Have you ever heard of Laughter Yoga?  Until this past Tuesday, neither had I.  My school brought Marlene Chertok, founder of the St. Louis Laughter Club, to school to teach us about Laughter Yoga.  I didn’t know what to expect, but trust me when I tell you that we laughed throughout the entire session.  I’ve already begun to do Laughter Yoga with my students and itz been a big hit!

Marlene is a cancer survivor and the first one to bring Laughter Yoga to St. Louis.  She spoke about achieving the belly laughs that are most commonly heard among three and four year olds.  There are numerous benefits to laughter!

Healing benefits of laughter: (information found on Marlene’s pamphlet)

• Laughter is good medicine.  It’s free, has no unwelcome side effects and offers a host of real benefits.
• Laughter stimulates the release of endorphins and serotonin – natural painkillers and chemicals that generate a sense of well-being.
• Laughter Yoga can be a great workout by increasing heart rate and circulation.
• Laughter strengthens the immune system.
• Laughter is a great stress reliever!

Marlene had us warm up by patting our entire body to wake it up.  Then, she took us through a series of breathing exercise to help with the deep breaths that traditional yoga entails.

So what is Laughter Yoga?  As stated on Marlene’s website:

“Laughter yoga is a series of yogic exercises undertaken voluntarily, with the express purpose of inducing laughter.  The brain cannot distinguish self-induced laughter from the laughter arising from external stimuli.  What to some may seem like a silly and artificial beginning almost always leads into a natural euphoric state of hearty laughter… Sustained hearty laughter of 10 minutes or more can release endorphins, strengthen the immune system, reduce stress and tap positive emotion.”

What did we do?  Marlene taught us a variety of exercises.  They seemed incredibly silly, and they were!  But they helped us achieve endless amounts of laughter.  One of my favorites that I did with my students yesterday was to pretend you’re walking on hot sand.  You literally hop around saying, “Hot!” and “Ow!” and cracking up as the room full of adults does this!  Then, we added to it by walking on hot sand and eating hot soup.  Imagine grown people doing this.  It was hilarious.  The kids loved it, too.

Another funny one (well, they were all funny) was to introduce yourself, hug, and just crack up!  While it felt awkward, it was pretty funny and people really got into it!  Marlene suggested giving high fives for people uncomfortable with hugs.

The beauty of Laughter Yoga is that there is no right or wrong way to do it.  There is nothing you have to do… besides laugh!  And, as Marlene mentioned, itz the cheapest therapy you’ll ever get!  Some other exercises we did besides the hot sand and hugging, were greeting each other in different languages/cultures.

• Japanese: Konichiwa-ha-ha-ha!
• Hawaiian: Aloha-ha-ha-ha!
• Indian: Namaste-heh-heh-heh!

There were motions to go along with each, too.  For Hawaiian, you pretended to do a little Hawaiian dance.  It really was so fun.  I was showing some of my co-workers who were unable to attend the meeting a bit of what we did, and we were all cracking up!

More Laughter Yoga ideas: (Thanks to Cindy for recording these ideas!)

• Milk shake – pour side to side, make pouring sound – then guzzle down
• Drive car green light – drive engine noise –  Red light = STOP/laugh!
• Ice cubes down your back!  Dance and giggle
• Merry go round – cross wrists and hold hands – turn R, then L and laugh
• Jack in the box – squat down and crank the handle & hum pop goes the weasel – pop up laughing
• Actions to add to laughter:  shiver, turkey (holiday related) snowball fight or snowflakes, skiing, reindeer (antlers up) monkey, use your imagination!  Any weather, machine, animal….

So many possibilities!  It just keeps getting better and better.  Laughter Yoga is definitely something I’ll be incorporating into my classroom on a regular basis.  It can serve as a brain break for my students, help with transitions, build class community, and lighten the mood during the vigor of third grade coursework!

At the end of our session, I asked Marlene if we could get a picture together for the blog.  Obviously, we had to be showing some laughter yoga.  We did the merry-go-round by crossing hands, grabbing on, hopping around, and bursting with laughter!

Thanks, Marlene!  I highly recommend you all give Laughter Yoga a try!  Visit Marlene’s website for additional information and start laughing today!

Have you ever heard of or tried Laughter Yoga?