Laughter Yoga - by Maria Rainier

Since discovering Moymoypalaboy (see October and November 2010 posts) I have been playing and replaying their videos almost every day for a dose of laughter. Not only do I laugh, but I am delighted, rejuvenated and encouraged. We know laughter has this effect on us, so why don’t we do it more? Maria Rainier tells us more about the effects of laughter and how one doctor has made it into a Yoga form. Here is her guest post for Healing Philosophy.

A child laughs 400 times a day; an adult laughs 15 times a day.  What gives?

This is the entire premise of laughter yoga—restoring laughter to those who have forgotten or lost reason to laugh.  

Dr. Kataria and Hasyayoga 

Medical physician Dr. Madan Kataria began his research into laughter after reading the findings of Norman Cousins, an American journalist who purportedly cured his degenerative heart disease with massive doses of Vitamin C and by training himself to laugh.  Inspired, Kataria began encouraging his family members and friends to laugh by telling jokes, but as the jokes ran out, Kataria resorted to psychosocial and playful techniques to arouse laughter.  He then discovered hasyayoga (laughter yoga), which he made popular in 1995 from Mumbai across the entire globe.  Today, 60 countries together boast over 6,000 Social Laughter Clubs.

What is Laughter Yoga?

Laughter yoga combines unconditional laughter (laughing for no reason: no jokes, no comedy, no innuendo, merely joy) with yogic breathing (pranayama).  Laughter yoga is exercised in a group of people who, with eye contact and childlike playfulness, turn little giggles into laughter from the belly.

What Are Its Benefits?

Other than it being fun, the benefits of laughter yoga are many.  Clinical research from University of Graz in Austria; Bangalore, India; and in the US indicate that laughing—even fake laughter, which the human body cannot differentiate from real laughter—lowers stress hormones like epinephrine and cortisol in blood.  Regular reminders to laugh also allow individuals to deal with stress more productively by putting stressful situations into perspective with the rest of one’s life: what’s a burned pancake in view of one’s overall health?

Who Benefits?

In fact, the benefits of laughter yoga have been recognized to the extent that many schools of Surat, Baroda, and Bangalore (India) have introduced it into their curriculum.  Schedules include ten minutes of hasyayoga in the morning assembly and five minutes of hasyayoga at both the beginning and end of each day in classrooms.  Students’ grades as well as theirs and teachers’ moods have improved; they work better together with more positive attitudes and improved communication, discipline, and attendance.  American college students at Ithaca College are quickly catching on to the trend.

If children and young adults can stand to gain from laughter yoga, so can businesspeople.  Humor is a common tool in the office to break tension and keep workers going through the day; laughter yoga is a reliable and effective method that allows even adults to laugh wholeheartedly for 15 to 20 minutes with short breaks of yogic breathing.  India, Denmark, and many business environments in the U.S. show benefits of reduced stress and improved productivity after only three weeks of laughter sessions.

Seniors, medically ill patients, and patients with physical and mental challenges also benefit from laughter yoga.  Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease make it difficult to comprehend humor, but with hasyayoga, no humor is needed to laugh, exercise, and feel pure joy.  Coping with pain and trauma becomes easier for cancer patients such as those who perform laughter yoga during chemotherapy sessions in the Swedish Cancer Hospital in Chicago.  Children with mental and physical handicaps enjoy improved motor and expressive skills and health.  

Laughter yoga has even been introduced to the prison system.  British actor John Cleese visited Mumbai Prison in 2001 and found that prisons—concentrated hotbeds of negative emotions and thoughts—of all places could use laughter yoga.  Reduced violence and improved moods and prisoner/staff relations have ensued in several prisons in India, Europe, and the U.S. with regular practice of laughter yoga.

Watch this clip from BBC’s Human Expressions, which explores the benefits of laughter yoga.

Bio: Maria Rainier is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at First in Education, where recently she's been researching online music degree programs and blogging about student life. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

How to become a Work of Art - Step One

In my last post The Art of Becoming Art, we discovered a great truth: that the practitioner of a ‘way’, or ‘Do’ in Japanese, transforms it into an art form, and then, the art form transforms the practitioner into a work of art.

Yes, yes, you say, that is all very well and good, a capital idea, very noble, but what the heck does it mean? How can I, who do not practice Judo or Karate-do, put this powerful insight into practice in my daily life, right now?

