photo: UnitedMind
Uproute takes a look at laughing yoga and some of it’s practitioners.
What if there was a simple way to release tension and stress that doesn’t cost you a cent of your money and very little of your time Well, that’s what the practitioners of ‘Laughing Yoga’ claim.
Laughing Yoga is a form of Yoga that utilises the endorphin-releasing activity of laughter to help ease some of life’s hardest challenges.
Lotte Mikkelsen is a laughing yoga practitioner, trainer and expert. She regularly speaks at keynote conferences on the benefits of laughter for organisations and workplaces.
“Laughing yoga is simply the act of laughing without any need for stimulus like jokes or comedy, and the reason it works is that it activates the pleasure centres of the brain through the movement of the lips.”
Lotte started her laughing journey after she was diagnosed with MS and was struggling deeply with stress and grief.
Lotte’s sister was diagnosed with MS in 1990 and one year later she passed away. Her boyfriend’s brother also had a diagnosis and passed away two months after her sister.
“I didn’t ask for my MS, so I don’t frame it as ‘my MS’. I don’t want it to define me. I am just very grateful that it is not affecting me more than it is.”
Lotte was already engaging in laughing practices as a hobby, but her diagnosis made her invest more of her time in the world of laughter.
“I was laughing sporadically when I was running a laughter club or when I was booked for workshops in workplaces.
“When I had that diagnosis, I decided that I needed to change some things and I needed to laugh every single day. Laughter is a great stress buster and this is supported by a lot of studies.”
In a 1979 study at a Canadian university, Professor Rod Martin found that people with a strong sense of humour were less likely to become anxious or depressed. Multiple studies have concluded that laughing can also reduce your blood pressure.
There have been several other studies that have concluded that laughing practices like laughing yoga have positive effects. In 2023, a study presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress and endorsed by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) found that laughing therapy led to improvements in the heart and circulation.
For Lotte, laughing is a daily discipline that she takes very seriously. Since September 2008, she has been hosting a laughing telephone line where participants gather daily and laugh for ten minutes.
Lotte claims that this practice has helped change her life, but it isn’t always an easy undertaking.
“Just because you practice laughter yoga and so on doesn’t mean you will be happy all the time.
“You have days where you’re really not in the mood or you are really upset, but the thing is it’s so much easier to sort of snap out of it when you have a tool like laughing yoga.
“When you’re not in the mood, what you do know is that you can just go look in the mirror and do an exercise and very quickly it just shifts things around.
“That’s the effect we want really because life is not just a walk in the park, it’s lots of ups and downs.”
Lotte aslo advises workplaces to slowly incorporate laughing exercises into their breaks:
“My advice for organisations is give it a try and then let’s discuss how we can make a plan for maybe bringing laughter in two three days or maybe even more.
“The laughter is a great team bonding activity and doing it at the start of the work day could really be a good option. I would really advise them to have bigger plans for how to incorporate it into the workday or even at the end of the day so everyone can go home in a positive frame of mind.”
Earlier this year, Lotte’s organisation UnitedMind took her laughing practices to Halifax town. At Pladis’s Factory home of McVitie’s Hobnobs Flapjacks and Jamaica Ginger Cake, employees took part in 25 minute sessions which involved playful laughter activities, deep breathing, and useful everyday tips.
If you want to find out more about well-being techniques click on our Uproute toolkit here.
