Laughter, long considered good medicine, is now being featured prominently in some forms of yoga. Laughter yoga incorporates traditional yoga with improv-style exercises that include–in the case of one class–telling an imaginary joke in gibberish and scurrying around the beach while flapping and squealing like a seagull. [ ap ]
“You can start from nothing, you can even start feeling unhappy and just laugh as a form of exercise, and happy feelings follow.”
JEFFREY BRIAR
[founder of the Laughter Yoga Institute]“The idea that putting a posture, as it were, on your face–a smile–is an idea that’s not foreign to yoga. But the whole concept seems pretty contrived and uncomfortable. I think it could work, but there are more tried and true versions out there.”
ROGER COLE
[certified yoga instructor and PhD in health psychology]“At the beginning, I was like, ‘Oh my God. What am I doing? This is very silly.’ But then you get connected to the inner child, and the things that we normally would get stressed about you can laugh at.”
MERCEDES CEDILLO
[after attending her first laughter yoga class]