Well, it is funny you should ask that because I am about to tell you what I think it means and how I plan to put it into use right now.

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I intend to stop worrying about the future and the tasks at hand - the outcome. I intend to concentrate on ‘travelling well’ rather than ‘arriving’. ‘Travelling well’ to me means putting the most important things first: health and personal fulfillment, something that I am guilty of neglecting. (As I have told you elsewhere, the reason I know something about philosophy is because I need it!) Health and personal fulfillment will be my watchwords, and the rest will have to take a number.

Step One

We do not have to practice Judo etc. to have a ‘way’. Any task worth doing can be undertaken in a spirit of practicing a way, that is, we can do it by ‘concentrating on the flawless execution of the task’ rather than ‘watching or wishing for the desired outcome'. But we can also apply that attitude as a global philosophy: whenever we worry about the future, about what needs to be done, about what is lacking, we are concentrating on outcomes instead of concentrating on doing what lies to hand. If we spend a lot of time reliving the past, we are not concentrating on the task that lies to hand.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment. Buddha

If you are like me, you sometimes feel overwhelmed, oppressed even, by ‘things that need to be done’. My basement is half-painted. The snow has melted and the major garden projects are calling. The pergola is half-finished. My big re-filing project remains unbegun. A dozen tasks, big and small, vie for my free time. And guess what? I have decided to stop worrying about them. To quote John-Roger and Peter McWilliams, authors of the ‘Life 101’ books:

Whenever he thought about it, he felt terrible. And so, at last, he came to a fateful decision. He decided not to think about it.

Meanwhile, the important things like health and personal fulfillment get put on the back-burner ‘until such and such a project gets finished’. The philosophy of living in the present, of travelling well, can be summed up by this quote from Goethe:

Things which matter most should never be at the mercy of things which matter least.

When we look back at our lives one day in old age (not that long from now) it is unlikely that we will wish we had spent more time working. It is unlikely that we will wish we had spent more time worrying about money, the kitchen renovations, the pergola. What we will wish we had spent more time doing is something that each person must answer for himself. Indeed it is a very important question. But no one can go far wrong if he puts health and personal fulfillment at the top of his list.
Yes, I will still do ‘the things that need to be done’. After I have been to the gym. When I get back from the Chinese painting course. Yes, finances and financial goals are important. But not as important as health and a good conscience.

This is the way I intend to apply the idea of the Japanese way to my everyday life. But if and when I become ‘transformed into a work of art’, how I will apply it then? Then, it probably won't even occur to me to think about it.

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If you enjoyed this post and think it might help others, please share, Digg or Stumble it with the SHARE button (mouse over for options). Thanks!

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Photo: Tao (Way) by Samantha Leo

Christmas feast, New Year fast

Another year lies before us like a blank page. What shall we write? More of the same or something new?
To write something new, we must first want it. We must want it so much that we are willing to change our sacred habits to get it. We have to reach that ‘tipping point’ where the dubious pleasures of staying in a certain bad habit are overcome by our desire for something else. We must imagine our new goal. Dream it. See it. Pray for it. Ask for it. Believe it. Think about it all the time. Only then will our subconscious get the message and make it appear. We will act in new ways as our subconscious prods us in the direction of our new blueprint.
Our subconscious will also make us notice new opportunities that were always there but to which we were previously blind. One of my goals for the coming year is to improve my health and vitality. With my recent sickness (bronchitis) I had emphatically reached the tipping point that had been building for a while. And whilst browsing a website called The Habit Code I came across Ways to eliminate bad habits and a comment about fasting being helpful in this regard. I already knew something about the ancient time-proven physical and spiritual benefits of fasting but had I not had it in my mind that I wanted to improve my health I probably would never have noticed the comment. Now my subconscious seized upon it, virtually waving it in my face and saying ‘This is what we need’.
So I am starting off the New Year with a fast. Ain’t I the life of the party?

