When was the last time you had a good laugh? You know, the kind where you laugh so hard you need to take a moment to catch your breath! April is National Humor Month and in my research on the benefits of laughter, I found them strikingly similar to the touted benefits of yoga (for example: soothing stress and tension, improves the immune system).
Sounds good to me, so let’s get laughing! The team at deliver me wellness loves to laugh and we’re excited to have an entire month to bring you a wide variety of laughter research, stories, and exploration in the field of humor and laughing as a practice, so keep reading (and hopefully laughing) as we take you along with us.
Are you excited and on board to explore laughter with us? Or are you having a bad day and can’t even possibly muster up the littlest of chuckles? You’ve probably heard the expression, ‘Fake it till you make it’ at some point in life. Well, that applies to laughter as well!
In my formative years, I was a theatre and opera major and I remember in performance classes we’d practice laughing. Some days I’d go to class feeling in the worst mood and after just a few minutes of laughter exercises, not only did my fake laughter turn into the real thing, but I felt transformed by the laughing energy of every person in the room.
Here are some tips on how to make laughter a bigger part of your day:
1) Practice Laughing-practice your own laugh, imitate other people’s laughs, have fun laughing
2) Become a Laugh Observer-notice when you hear laughter, listen to how each person’s laugh has its own quality, smile as you listen or go ahead and laugh along too!
3) Laugh at Yourself-don’t take yourself too seriously and laugh lovingly when you do something that you may otherwise chide yourself for
4) Figure Yourself Out-take time to learn more about what makes you laugh uncontrollably, and pull those tools out when you’re having a bad day, it’s amazing how something simple can turn a day around
Be Well,
Meg Townsend, E-RYT 500