An Indian Adventure — Laughter Lab

Laughter Yoga Trainer Training Bangalore

This time last year was a very different time for all of us. I was in Bangalore learning to be a laughter yoga leader trainer with Dr. Madan Kataria. I went to India keen to meet the man who had the vision to merge laughing for no reason with deep yogic breathing. The experience was going to change the course of my professional life.

As a physiotherapist, I was interested in the potential of laughter yoga in healthcare. I understood that it had many health benefits and was keen to explore its potential to prevent employee burnout.

In 1995 Dr. Kataria, a medical doctor from rural India, was exploring wellbeing and how to improve it. He started a daily group meeting together in a park in the early morning to tell jokes and feel the benefits of laughter. After a few days the five original members became bored with the jokes, even offended as they became more ribald in the hunt for new material. Dr. Kataria then came up with the idea of simply laughing for the fun of it; not depending on humour for laughter. He devised simple laughter exercises to generate pretend laughter which often grew into real hilarity. Encouraged and supported by his wife, a yoga teacher, he added deep breathing exercises which is the yoga part. The premise was that the body does not know the difference between laughter which is forced, when people pretend to laugh, and when people laugh spontaneously. The effects are the same whether laughter is pretend or real.

The training was an experience like no other. An assault to the senses. The moment we arrived we were drawn in by the sound of welcoming laughter and sight of people completing the two-day laughter leader training in the garden of the hotel. Colourful saris and beaming faces met us, full of enthusiasm and friendliness. Our group virtually took over the hotel. It was a family-run affair with a wonderful sense of care and concern.

Gathered in the hotel on the outskirts of Bangalore were 40 people from all over the world. There were two British people, a few other Europeans, a trio of Americans and around a dozen people from India. The other half, twenty people, had come from Japan. The course was conducted in English, with a Japanese translator. As we were all staying in the same hotel, we had meals together and became a comfortable, cohesive group.

Laughter yoga has been embraced in India. One of the course participants was a smartly dressed businessman in his fifties who had started a jewellery business and owned and ran a factory employing over one hundred people. He had noticed that the atmosphere in the factory was rather unhappy and had decided to do something about it. He had heard of laughter yoga and decided to learn about it and put a daily programme into practice which he led at his factory. It impressed me greatly that this serious, successful and rather punctilious man had embraced the concept of laughing together at work and made it happen. His sister and niece were also on the course, a truly family business and together they were building a workplace exuding positivity.

Their business had become much more successful and a much happier workplace since he had introduced the laughter yoga. He produced an impressive film documenting their story. The contagion effect of laughter was clear as was harnessing its power to build stronger more productive relationships and teams.

On the last night we were invited to perform in a musical extravaganza evening. We were treated to Bollywood laughter yoga, dancing, poems and songs. I had been captivated by Kazuya, an almost professional Japanese violinist, who had serenaded us during mealtimes. I took the opportunity of recruiting his help to shore up a rather stumbling performance on my flute. I am a keen adult learner and play quite a few of the right notes, as Eric Morecombe said “not necessarily in the right order”.

We performed a duet of the wonderful Irish song Danny Boy, with Kazuya carrying the melody. The only words we had in common were my two Japanese words “very” and “good” and his engaging and endearing smile.

We said fond goodbyes with promises to keep in touch. Every day for a whole year somebody in the group has hosted a short laughter session from Colorado to Mumbai, to Singapore, to Sydney. It has been a great adventure so far. Laughter lab was conceived last year and has all the components in place to grow and sustain and energise. An exciting place to be.

Anna