I fast for greater physical and mental efficiency. Plato

Everyone has a doctor in him or her; we just have to help it in its work. The natural healing force within each of us is the greatest force in getting well. Our food should be our medicine. Our medicine should be our food. But to eat when you are sick, is to feed your sickness. Hippocrates

Fasting is the greatest remedy – the physician within! Paracelsus

To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals. The best of all medicines is rest and fasting. Benjamin Franklin

Fasting is the world's most ancient and natural healing mechanism.
Fasting triggers a truly wondrous cleansing process that reaches right down to each and every cell and tissue in the body. Within 24 hours of curtailing food intake, enzymes stop entering the stomach and travel instead into the intestines and into the bloodstream, where they circulate and gobble up all sorts of waste matter, including dead and damaged cells, unwelcome microbes, metabolic wastes, and pollutants.
All organs and glands get a much-needed and well-deserved rest, during which their tissues are purified and rejuvenated and their functions balanced and regulated. The entire alimentary canal is swept clean. By rebuilding immunity, health is naturally restored and disease disappears.If health and immunity are thereafter conscientiously maintained, the individual is no longer vulnerable to disease and dieting become unnecessary. Surely one of the most overlooked and yet most valuable modes of healing that will be rediscovered in the future of the new medicine is the fast. This is because of the increasing interest in looking to oneself for healing powers. For the fast is an inward process and cannot be entered upon only from an outer approach with any expectation of a lasting benefit. The person must invariably be involved with the overall results. This therapeutic encounter is in direct contrast to the usual non-involvement in the physician-directed, disease-oriented medical practice of today. Evart Loomis M.D.

First we make our habits, and then ...

In sickness, my thoughts turn to health, mortality, and the desirability of certain changes in my lifestyle. I have noticed, and sickness thrusts the issue in one’s face, that as I get older I am more set in my ways, even if those ways are bad for me. Even though I am convinced of a change I have to make, I find it harder to make the first step.
I must remember William James’ phrase:

Sow a thought, reap an action,
Sow an action, reap a habit,
Sow a habit, reap a destiny.

I know that the key to change is in creating new habits to replace the lifestyle habits we wish to change. I find inspiration in these quotes:

We first make our habits, and then our habits make us. John Dryden

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit. Aristotle

Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable. Francis Bacon

We are what we think, as the Buddha and many others agree. So we must make sure that we think well. We must think high, positive, great thoughts. We must banish low thoughts, doubt, fear and discouragement. This is where philosophy can help us. But we must not spend our time only thinking great thoughts, we must put our thoughts into action. We must build good habits of action. And then the power of habit will work for us and not against us.

Weak is he who allows his thoughts to control his actions.
Strong is he who makes his actions control his thoughts. Confucius

Then our habits will make us what we thought of in the first place. Let us take the first step ...

Never run out of bullets

What is this violent, military maxim doing on a blog about healing philosophy, you ask? Bear with me and I shall tell you. It begins with this quote from an article at the Motley Fool, 8 October 2008 (read full article here):

A gaggle of global central bankers joined forces this morning, simultaneously cutting interest rates in a worldwide showing of economic force not seen since 9/11… in what amounts to a desperate attempt to get financial markets to stop hemorrhaging. Switzerland, Canada, Sweden, the Bank of England, and the European Central Bank all followed suit. Japan would have loved to join the party, but it's been on the rate-cut bandwagon for years. With its rate already at a dismal 0.5%, Japan ran out of bullets a long time ago.

This made me laugh. Although the subject is very serious, I loved Morgan Housel’s colourful analogy. A sense of humour is a great asset and ‘weapon’ when we are going through a bad patch. And it got me thinking. Those Japanese central bankers are not the only ones caught without any bullets at a time when they need them. If you are like me and wish you had prudently laid aside some cash going into this crisis, like Warren Buffet, so you could do some fire-sale shopping, then you know how it feels to have no bullets.
The concept could be applied to many aspects of our lives. If you are burning the candle at both ends in your career, to the detriment of your health and vitality, you are like John Wayne blazing away willy nilly with two machine guns. You will be out of bullets before long. Better to find some cover, stay cool and make those bullets count.
When we are going through hard times in other ways, we may feel as though we have no bullets left. That is when we can turn to philosophy and lift our minds. In this very blog you will find bullets and magazines lying around everywhere. You will find books and people and links to whole ammunition dumps full of bullets of all kinds. You need never run out of bullets again. Not like those poor Japanese central bankers.

