x-Laughter Yoga

Get Your Laughter on with Edie Weinstein, a Certified Laughter Yoga Leader

Laughter Yoga Sign

What if you discovered that there was a simple and profound way to enhance your life, that involves something you already know how to do? Would you be open to making this part of your daily practice? Laughter Yoga is a doorway into a world of wonder, a plethora of play, a bounty of breathing and a font of fitness. Have you heard of it? It’s not what you might think. It is not about getting all stretchy on a mat. There are no traditional yoga poses. You need not even have a sense of humor to engage in it. No jokes or comedy is involved.

Fun Facts About Laughter Yoga

Laughter Yoga is a practice in which creatively designed laughter exercises are combined with yogic breathing that comes from the diaphragm. It is considered light aerobic exercise that most people can do. Although it can be performed solo, when joining together with others, it establishes a sense of connection. Since eye contact is an essential aspect, it builds trust between participants. Childlike playfulness and a willingness to be lighthearted, are part of the process.

It was designed by cardiologist Dr. Madan Kataria and his wife Madhuri Kataria, a yoga teacher. Together with three friends, they got together in a park in Mumbai, India in 1995 and since that time, 106 countries have established over 6,000 Laughter Yoga clubs.

It is based on the simple and profound premise that the body can’t tell the difference between ‘real’ laughter and canned laughter and we reap the same benefits.

Although Laughter Yoga is not therapy, it does have therapeutic value and has been shown to benefit people with depression, anxiety, addiction, physical ailments, as well as those facing loss and major life change and challenges. It is for people all along the life spectrum. We are never too young or too old to laugh.

It can be done as a solo activity, with 10-15 minutes a day of sustained belly laughter or with groups of people in school, community, family, fitness, faith and business settings. Laughter Yoga is offered daily all throughout the world and expresses what words alone may not be able to say. Laughter is a universal language.

Here is my profile on the Laughter Yoga website.

Edie teaching

Edie discovered that the life path we traverse calls on us to become willing to be light-hearted and childlike, not taking ourselves too seriously. She born to be a Laughter Yoga Leader, having grown up in a realllly goofy family for whom laughter and love went hand in hand.

Bring Edie into your place of work, school or community group and you are guaranteed to leap from ha-ha to aha!