Lately I’ve had the opportunity to work at home. When I do I have lunch with my dad and we watch ABC’s Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? It’s interesting to following the reasoning of some of the contestants and of course, to see how many questions we can get right. This past week there was a question regarding a yoga discipline begun in 1995 that including recreating a response. The answer choices were: groaning, crying, sneezing and laughing. The correct answer: laughing. The contestant thought it would be hard to recreate a sneeze. Who wants to attend an exercise group where you groan or cry? I can do that just about any time I join in an aerobics class, when I’m not laughing. 🙂

I have tried yoga in the past and even just tried to follow a program on TV last weekend. I had a hard time seeing what the instructor was doing and holding the pose at the same time. It could be that I needed a little more room in front of the TV. Actually, any time I do yoga it’s laughter yoga. I’ve never been very flexible and when I’m twisted like a pretzel and told to relax and enjoy the pose, I start to laugh. That does help me relax.

I went to the all-knowing “Google” to see what I could find out about Laughter Yoga and found the “official” website. I even found a Laughter Yoga group not too far from my home, so I may have to check it out. One of the things I liked was that it sounds like it doesn’t require the poses in other forms of yoga. The reason it’s called yoga is because it uses yoga style breathing. Sounds like those laughter exercises I shared a few weeks ago would work well here.

“Laughter is good medicine” is not just a word of wisdom. There are scientific studies on the positive effects of laughter. Proverbs 17:22 (AMP) says, “A happy heart is good medicine and a cheerful mind works healing.” So, sit down in a comfortable position and just start laughing! You may find others will be laughing with you.