Laughter Yoga is a recent evolution in the field of Laughter Therapy that turns laughter into a form of exercise. Its simplicity and effectiveness helped it become a worldwide phenomenon in less than a decade.
Its core idea is to “laugh for no reason” and its focus is on laughter and the expression of childlike playfulness. The method has elements of a structure, but those are not considered very important. The ability of the leader to laugh heartily is however essential because this is what keeps the group together.
It is best adapted for people who laugh easily and have a contagious laughter.
Laughter Yoga was initially created as a social experiment and is still primarily found today in social settings such as Laughter Clubs.
Here is what it looks like:
The Laughter Wellness method
The Laughter Wellness method is a Western adaptation of Laughter Yoga. It was created by Sebastien Gendry to best meet the needs of the people he worked with in Australia, Europe and North America.
Both modalities share the same foundation of simulated laughter exercises.
The Laughter Wellness method expands the Laughter Yoga approach by offering a clear process that is easy to follow, and adding a greater variety of movements, breathing and clapping exercises, empowering behaviors, games, dances, songs and more – all glued together with lots of laughter. This structured process enables anybody to successfully lead laughter sessions, regardless of the quality of their own laughter and the size of their group, as well as a greater variety of exercises. Read more.
Laughter Yoga has a known database of about 250 exercises. The Laughter Wellness method has a basic list of over 650 categorized exercises readily available in an electronic session planner, and over 400,000 different ways to practice them.
It is a powerful tool that simplifies the delivery of Laughter Yoga with difficult and uptight people. It is used by many professionals of different horizons in a variety of social, professional and corporate settings.
Here is a video of what it looks like:
Download a template Laughter Wellness session.
You can learn more at http://www.healinglaughter.org
