Helping Everyone Feel Safe during a Laughter Yoga Session

My last post was all about how laughter yoga goes against cultural conditioning and that's tough for participants, so that may be a factor in why they stop coming to meetings.

Great insight, Leigh. Now, what do we do about it? How do we allow folks who feel uncomfortable to feel more comfortable and safe? Turn it into a guided adventure of sorts?

Every every every group is different but in general, this has worked to help ease participant anxiety. Briefly explain laughter yoga in a nutshell as Dr. Kataria outlines, to honor him. Then, ever so briefly add a benefit it's brought to your life.

Ask people to stand up and begin some kind of pulsed breathing to illustrate how oxygen moves through the diaphragm. Get them somatically involved. They've listened to enough talk. I usually ask people to put their hands on the their diaphragm muscle and begin counting ha-s as a group. One HA. Two, HA HA, three, four, five and soon it gets to be just laughter. Repeat a few times.

Then, dive in to why laughter yoga goes against cultural norms. Air those fears out a little. Perhaps start with explaining how we laugh because something is funny, not the other way around. Ask the group for their ideas. Add to them if needed to validate. Then assure the group they are safe from all of that conditioning and what happens during laughter club stays at laughter club.

Explain a tiny bit about how the body rules the brain during laughter yoga and they'll feel less inhibited within about 10 minutes, so not to worry if they feel a bit odd now. Just do it. It'll be worth it.

I'd also have some kind of informational handout for them to take with them. I'm working on one now called, "How Laughter Yoga is Paleo Exercise". There is a popular one circulating the web - "10 Reasons to Laugh for No Reason". Also a fun thing - comic whatever - that they'll put at their desk or at home to remind them of their experience. Make sure your contact information is on it. :)

This is advice for brand new groups who may be more inhibited. As we lead laughter yoga, which is an art, we learn how to observe and adapt to the needs of each group. And we must also have fun, which everyone will look to imitate once the session begins. Every leader has their own style as well and you should go what you've got!

Anyone else have their own advice? Please add!

The "Two Laughter Yoga Sessions" Participant Syndrome

I've been asked frequently by laughter yoga leaders and devotees of the practice - why is it people come to one or two laughter yoga sessions, have a fabulous time, tell everyone how much they benefited from the laughter, then, we never see them again?

I have a theory, after almost 10 years of leading laughter yoga groups, and struggling to maintain a 6 year public laughter club. I tried every trick in the book to maintain attendance. It worked for about 5 years, then attendance declined and it just wasn't enough for me to keep it up. My theory is the underlying cause of fading attendance is laughter yoga is backwards compared to to everything we're used to doing. This is not meant to criticize us, be negative or grumpy -- just to hopefully lend some insight.

Let the list begin.

We laugh during events, not as a lifestyle. We have become increasingly isolated, so social interaction, while it feels great during and after a laughter yoga session, is no longer crucial to our existence. We don't laugh together as often. We laugh in little spurts.

Laughter yoga also delivers incredible benefits, immediately, on every level. Scientifically, whether we plan on that or not. So, a little goes a long way. Some people tell me their lives took a different direction after a weekend of laughter at a laughter yoga training. We're not used to getting that much out of something so child-like as adults.

Prolonged laughter is self-healing. We tend to seek external sources for our healing - doctors, counselors; we may take supplements and try different healing modalities - but to be able to heal ourselves on many levels with something so simple? Hmmm.

We laugh because something is funny, not the other way around. To laugh as exercise, as I've heard in many corporate sessions, is worthy of being carried off in white jackets and needing psychiatric help. Our co-workers may also walk by and see us playing together and having pure fun as adults. That might be seen as flat out bizarre.

Laughter yoga, until the endorphins kick in and inhibitions fall, brings us face to face with our self-consciousness. Self being the key word. We are boldly confronted with the strength of our selves.

So laughter yoga goes against almost everything we're used to doing. It's culturally flipped. No one wants to flip out. Maybe we can feel weird for one class, but being able to tolerate all of the culturally conditioned contradictions, no matter how healing and revolutionary the class, is too much to do too much. The stress from cultural dissonance may seem to overwhelm the benefits. It's completely understandable!

One huge concept I try to get across to leaders I train is to help people feel as safe as they possibly can during a laughter yoga session. I believe we want to let go and laugh together; it's what we did together in groups since we've been around on the planet. Research suggests laughing together far pre-dates language. Laughter was used to communicate safety, peace and affection. Not much has changed in that respect. Laughter yoga is just as much paleo exercise as Crossfit. Granted, it's gentler and more socially focused.

Some of us resonate with laughter yoga, receive significant benefits, and likely end up pursuing trainings and retreats. For you who champion laughter for no reason, please carry the torch for others. The more of us who are in a class, the less "on the spot" everyone feels. It's less weird when more people do it. That's also cultural conditioning that we can use to strengthen the spread of laughter yoga.

If that's you, please find someone who leads a good laughter yoga class or club and go. And go and go. For the sake of, no joke, humanity. When it comes to laughing together, we need to go backwards. Plus, your life may just take a whole new direction.