Photo by Fernando Weberich

The power of the subconscious mind

Our subconscious mind has far-reaching powers beyond our limited understanding. It can remember everything that has ever happened to us even when we can’t. Through its connection to the universal ‘affiliate program’, our subconscious can access universal knowledge and memory. Under hypnosis people can speak foreign languages, play the piano or ‘become Napoleon’. The subconscious never sleeps. It controls all our bodily functions from the heartbeat to assimilation and healing. If once the subconscious believes something to be true, it sets about manifesting that reality in our lives. As the saying goes, ‘Be careful what you desire, because you just might get it’. Ford said

If you believe you can do a thing or if you believe you can’t, you are right.

Doctors are, or should be, very careful about uttering a ‘condemning word’ to a patient. There are many examples of patients doing well until believing themselves to have a fatal disease at which point they ‘accept the condemnation’ and quickly decline into death.
If you find all this hard to believe, I recommend you read ‘The Power of Your Subconscious Mind’ by Dr. Joseph Murphy. This book, first published in 1963, looks somewhat plain and drab when you pick it up. When I gave my son a copy he hardly gave it a glance. There is nothing to suggest you have in your hands a book that contains unlimited power. But that is what it is.
Dr. Murphy, like a modern-day Lao Tzu, knocks on all our doors to make us come out and see the light. Relationships, career, money, health, confidence, every aspect of life is dealt with and the effects of the correct or incorrect use of the subconscious are convincingly expounded. The basis of the truth of the subconscious can be found in all the world’s wisdom. For example, in the Bible we find:

Whosever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Mark 11:29

We all know or know of people who have accomplished great things because they believed in themselves. There was never any doubt in their mind (conscious and subconscious) as to the eventual outcome, and their subconscious made it manifest.
In his book about surviving the Nazi death camps, ‘Man’s search for meaning’, Victor Frankl tells us those inmates who survived were without exception those who ‘had a reason for living’ and never entertained the possibility that they might not live.

I hope I have said enough for you to discover this book for yourself. I will leave you with an affirmation from Dr. Murphy’s book that has the power to heal. It has a great calming, regenerating effect and I often fall asleep reciting it. Try it for yourself:

The perfection of God is now being expressed through me. The idea of perfect health is now filling my subconscious mind. The image God has of me is a perfect image and my subconscious mind recreates my body in perfect accordance with the perfect image held in the mind of God.

The Overachiever's Prayer

The following prayer (given in part) comes from Carol Osborne’s book ‘How would Confucius ask for a raise?’ It contains the essence of a Taoist approach to success or more particularly, the correct attitude to adopt when faced with the frustration and disappointment that arises when, despite our overly-anxious, pushing, striving best efforts, we fail.
Read it and feel your boiling temperature immediately descend to a simmer. Rinse and repeat. I used this prayer often and it helped me a lot. In fact Carol’s book, a gift from a colleague, is one of the most useful books I know to help you understand the principles of Taoism and how you can apply them to your career and daily life.

The Overachievers Anonymous Prayer

Help me to give up pushing, demanding, and desiring specific rewards from my work.
I trust that however confused and convoluted it feels at the time, I am always being led to my greater purpose the fastest, most direct way possible.
If it seems long and difficult at times, it is because I am a beginner and there is so much more to learn…
When I am disappointed along the way, without anger, self-hatred, or judgment, I simply make whatever corrections I can. If I can’t find anything to correct, or if I have reached the point where to give more will sacrifice my overall vitality and well-being, I have the patience to wait.
I ask you to help me love myself, wherever I am in the process, trusting that given who I am, where I’ve come from, and the circumstances I face, I am always doing my best…

Notice that here again (my italics) we find the proviso of not letting competing priorities get in the way of health. Health comes first, before success, before career, before everything. We must remember there is no fortitude like patience.

