April 4, 2007

Getting into the chuckle position

By Lindsey Craig
lcraig27@uwo.ca

When 80-year-old Florence McParland looked down at her lottery ticket, a smile broke out across her face. She threw her arms up over her head and began to laugh hysterically.

"Woo-hoo!" she cheered.

Waving her ticket, she turned to the woman across the room who was laughing just as hard.

"I won!" McParland cried, placing her hands on her hips as she bent over with joy.

The woman skipped over to McParland and squealed that she, too, had won. The two leaned on each other like playful schoolgirls, holding their stomachs tightly and giggling with glee.

Six others in the studio with them lit up the room with laughter. They had each become millionaires - and life was just grand.

What didn't matter was that none of it was real. The tickets were imagined and so were their winnings. What seems genuine, however, was how happy they felt pretending it was true.

Welcome to laughter yoga. A world where anything joyous is possible. A world where everyone can try to feel the delight of winning the lottery, even if they haven't.

Sound strange? Some think it is. But for those in a local London class, it's a cheerful way to colour their world.

"Most people don't realize they need more laughter in their life," said Donna Costa, 48, a laughter yoga instructor in London. "(Laughter yoga) brings out a sense of playfulness and fun, and it gives the chance to celebrate that."

Photo by Lindsey Craig

Laughter yoga instructor Donna Costa is a nutritional consultant and graduate of the Toronto School of Homeopathic Medicine.

The participants in Costa's class are men and women from the London area, and though most are middle-aged and older, children have been known to join. What they all have in common is their most basic motivation - they come to laugh.

There are 5,000 laughter yoga clubs worldwide and 33 such clubs in Canada. Costa began London's group in the summer of 2006 and said classes involve anywhere from 10 to 20 participants. Sessions are free and held at the Third Millennium Oasis, a London wellness centre.

In a few weeks, however, the centre is shutting down, leaving Costa and her crew without a giggling ground. They hope to find a community centre, school gym or church facility where they can practise.

"We're hoping someone will be able to help us," Costa said.

No matter the location, the group is determined to keep smiling- and its members have got plenty of reasons to do so.

For example, at a recent session, Catherine Heighway, 50, a London yoga and laughter yoga instructor who visited Costa's class, had the group pretend their mouths were burning from hot soup. McParland and her classmates began prancing around the room, waving their hands over their mouths, laughing at each other doing the same.

Then Heighway announced that they'd finally paid off their Visa bills. Group members sprang into the air, laughter tumbling from their core as they watched each other rip the imaginary pieces of paper to shreds.

While the exercises may seem odd to those observing, Costa said it's important to generate the feeling that might be had if such situations actually happened.

"(With these exercises) we get to put that emotion into our bodies. Emotion isn't what you think, it's what you feel and this gives us that feeling," she said.

Participants know that such child-like play isn't always funny. While doing the exercises, they force themselves to chortle, snort, giggle and roar. The idea is that once the laughter starts, even if it's fake, it won't be for long.

"You see everyone else doing it and the laughter becomes real," said Costa. "And even with fake laughter…your body produces the same chemicals."

The reason for using this method instead of telling jokes lies in the origins of the first laughter yoga club. Madan Kataria created the concept in India in 1996, when he formed a group which met to tell jokes and laugh together. When jokes became offensive to some group members, Kataria changed the premise to "fake it until you make it." Instead of telling jokes, participants pretend to be in situations that are so ridiculous, they can laugh at themselves while doing it.

At the mention of yoga, a scene of adults pretending to laugh at fake Visa bills isn't likely imagined. For most people, the term "yoga" usually conjures the image of a group of people sitting on small mats, arms and legs oddly twisted, breathing slowly together.

That's the most basic form, called hatha, and there's a whole list of others, including the more rigorous "power" yoga and even "hot" yoga, in which participants contort their bodies in oven-like conditions.

Many people use the various types of yoga to de-stress or improve balance, stability, muscle strength and more.

Laughter yoga, though, doesn't involve specific positions or even a yoga mat. Heighway said that like other forms, laughter yoga emphasizes breathing, self-awareness and "helps you connect to your sense of joy."

The main difference, of course, is that participants laugh.

For example, with the "aloha laugh," participants inhale as they say "alo" and raise an arm above their heads. When they hit the second syllable, the laughter comes out.

Photo by Lindsey Craig

Participants in a recent laughter yoga class get a chuckle on their imaginary toboggan.

"You lower your arm and at the same time you're saying, 'Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha," Costa explained.

Laughter itself helps in core strengthening, says Costa, since laughter uses abdominal muscles. She also points to certain studies indicating that laughter improves respiratory and cardiovascular systems, along with greater lung capacity and improved blood circulation. Stress-relief and relaxation are other affects.

However, University of Western Ontario psychology professor Rod Martin, who specializes in humour and health (physical and psychological), and is author of The Psychology of Humor, is cautious about such claims.

Having examined laughter studies, he said that with regard to assertions like improved blood circulation, "All claims about laughter and humour and not supported in the research."

"A lot of the studies have a poor methodology, they don't use control groups and the results are inconclusive. Under normal scientific standards of research, the studies don't stand up to it," he said.

Laughing may well activate abdominal muscles, he agreed, but it might be more effective to "just do sit-ups."

However, he does agree that laughter makes people feel better.

"I'm not saying laughter is not good," he said. "Humour is a key aspect of mental health."

Martin said laughter is a positive emotional expression that produces endorphins, which helps to counteract negative emotion, depression and anxiety.

Martin has met with Kataria and urged him to conduct other studies.

No matter the scientific debate, however, what's important to those in Costa's class is that laughter yoga makes them smile, which is something McParland has not done a lot of.

Fifteen years ago, at 65, she experienced "a time of great sadness." Her marriage of 40 years ended and she was left without a home.

After many tears, she dried her eyes and decided to make a change. She bought herself a clown suit and on Halloween, showed up on her daughter's doorstep.

"When she answered the door, I looked up and said 'Twick or Tweat'," McParland said.

It was in this spirit that a few months ago, she decided to try Costa's class. Admitting that she initially felt "a little strange," she loved it - and felt even better the next day.

"The morning after my first class, that's when the magic of laughter happened. I was in bed and opened my eyes, and remembered where I'd been last night, and I laughed and laughed and laughed. I hadn't laughed like that since I was 10 years old," she said.

Photo by Lindsey Craig

Florence McParland holds a picture taken just a few years ago during a trip she made on the back of a friend's motorcycle.

June Oost, 66, is a classmate of McParland's. Having recently been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, Oost said that at laughter yoga, she can put her worries aside.

"There's just so much happiness. It's wonderful to experience laughter with so many like-minded people. For me, it's just another aspect of good health," she said.

Joel Persaud, who's in his sixties, said laughter yoga has helped to fill a void. Last summer, his wife died of cancer.

"For that short period, there was a lot of stress. Laughter yoga showed me that there is life after," he said. "My friends could see the change in me, the happiness."

McParland said the joy she feels doesn't end when a session comes to a close.

"With laughter yoga, I look at the world in a more tender way. And it's given me more energy, I feel zippier."

With her 81st birthday around the corner, McParland also does tai chi, goes out dancing, and just recently, bought her first pair of snow shoes.

"I don't want to waste the rest of my life, I want to live it," she said, adding that she might wear her clown suit to the next laughter yoga session.

"Wouldn't that be great?" she said - naturally, with a laugh.