Press Room

Just The Facts

What is Laughter Yoga?
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Laughter Yoga is a fun and easy! form of exercise that is of tremendous value for all. Anybody can do it.

It combines simulated laughter with gentle breathing techniques that come from the world of yoga. And that's the link between laughter and yoga. There are no contortions, no fancy movements. If you can breathe, you can laugh. And it's so much more fun!

In Laughter Yoga you leave your mind at the door and you just let your body laugh. It's profound because when you’re done all that’s left is a feeling of unity and acceptance between your body and your mind that you can’t argue with.

When your body feels good, your mind has to feel good. It’s not even a choice. You can’t be afraid, angry, upset or depressed and feel good at the same time.

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How Does It Work?
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To understand Laughter Yoga you first need to redefine laughter as a form of exercise. You don’t have to be happy or even have a sense of humor to laugh. That’s all mind stuff. Your body doesn’t care.

And so in Laughter Yoga we just laugh, we smile, we breathe a lot. We make lots of eye contact. We behave empowered and we don't even try to be funny. In short: we help our inner child to come out of hiding and feel safe because nobody is judging. There is no ego in Laughter Yoga. There can’t be. Your mind would have to be in control for that.

It's easy, and before you know it you're laughing out loud and you don't even know why.

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What are the benefits of Laughter Yoga?
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Laughter Yoga is a tremendously powerful form of complementary medicine. Scientific research has shown in the past 30 years that laughter has both significant preventive and therapeutic benefits, and that's on all levels: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. Even the Bible tells us that laughter is good for you. In Proverbs 17:22 you read "a merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones." This is as cutting-edge as science has ever gotten so far.

It's all about oxygen. Dis-ease, both physical and mental, cannot thrive let alone survive in an oxygen rich environment, and that's what laughter gives you because it's the easiest way to empty your lungs to the maximum of your own abilities. The more you can empty your lungs, the more you can fill them.

When we laugh in Laughter Yoga we do so for up to 1 hour at a time not just a few seconds like you do with jokes. And it’s still fun, new and refreshing every day because there is no reason for it. It never gets stale or boring.

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Who is it for?
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Laughter Yoga is currently practiced on daily or weekly basis in over 60 countries by people from all walks of life and that's not a joke. It has great values and benefits for people who experience stress, fear, isolation, physical challenges and things like that. It is used a lot in retirement communities, schools, hospitals and now more and more in businesses because it makes a lot of business sense and is very easy to implement. Stress is far too expensive to be ignored. Sad people create terrible products.

* Corporate Applications Of Laughter Yoga
* Laughter & Addictions
* Laughter & Cancer
* Laughter & Education
* Laughter & God
* Laughter & Seniors

What's the story?
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Laughter Yoga was first developed in India in 1995 by a medical doctor who was looking for ways to release his own stress levels. He read that laughter could help and decided to experiment with it. He got some people together to form what he thought would be a "laughter club" and he had no ambition beyond that. At first they used jokes and it worked rather well for about 2 weeks. But then the good jokes ran out. Since they wanted to keep going because they had felt some genuine benefits they decided to experiment laughing without jokes, as a dare. It worked even better! So they kept going. The press heard of that unusual "laughter club" and gathering of adults every morning in a public park and wrote about it. Everything bushfired from there. Today there are laughter clubs in over 60 countries. They are independent. It's a social, grassroots movement growing on its own steam, and that's not a joke.

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What are Laughter Clubs? What do you do there?   
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Laughter Clubs are very loosely defined as the gathering of people who want to practice Laughter Yoga, that is laugh as a form of exercise.

All clubs are independent and don't report or pay anything to anybody. They have no structure or hierachy. Most of them are free and public.

You may ask yourself why? What's the catch? What do they sell?

Well, it may be hard to believe and laughter clubs genuinely don't sell anything.

The reward for those who lead them is much greater than money. How can you put a price on touching people's lives? On alliviating someone's pain? Most of the people I know who are involved with laughter clubs do so because they see it as their own gifts back to humanity. And that includes myself.

Today there are over 350 laughter clubs in America, and 6,000 worldwide.

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How did you get into this?   

What is the Telephone Laughter line?   

Give us a 30 seconds laughter routine. Ready. Go!   

XYZ laughs all the time and that kind of gets on my nerves. What do you say to that?   

"It was so fun interviewing you on the radio! You brightened my day with a new joy and passion for laughter. I have thought of you with each chuckle of the day. I even went and had a tickle laughter wrestling match with my 9 year old son. You are inspiring. Thank you again for sharing your time and talent with all of us." -- Kristen Lamb, CEO MyExpertSolution.com

Pictures You Can Use

Please email us at laugh@laughangeles.com if you want the high resolution copy of any of the following pictures.

    
Laughter Phone (#ly-lp1)                      Laughter Pump (#ly-lp2)

      
Credit Card Bill Laughter (#ly-cc1)         Argument Laughter (#ly-al1)

  
(# ly-lc1)              (#sg1)                 (#sg2)                      (#sg3)

Video You Can Use (broadcast quality)

Please email us at laugh@laughangeles.com if you need a broadcast quality video of Laughter Yoga people in action.