Maybe you’ve heard of it, or maybe you haven’t, but you definitely should. Laughter yoga!
Even though many think it is a new form of meditation, but it was actually made popular by Indian physician Madan Kataria, in the mid-1990s. In 1995 Kataria created his first Laughter Yoga Club in Mumbai, at a local park, with no more than five people participating.
The laughter yoga theory caught world attention rapidly, and expanded to more than 8,000 Laughter Clubs in over 100 countries in 2011.
The method is actually very simple if you understand it. Many find it hard to laugh spontaneously, and that is due to a filter in our brain which decides what’s worth a laugh and what isn’t. However, there is a way around the filter to self-induce spontaneous laughter.
With a few and simple exercises you can trick your body into a laughter-mania. There are many ways to self-induce laughter. The Giggling Guru says the best way is to apply the Winter Car Laughter, mimicking the sound of a car that chokes upon starting. The trick is really simple, if you pretend to laugh, soon enough you’ll body will start laughing for real, and it is contagious both to yourself and others.
There hasn’t been many scientific studies to the actual medical side of Laughter Yoga, but the small-scale researches have shown some correlation between laughter yoga and some medical well being.
Today you can find laughter yoga clubs and sessions all over the world, and as modern and up to date on lifestyle and wellness, Doha is no different.
