Basically Laughter Yoga gives people the opportunity to bring out the ‘child’ in themselves and embrace a sense of fun.
Sessions consist of:
- chanting ‘ho ho, ha ha, he he’ (to warm up facial muscles) combined with hand claps, which touches the acupressure points to energise.
- handclaps again with chants of ‘very good, very good … Yay’, which is full of enthusiasm and positivity. (Both formats of handclaps act as ‘transitions’ between the laughter exercises.
- Playing out exercises from every day activities like a greeting hand shake—with laughter
- Deep Pranayama Yogic breathing exercises to clear the lungs and fill with fresh oxygen.
- Grounding relaxation at the end of the session.
Participants need to be:
- willing to have a go
- happy to have eye contact with others
- prepared to pretend to laugh to start with so that it soon becomes real and contagious laughter