinter, and a world that is not splinter.” ― Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have

There is a laughter game called the challenge. It's supposed to represent how we see and process challenges when they pop up in our lives.

We start the game by covering our face with our hands, so that it's dark and we can't see. Our hands represent, the challenge. We begin laughing underneath our hands, and with each round of laughter, we move our hands farther away from covering our face. The challenge soon becomes visible for what it is, we can see other things around us that aren't the challenge, and it's not so dark.

At the end of the game, when our hands are as far away from our face as they can get, I give people the option to let it go - our hands spread open and we release the challenge. Some people cry during this potent game. Many ask to do it several times in a row.

One takeaway from this game is to illustrate the effect laughing with our challenges has on our emotions and perspective. We're not laughing at our challenges, more with them and through them. This also isn't an abdication of responsibility to face and cope with challenges - to just laugh if off! Nor does this game encourage sadistic, angry laughter around our struggles.

As Mark Nepo writes about the splinter in his quote (above), this game reminds us that everything is not the challenge. The more we can laugh with our challenges, the more manageable they become emotionally. The less all-consuming they feel. Our perspective shifts. It's brighter in our worlds.

I created this game because it's exactly how laughter yoga has worked to relieve the inner pressure of trying to cope with challenges in my life. When I started practicing laughter yoga, my whole life felt like an unbearable challenge. Gradually, and with great ease, the more laughter I allowed in, the more manageable my life felt. Eventually, I felt safe enough to let what I was trying so desperately to control, go. Because my own laughter did all of this internal work for me - these shifts were subtle and effortless. My only effort was show up and laugh every week. I ditched my laborious self-help books.

Laughter was our first language, before words. Perhaps it's the language of the soul. It's ancient. I wonder if we would have survived the many challenges of being human without it?