Reflections on Laughter in Lockdown
In January 2021 the UK went back into lockdown. Life was looking lonely for many, so Jane and I decided to run twice weekly 15-minute laughter in lockdown sessions. We had trained as laughter leaders together and had witnessed the contagious laughter and comraderie at an established laughter club and had also been taught about the value of eye contact in generating laughter. It wasn’t surprising, then, that we were somewhat sceptical about the idea of delivering something so personal via Zoom, but the pandemic made us feel we had to give it a go.
Laughter yoga was devised by a medical doctor as a complete health exercise, addressing physical and psychological health. The laughter exercises are a way of generating laughter without the need for humour or jokes, which usually produce laughter through amusement. This way of getting laughs relies on thinking about what has been said, understanding it and finding it funny. It requires brain work. In contrast, simply laughing for no reason, as we do in laughter yoga, bypasses the thinking brain and activates the doing brain. This switching off the conscious part of our brains gives laughter yoga what people have described as its mindful quality.
For our taster sessions we adapted our laughter yoga exercises for the small screen and Zoom provided the opportunity for people to join without using their camera at first until they became more comfortable with this unusual practice. We gave a brief introduction and set out the what and why of laughter yoga and then led our participants through our short simple and fun exercises. The exercises were two types, firstly laughter exercises encouraging laughter for no reason (other than for the fun of it), and second deep breathing exercises (the ‘yoga’ part of laughter yoga). The breathing gives the participant a chance to both recover from the laughter, which takes your breath away, as well as activating the parasympathetic nervous system, which introduces a sense of calm. The laughter uses more oxygen and aerates more of our lungs than we usually use, getting rid of the stale air creating a sense of energy. The deep breathing slows us down, giving us a complete break from the burden of lockdown.
As children we laugh a lot. Recently I was uplifted by the sound of children playing at break-time as the school close to our house re-opened after lockdown. Children laugh up to three hundred times a day whereas as adults we tend to stop laughing in our twenties. A Gallup poll of 1.4 million people in 166 countries found that adults tended to slow down laughing dramatically from the age of 23. Life seems to become serious in adulthood. Winifred, one of our laughter in lockdown participants told us she enjoyed “remembering how good it feels to laugh”.
During lockdown many of us have struggled to find reasons to laugh, yet laughter is an important coping strategy. Laughter doesn’t just boost our mood and make us feel better and brighter when we are doing it. There is an energising effect which is felt after the session. Ruth said the Monday session “sets me up for the day”.
Throughout the ten weeks of our lockdown laughter, people found that they were looking for more lightness and laughter in their lives. Rachel told us the lockdown laughter sessions “got me engaged in more laughter out of the session”
Laughter is an easy way to disconnect from everyday life. Liz told us “I am able to begin processing the pent-up emotion I have had for a while now with laughter as my safe space.”
It’s not possible to feel stress or anxiety when we are lost in laughter. As with any other physical exercise, the more effort you put into it, the more benefit you get from it and our participants really did get into it with may becoming regular attendees. Helen said, with a smile, “I’ve felt incredibly relaxed and energised after the sessions, and my mood has been boosted.”
Laughter takes you out of the grind of everyday life and presses the pause button. In lockdown this was invaluable to our participants. People have described it as a re-set, energising them for the day. Andy said; “The session gives me an immediate and notable lift in my mood, which then stays with me for several hours afterwards. The most significant change has been when I’ve been down or quite low. On a couple of occasions, the sessions have completely transformed my day.”
One of the most interesting findings over the ten weeks of lockdown laughter for me was the way the participants responded to the laughter yoga sessions in the same way as I had found in my study in 2019. The findings of this study were published earlier this year and can be found here.
People often started off sceptical of the idea of laughing for no reason. They relaxed into it and then became advocates for laughter yoga. I described this as a laughter yoga journey. They wanted other people to benefit from it as they themselves did and so they started spreading the word, encouraging work colleagues, friends and family to come along to our sessions.
It was heart-warming for us to see this development of generosity towards others and we are delighted that 240 people registered for our sessions.
Whilst we ease out of lockdown and we have taken a break from our sessions during Easter, It’s not all over. We will be running more blocks of free 15 minute laughter yoga sessions after the break. Please see our website www.laughter-lab.com or contact gladmin@laughter-lab.com for details. We look forward to seeing you there, because, as Sue tells us;
“I felt alive after just the first session. I was energised and I wanted to connect with others. I felt silly, happy and light hearted.”
Anna
Quotes in italics are from our free 15-minute laughter yoga sessions. Names have been changed to protect anonymity.