21 Jan 2023
Lighten up and have fun by including a hearty dose of laughter into your daily routine of yoga.
If you’re happy and you know it - clap your hands! Looking for a way to reduce stress and lighten the mood at the same time? Simple, just clap and laugh doing laughter yoga with your family at home.
Holistic and wellness expert Mickey Mehta says, “Laughter gives you an emotional joy which eases your endocrine system. It lowers blood pressure, epinephrine and glucose levels and increases glucose tolerance. Laughter also releases dopamine and serotonin, decreasing stress hormones and improving mood.”
He adds, “When you laugh out loud, your diaphragm moves up and down – 12 to 13 centimetres. That is the time you empty your lungs completely of carbon dioxide and all the other gasses and refill them with deep breathes automatically. Fresh oxygen enters the blood.”
He suggests some laughter yoga tips to do at home.
1. Take a deep breath and while pulling the stomach inside, shout ‘Hu Hu’. Then take a deep breathe again and scream ‘Ha Ha’. In the third breathe, do ‘Hu Hu Ha Ha Ha Ha’. Repeat the cycle. When you do this at least 21 times, every day twice, your antibodies, your immune modulators and your happy hormones secrete very well. Your immunity goes up, digestion improves, and you get a good nights sleep and immense energy.
2. One should do deep breathing exercise Bhastrika and combine laughter in that. Spread your arms up to the sky, take a deep breath and breathe out while laughing. Repeat that. You can also clap your hands rhythmically together while laughing straight from your hearts.
3. When at home with your children, spouses or old people, you must tickle them in their armpits and ribcage to make them laugh occasionally.
4. Nasal laughing: It’s a technique where the sound of a person’s laughter comes through the nose. Remember to take deep breathes while doing the exercise. Blow out through the nose while doing the laughter yoga.
Published in Hindustan Times