mchen@heraldsun.com; 419-6636
DURHAM -- "Very good, very good, yay!"
The participants of a Laughter Yoga training course held at Patanjali's Place chanted in between bouts of chuckles, guffaws, giggles and falling down laughter Sunday.
One moment, the participants were imagining that they were laughing together in an elevator. The next moment, they were pretending to hug and laugh with longtime friends. A while later, they were drinking from imaginary tea cups and wine glasses and doubling over in laughter.
There were scarcely any calm yoga poses of serenity at Patanjali's Place, a colorful and light-filled community yoga center in downtown. But at the end of each session, the participants said, they felt a surge of energy, joy and peace.
"I was amazed at the result," said Martha Dyer, an art therapist in Durham. "Everyone was laughing in five minutes. It was very uplifting."
Another participant, Hope Gregory, a teacher, said that after the first day she was there, she was so energized that she couldn't fall asleep. Gregory has a chronic pain disorder and said she gets worn out even when she laughs and hangs out with friends. After the laughter yoga course, however, she said she felt enlivened.
"I was feeding my dogs and playing with them. I had so much energy. It was joyful energy," she said.
The laughter yoga certification and leader training workshop, which cost $185 for all three days, was led by Luther and Susan Ludwig, massage therapists and laughter yoga instructors who drove in from Tennessee. Patanjali's also offers a regular laughter yoga class taught by Neil Prose, a physician.
The course involved exercises that were much like those used in acting and improv classes, designed to loosen up participants and bring out their childlike playfulness. Each day also ended with a period of deep relaxation akin to the more commonly practiced yoga.
Susan Ludwig said the laughter exercises release endorphins and reduce cortisol, the stress hormone, in individuals, and helps create a sense of community in a group of participants. And although the laughter may feel forced to participants in the beginning, it soon becomes contagious.
"[Laughter] is an underutilized build-in immune system booster," Ludwig said.
"People forget that even if we fake a smile or fake laughter, just the act releases endorphins," she said. "And then your body thinks, 'Oh, she's laughing. She must be happy.' "
Laughter Yoga was started by Madan Kataria, a physician from Mumbai, India, and combines laughter with yogic breathing.
Kataria began the first laughter yoga club in 1995 and at first relied on humor to bring forth the guffaws and chuckles. But when the jokes began degenerating into raunchy humor, turning off some of the participants, it dawned on Kataria that laughter does not have to rely on any specific kind of humor.
With eye contact and playfulness, Laughter Yoga's Web site proclaims, simulated laughter quickly turns into real and contagious laughter.
Some of the participants on Sunday who came from scientific and medical backgrounds said they found healthful benefits in the exercises. The bigger hurdle for using the exercises would be introducing them to institutions and proving that they work in education and medicine.
"As an adult, I feel like I don't laugh as much as I used to," said Christina Makarushka, a public health researcher for Social & Scientific Systems in Durham.
Raymond Barfield, an associate professor of pediatric oncology at Duke University Medical Center, said the kids he treats not only have to deal with pain in their cancer treatments but also boredom and fatigue. Barfield said the exercises could be useful in helping them recover.
Barfield said he would be curious about how to incorporate the exercises into a hospital setting and prove that they work.
"It's a little bit out of the box," he admitted. "In fact, it's way outside of my comfort zone."
For Rozzy Kachuek, an artist who wore a shirt on Sunday that had big, bold words saying, 'Laugh Out Loud,' the proof seemed to be in the laughter ringing through Patanjali's.
"We forget to laugh," she said. "There is a magic to it. There is something reinvigorating."
