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Jewish World Review Feb.7, 2005 / 28 Shevat, 5765 It's no joke, so laugh already By Lenore Skenazy
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
They say that laughter is the best medicine. At least, Reader's Digest does. So maybe this explains "laughter yoga," the new craze wherein strangers get together and force themselves to guffaw. This is said to be excellent exercise.
And so it is, because the minute I heard about it, my eyeballs started rolling.
Nonetheless, an astounding 2,500 laughter clubs have sprung up, from India (where the thing began 10 years ago) to Australia to America. You've got your Central Texas Laughter Club of Austin and a giggle gaggle in good ol' Kungsträdgården, Sweden.
So why is New York's only laughter club in the basement of a Seventh Ave. chiropractor?
My theory: We need our bad moods. If we didn't have smoldering rage to nurse, what would we do on the subway? Still, moved by curiosity and an excruciatingly grumpy day, I decided to give those stupid laughs a try.
When laughter yoga first began, explained Alex Eingorn, the chiropractor-founder of New York's Grab a Giraffe club (grabbagiraffe.com), "People would sit around and tell jokes." That worked, he said, until they ran out.
Of jokes, that is. Not out of the room, though who would blame them? Moreover, as the movement started to go global, its founder, Dr. Madan Kataria, had to find a way to spread laughter without language. Eventually, he developed about 50 different laugh exercises, to which Alex was about to introduce us.
"Okay!" he told the 20 of us — mostly men — who stood in a loose circle. "Extend a hand, greet and laugh as you shake!"
In what felt like a bizarre singles event, we proceeded to do just that. A dead ringer for Abe Lincoln and I shook hands. "Ha ha," he said. "Ha," I countered.
This wasn't working. But then I pumped the hand of a younger guy — looked like a soap-opera star — and felt so dumb that a little laugh escaped my lips. His, too. Then a grinning granny grabbed my hand and, boy, was she a laugher! She laughed and laughed. I wished I was having half as much fun but . . . I wasn't. I bared my teeth in what I hoped was a smile.
But by the third or fourth exercise, we had to waggle a "Naughty, naughty" finger at each other and this, my face burns to say it, was actually fun. The wagging .fingers just looked so silly, you had to - yes - laugh! By the time I met up with the best laugher in the class, a middle-aged mirth machine, I was hysterical.
"The body cannot tell the difference between a fake laugh and a real one," Alex informed us.
"Just like most dates!" I squealed to the guy next to me. And guess what? He laughed.
Real? Fake? Turns out it really doesn't matter. I mean, I had come to this class as angry as the next New Yorker. But then 20 of us spent 45 minutes trying to improve our attitudes without once mentioning our childhoods. The class is free, so it's not like anyone was ripping us off. And when I reached home, I waggled my finger at my husband and started laughing my head off. He looked at me funny.
It's a start.
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