Health quotations

Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship. Buddha

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor worry about the future, nor anticipate troubles, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly. Buddha

The groundwork of all happiness is health. Leigh Hunt

Health is the vital principle of bliss, and exercise, of health. James Thomson

Take care of your body with steadfast fidelity. The soul must see through these eyes alone, and if they are dim, the whole world is clouded. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The body is like a piano, and happiness is like music. It is needful to have the instrument in good order. Henry Ward Beecher

A feeble body weakens the mind. Jean Jacques Rousseau

Keeping your body healthy is an expression of gratitude to the whole cosmos - the trees, the clouds, everything. Thich Nhat Hanh

To get rich never risk your health. For it is the truth that health is the wealth of wealth. Richard Baker

The greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness. Arthur Schopenhauer

Health is worth more than learning. Thomas Jefferson

Money may buy the husk of things, but not the kernel. It brings you food but not appetite, medicine but not health, acquaintances but not friends, servants but not faithfulness, days of joy but not peace or happiness. Henrik Ibsen

Health and good estate of body are above all gold. Ecclesiasticus XXX, 15

Gold that buys health can never be ill-spent. Thomas Dekker

As I see it every day you do one of two things: build health or produce disease in yourself. Adelle Davis

Confidence and hope do more good than physic. Galen

Health is not a condition of matter, but of mind. Mary Baker Eddy

A quiet mind cureth all. Robert Burton

After these two, Dr. Diet and Dr. Quiet, Dr. Merriman is requisite to preserve health. James Howell

He who sings frightens away his ills. Cervantes

Nature, time and patience are three great physicians. H.G. Bohn

To insure good health: eat lightly, breathe deeply, live moderately, cultivate cheerfulness, and maintain an interest in life. William Londen

Good health! Whenever you go out of doors, draw the chin in, carry the crown of your head high, and fill the lungs to the utmost; drink in sunshine; greet your friends with a smile, and put soul into every handclasp. Do not fear being misunderstood and never waste a minute thinking about your enemies. Elbert Hubbard

The higher your energy level, the more efficient your body. The more efficient your body, the better you feel and the more you will use your talent to produce outstanding results. Anthony Robbins

Vitality shows not only in the ability to persist, but in the ability to start over. Unknown

The sovereign invigorator of the body is exercise, and of all the exercises walking is the best. Thomas Jefferson

He knows little of himself or of the world, who does not think it sufficient happiness to be free from sorrow: therefore, give a wise man health, and he will give himself every other thing. Charles Caleb Colton

A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses. Hippocrates

Health and intellect are the two blessings of life. Menander

Your prayer must be for a sound mind in a sound body. Juvenal

One of the most sublime experiences we can ever have to wake up feeling healthy after we have been sick. Rabbi Harold Kushner

A hospital is no place to be sick. Samuel Goldwyn

From the bitterness of disease man learns the sweetness of health. Catalan Proverb

He who has health, has hope. And he who has hope, has everything. Arabian proverb

Cheerfulness is the very flower of health. Japanese proverb

By the time a man is 40 he is either his own doctor or a fool. Chinese proverb

Sickness comes on horseback but departs on foot. Dutch Proverb

A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book. Irish Proverb

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. Mark Twain

In nothing do men approach so nearly to the Gods, as in giving health to men. Cicero

Health - the only true wealth

This week I heard that a colleague at work was seriously ill. So ill that, if he survived, his life would be forever changed. This made me reflect. I remember reading in a health magazine a quote from the director of the Mayo Clinic. He said something along the lines that one should set goals and priorities in the various areas of one’s life – family, finances, career etc. - but that ‘one should not let competing priorities get in the way of health’. Let’s repeat that:

One should not let competing priorities get in the way of health.

And then after reading it, I promptly forgot about it (almost) and put my name down to work all the extra hours God sends, in order to give more priority to my financial goals. I admit this in order to include myself in the ranks of the guilty and to underline that I do understand that it is very hard to give priority to health. Our hopes and our desires drive us all the time. We find it hard to admit that we really don’t earn enough to live the life the advertisers say we deserve… so we work harder. We work harder, to buy things we don’t really want, with money we don’t really have, to impress people we don’t really know.
Health - we so often take it for granted until it deserts us. But without it we cannot accomplish much in the other areas of our life. And we cannot fully appreciate them if we don’t have our health. And in the extreme case, we can no longer accomplish or appreciate anything at all.

When health is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot manifest, strength cannot fight, wealth becomes useless, and intelligence cannot be applied. Herophilus

I have been working quite a lot lately, but even quite a lot is less than what I worked last year. I actually take a couple of days off now and then. My body told me to. My body talks to me a lot more these days. I must only have the intelligence to listen.