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6 June 2011

Forced Laughter

Today I held a laughter session for the annual party of a lingerie company, of all places. At the time of booking I was thrilled to receive an invitation to present to a new client, certain it would be a fun crowd. For the past few days all I have wanted to do was cancel. How could I muster the strength and state of mind to run a laughter session when all I wanted was to hide from the public and cry? This was undoubtedly the LAST place I felt I could be.

My mind casts back to the first time I was introduced to Laughter Yoga at a World Health Promotion conference some five years ago. So entranced by this delightfully wacky practice, not long thereafter I trained as a laughter yoga leader. Still fresh in my mind was my first official laughter gig for local residents at a community health centre. I had been told to expect a crowd of around ten. Grey hair and wrinkles was all I saw as six septua-genarians trickled through the door. Burying my disappointment I began the session. Barely moments passed before bright eyes, youthfulness and a spark for life reclaimed the room. Boy had I underestimated this crowd and the power of laughter. As they say the rest is history. Until this moment in time I have delighted in facilitating laughter yoga sessions on the side of my academic life. Yet come this morning, I am feeling distinctly less than delighted. Too late to cancel, I made myself presentable, psyched myself up and garnered as much energy as my night of sleep deprivation allowed. I put on a face and not just the makeup kind! If there was a measure for stress, mine was stratospheric.

Thirty or so chatty and excitable ladies filled the room. Their energy was palpable whilst mine still had not entered the room. The hostess introduced me, saying, ‘We’re so happy to have Ros here today, especially as she is going through a bit of a tough time at the moment.’ I had previously forewarned the hostess I was in the midst of a mini health crisis, but had not imagined she would divulge this to the audience. Her words were the last thing I wanted to hear. Please tears stop welling up!

I took a deep breath in and focused on the task ahead. I explained how laughter yoga evolved decades ago in India, and more recently had taken the world by storm through laughter clubs, with Indian Doctor Madan Kataria2 and his wife Madhuri at the helm. As it doesn’t rely on humour to be effective it is a winning formula that can be used for people, such as yours truly, who really are not in the mood to laugh. Combining laughter exercises, deep breathing and clapping whilst chanting ‘ho, ho, ha ha ha,’ I went on to explain that laughter being used as medicine or therapy was not new – far from it. As far as back the 1500s one particular Court jester is believed to have kept Queen Elizabeth 1 in better health than her physicians. In more modern times clown doctors in over-sized shoes and bulbous red noses traipse down hospital corridors around the world bringing play, humour and laughter to patients, family and staff. There’s an array of humour based laughter therapy and non-humour based laughter therapy: the common denominator being laughter for health’s sake.

It’s not just the feel good nature of laughter; there is the hard-core science behind it. I then recounted some of the many health benefits including its ability to trigger endorphins (those happy hormones), to stimulating the immune and lymphatic systems, improving circulation, reducing pain and muscle tension and even lowering blood pressure.

I asked the group how many times a day on average they laughed; a question I’m sure they would never have thought about before, let alone been asked. I then had them guess how many times a day children laugh on average. Everyone was amazed to hear how often that was in comparison to adults. I invited their contributions and a lively discussion ensued. Unsurprisingly stress topped the list, with one lady bellowing, ‘children don’t have mortgages!’ I relayed my own theory: children laugh from the heart; they don’t think about it, they just do it.

I was saved from having to draw on precious grey matter having given this spiel countless times before and reverted to autopilot. I relayed how, in most societies, as we grow older, our laughter-self becomes conditioned, beginning as early as our junior school years when teachers scald us for laughing out of turn. No one likes to be told off. Just as no one likes to be laughed at. All too soon we learn the harsh distinction between laughing with someone and laughing at someone. Over time this intensifies, as we become increasingly conscious of how others perceive us when we laugh. How will we be viewed if we laugh seemingly inappropriately or excessively? The professional workplace is the biggest culprit. Our inner voice decrees, ‘I’m in a serious job now it can’t look like I’m having too much fun or people will assume I’m not doing my job well.’ Rather than just laughing for laughter’s sake as we did as children, we bring an intellectual or critical quality to our laughter, so for many, over time, the laughter-fountain dries up. We laugh on the inside, saying things like ‘that’s really funny’, and far too often abstain from laughing out loud.

