For about five minutes last Thursday evening, I did laughter yoga. You might have heard it referred to as laughter meditation. Supposedly, the body can’t differentiate between real laughter and fake, so you get all the physiological benefits from just going through the motions.
When I first heard about it, I imagined us lying around in different poses, going, “Ha…ha ha…ha ha ha.”
Ugh.
And we did start out by walking in a circle saying, “Ho, ho, ha-ha-ha.” But after that, it got genuinely hilarious.
We made laughter milkshakes, pouring this imaginary cup into that imaginary cup, and back, and then drinking it down: “Hahahahahahaha!” After that, we mixed up another laughter milkshake, but didn’t like it so we threw it in someone else’s face: “Hahahahahahaha!”
We argued with laughter, moving through the room ha-ing angrily at each other and made up with sweet hahas. We stood in two lines facing each other and watched the laughter race cars go by: “ha ha ha hahahaHAHAHAHAhahaha ha ha ha…”
And my favorite part—after each exercise, we went:
“Very good! (clap)
Very good! (clap)
(arms overhead in a V) YAY!”
I had been feeling anxious and nihilistic before we started, but I was nearly peeing myself by the end of it.
Laughter yoga: AVID BRUXIST STAMP OF APPROVAL (bonk)
that is awesome!