LAUGHTER

[Guest guest]

What is Laughter?The serious business of laughter …or … can something this much fun really be this good for you?Few

people would deny that laughter is a good medicine, but not many people

realise what a powerful tool for transformation it is. Not only has

research on the physical health benefits astounded the medical

community, but also we are demonstrating the mental/emotional benefits

of laughter in both business innovation and teambuilding. Perhaps even

more surprisingly, we are seeing profound healing taking place through

laughter.It seems that laughter releases blocks in the

energetic field, freeing us to expand and become more of ourselves.

Laughter can also be used to change our experience of all sorts of very

real (and "serious") suffering. Once a person can laugh at their

situation, their experience becomes different. they become different.

Of course, helping someone to come to the point where they laugh at

their pain requires both skill and sensitivity.One reason why

it can be difficult to believe that laughter is so powerful is that

there are common misconceptions about laughter.'What's so funny?'A

common misconception is that we laugh because we think something's

funny. Research has estimated that only 1 in 5 laughing occasions

involves any humour. Babies laugh, yet don't have to watch comedy

first! In fact, toddlers laugh 300-400 times a day, whereas by the time

we're adults we've learned to laugh only around 15 times a day. Some

would say we become more discriminating about what we laugh about as we

grow up, but maybe we have forgotten how to use a truly natural and

very effective healing method.'What are you so happy about?'Another

misconception is that laughing is something we only do because we are

happy. In fact, it's the other way around - we become happier by

laughing. We laugh for lots of reasons: anger, frustration, fear,

nervousness, boredom. and joy of course. In Laughter Clubs and Laughter

Meditation we learn to laugh for no good reason at all - except that it

feels good and does our health a huge amount of good. * Laughter provides enjoyable exercise

* It's a bit like an internal organ massage and leaves our internal

organs invigorated and alert (Other ways are hiccupping, coughing,

sobbing and vomiting, so given a choice.) * It provides isometric abdominal exercise to tone tummies * Laughter helps us stay healthy and even helps us manage pain or illness

* Helps protects us from colds and viruses - increases the levels of

antibodies (Immunogloblin A) in the nose and respiratory passages * Increases levels of natural killer (NK) cells and antibodies to boost the immune system * Stimulates production of lymphocytes containing T-cells that deal with cancer cells * Helps us to manage pain * Reduces blood pressure and heart rate if practiced regularly * Engages every major system of the body * Laughter helps us to feel good and look good (although not always at the time!) * Is one of the best muscle relaxants * Oxygenates our blood, increasing our 'feel good' factor; * Reduces stress hormones epinephrine and cortical * Provides facial exercise and increases blood flow to the skin * Activates our tear glands to brighten up our eyes.It's

time to reclaim this natural method of healing. For instance, in the

1950s people laughed 18 minutes a day on average, whereas now the

average is 6 minutes per day.LOVE AND LAUGHTER TO ALLKAREN~KARMA