I refrained from getting too bogged down in technicalities, battling far worse than brain-fog, but as a pedlar of hope, I wanted to recount some basics of neuroplasticity: the brain’s amazing ability to change and heal itself in response to mental experience.

Captive audience in hand, I delivered the exciting news that the brain is not as fixed and unchangeable as was once thought. As I write, I clearly recall the relief I first felt when exposed to these notions in Dr Norman Doidge’s book, The Brain That Changes Itself 3. His research discounted the misconception I had lived with my whole life: that all those collective bumps and knocks to my head had NOT resulted in permanent brain cell loss. We can grow new ones. We can rewire our brain to open new neural pathways with infinite potential. The more we do something in a particular way the more it becomes automatic, creating a new neural pathway or strengthening an already existing one.

Relaying this critical point, a few blank looks prompted me to illustrate by way of example. Given the crowd, what first came to mind was something to do with a bra, but as I couldn’t conceive of a different way of fastening the strap’s hooks, that example fumbled before it even began. Mindful of time marching, my next thought was to someone who always wore their watch on their left arm, but for whatever reason decides to start wearing it on their other arm. Then over a period of weeks the placement of their watch on their right arm becomes automatic. Far more exciting than a reorientation of a watch is our ability to rewire our brain to positive thinking.

I chimed it’s about being mindful and bringing a conscious level of awareness to smiling and laughter. The more we choose to smile and laugh, the better worn those neural pathways become, so the default response from perhaps a grimace or even the absence of response becomes laughter or a smile. Then I grinned out my elevator pitch as my face, like porcelain, felt like it would crack: smiling and laughing more often rewire the brain to a complete and constant state of calm, joy and awareness.

I posed one final question hoping to mop up any remnants of inner or outer critique. ‘Is a jog on a treadmill any different from a jog around the park, aside from the physical environment?’ If you laugh with the right intention—choosing to laugh—then there really is not much difference. When you laugh, you receive all the wonderful health benefits even if the initial stimulus is simulated. Moreover, the contagious nature of laughter is, on our side, manufacturing real or involuntary laughter—the type that leaves you gasping for air. The non-verbal track in my mind was, ‘If I can fake it ‘til I make it the way I feel today, then you most definitely can!’

They were rearing to go and for comfort’s sake I suggested we move into the garden. I was hoping the neighbours wouldn’t mind peals of laughter permeating the glorious mid-afternoon sunshine. As we proceeded outdoors I was still carrying some resistance for the actual laughter part of the session, with a hidden urge to run and hide, but the front door was in the opposite direction.

Thankfully, this group was no different to any other I had led, and in no time at all, splutters and guffaws of laughter could not be restrained. They were lapping it up, as was I. My ‘stressometer’ went right down. I couldn’t feel any stress at all. I was lost in laughter.

After the session I asked people to share how they felt: happier, lighter, brighter, less anxious or stressed, more or less tired, warmer or cooler. I was delighted to hear that they too felt happier lighter, brighter and less anxious and stressed. I was decidedly more enlivened. My circulation had rebooted as warm blood effortlessly flowed to my extremities. For the first time in weeks I felt an excitement for life, for really living.

I am so grateful to have been forced to laugh. I certainly wouldn’t have otherwise, well at least not in such an intense and concentrated fashion. Even now, several hours later, I’m weightless, freed of the lead weights that had ascended after my diagnosis. Powerful stuff!

I am wondering when I will lead my next laughter session and in what state I will be. My gut tells me it won’t be for a while; so long may today’s laughter-effect endure.

XXXX

During stressful times have you tried something to shift from your darkened mood? If so, what have you done?

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One of the quickest and most effective ways to achieve this is through laughter or with a smile. If this does not happen naturally, try thinking about something funny or someone who makes you feel good about yourself. A genuine heartfelt smile can change your whole physiology as endorphins (happy hormones) are released. Why not try one now?

2 Kataria, M. Laughter Yoga International http://laughteryoga.org, 1999

3 Doidge, N., The Brain That Changes Itself, James H. Silberman Books, 2007 (Scribe Australia 2008)