Learning to Laugh

(laughter)

[Raffi] I am Raffi Khatchadourian

and this week I have written a story

about Laughter Yoga.

You must be wondering why I'm laughing.

(laughter)

[Raffi] Laughter yoga is a series of exercises

that were devised in the mid 1990s

by an Indian doctor named Madan Kataria.

Today we are going to laugh

like we have never laughed before.

[Raffi] Dr. Kataria is a relentless promoter of laughter.

He professes a belief that laughter is

a potential cure for all kinds of ailments,

whether they be spiritual, emotional, or physical.

(laughter)

These exercises have spread around the globe

and are currently practiced in more than 65 countries.

(crowd laughing and chanting)

Dr. Kataria held a training session

for a number of people who wanted to become

Laughter Yoga leaders,

and they were from all over the world.

I was able to, with a small camera that I brought with me,

video a number of the exercises.

(laughter)

Early on during the training session,

everyone got themselves into a tight circle.

And one of the first exercises was

something called Gradient Laughter.

And without saying anything

or engaging in any kind of silly activity,

they basically just start slowly fake laughing.

(soft laughter)

(laughter gradually gets louder)

By being in a small group,

by having eye contact,

eventually the fake laughter is overcome

by genuine laughter.

(laughter becomes hysterical)

They do enter a kind of state of euphoria,

and they are able to let go and laugh with

sort of complete abandon, I guess.

(laughter)

Laughter Yoga from a scientific point of view

is a questionable venture.

When one looks at the totality of the work

on laughter and health,

a much more ambiguous picture emerges.

You start to see that studies are contradicting each other

and there isn't uniform agreement among scientists

about how useful this could be.

Kataria argues that this doesn't make a difference,

that fake laughter is just as beneficial for you

as real laughter is.

And it's hard to argue with that.

I mean the people who I saw,

it seemed to me that there was no question

that they were finding some benefit.

(laughter)

(lively Indian music)

One night he encouraged everyone in the group

to dress in the most ridiculous way possible.

And then the plan was that everyone would

march out into the streets of Bangalore

and basically try and sort of spread mirth

among the unsuspecting people who were then on the street.

I would say most people were at first, slightly skeptical.

(laughter)

But, at the same time, they sort of didn't reject it

out of hand and it was quite funny.

(crowd laughing)

(laughter)

(lively Indian music)

(laughter)