Laughter Playshops - empowerment through play and passion.
Podcast recorded by Alternatives, London (click on the link and go to their site, scroll down the list, it's about 11th down)
On this page, as you scroll down:
1 = Bristol Laughter Club
2 = 'Spice up your laugh life', Cortijo Romero, Spain
3 = 'Kindness and Laughter' with Dr David Hamilton
4 =
Chalice Well laughter retreat
5 = Laughter Yoga
6 = The Laugh-a-thon
1 . Bristol Laughter Club.
Do you fancy a laughter workout? To learn more about Positive Psychology? To have a good vigorous stressbusting session? Visit the Bristol Laughter Club site and book yourself a place on the next one.
'I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed last night! It had been a while since I'd been able to get there and I really had missed it!' Adele
2. 'Spice Up your Laugh Life' at Cortijo Romero, Spain
The healing power of laughter, with methods from Asia, Polynesia and the West
Spice Up Your Laugh Life!
From Saturday Aug 28, 2010 to Saturday Sep 04, 2010
Cost: £570.00
Book through www.cortijo-romero.co.uk
Re-connect with your joy and lightness. Throw off the over-seriousness and celebrate the joyful you. In a relaxing, supportive and 'light' environment, spend a week boosting all the positives in your life, finding your passion and purpose, and then use them to be more of the "YOU" you’d really like to be, and know you are. Oh yes - and laugh, laugh more, laugh lots!
3. 'Kindness and Laughter' with Dr David Hamilton, 3rd December, the Pierian Centre, Bristol BS2 8SA, cost £75.
4. Chalice Well laughter retreat 25-27 March 2011.
Do you want:
- to boost your zest for life, feel more confident, more ‘you’?
to discard old ‘baggage’ and create the best future for yourself you can?
to laugh more and explore mind/body/spirit connections with healing power of laughter?
If any of these questions resonate, this course is for you.
5. What is laughter yoga? The 5 key points as desctibed by Dr Kataria:
- Laughter Yoga is a unique exercise routine developed by the Indian physician Dr Madan Kataria. According to this concept anyone can laugh for no reason, without relying on humour, jokes or comedy.
- Laughter is simulated as an exercise, within a group, with eye contact and childlike playfulness. It soon turns into real, genuine laughter if you are willing to participate.
- It is called LAUGHTER YOGA because it combines laughter exercises with yogic breathing which brings more oxygen to the body and makes one feel more energetic and healthy.
- The concept of laughter yoga is based on a scientific fact that the body cannot differentiate between fake and real laughter. One gets the same physical and physiological benefits and you soon find that the fake laughter becomes genuine.
- The first laughter club was held in a park in Mumbai in March 1995 with only 5 participants but now there are over 6000 laughter clubs in 60 countries - just showing that there is a need for laughter all over the world.
I trained in Laughter Yoga with Dr Kataria in 2002 and 2003, and Laughter yoga is one aspect of the Laughter Facilitation Training which I set up in the UK in 2006.
Laughter yoga is also at the heart of the monthly Bristol laughter workouts (www.bristollaughterclub.com). These workouts are the UK’s longest running uninterrupted monthly laughter sessions, having started in 2003.
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6. What was the Laugh-a-thon?
Laughter was all the rage this spring. First there was the 1st National Sponsored Laugh-a-thon in London, then there was the Cheltenham Science Festival.
At the Laugh-a-thon, hosted by Mind Body Spirit Festivals, 50 people gathered to practice their ‘sustained chuckle’, and we were delighted to be joined by Matthew Jay Lewis from Hollyoaks. He and his mum came and were enthusiastic players. We started with a lighthearted yet vigorous laughter workout where we used Laughter Yoga techniques with others devised in the Bristol Laughter Club and the Laughter Network. We became progressively less British - you know, cut off, unexpressive, stiff upper lip, and more, well, European - expressive, spontaneous, even verging on the flamboyant. Fortunately everyone was able to retreat to their Britishness every so often so they could regroup and remind themselves of their roots! We stimulated our laughter reflex, remembered what it felt like, practiced it lots, and finally settled down to two good long sustained chuckles which lasted almost an hour.
This event was also a fundraiser, and we raised almost £3000 for the British Heart Foundation, were filmed by BBC London news and were broadcast to a few million viewers that evening. Not bad for a first!
This momentum carried over to the Cheltenham Science Festival where the theme had been picked up by Professor Kathy Sykes who wanted it on her ‘stress’ panel. The audience here numbered well over 100, listened closely to Angela Patmore’s effective debunking of the stress industry, including her dramatic flourish when she unrolled this list of 300+ conflicting definitions of stress!
From then we moved on to the Positive Psychology aspect of laughter and the Norman Cousins healing power of laughter story, and the audience decided they were up for a go. They had taken onboard that first, it was good for them; second, that they enjoyed it!; and third, they probably didn't do it enough. So almost, not entirely Kathy assured me with a chuckle, the audience took part in a classic Ted Heath chuckle, shoulders bouncing up and down vigorously, and because they were so game, we decided to ramp it up a bit.
So, here was this 100+ audience, average age 65+, sitting with their shoulders bobbing up and down chortling away, and then they turned and shared this chuckle with people either side. Oh! lala! This was the heart of merrie ing-ur-land, and yet they loved it. So did Kathy who won plaudits for this panel and apparently it was referred to glowingly all week.
Do you want a laugh-a-thon? Raise your profile? Do some fund-raising? Ring me on 07812 159943, or
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