Laughter Yoga teacher Lynne Carruthers a.k.a. ‘Laugh With Lynne’
shares how she helps people to optimise health and wellbeing through laughter.
shares how she helps people to optimise health and wellbeing through laughter.
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00:00Get the floss out, and then we pop it into our heads, laughing as we do all the exercises like this.
00:07In goes the floss, and we're going...
00:09LAUGHS
00:11Have a great little feeling about getting all those thoughts we don't want out.
00:15LAUGHS
00:20Yeah, that's really good.
00:23I'm Lynne from Laugh With Lynne, and I'm a lefty oboe leader,
00:27and I do classes in North Leeds in between Harrogate and Leeds.
00:30I got into laughter yoga in lockdown.
00:33I wanted something to give me a bit of a boost,
00:35and also I wanted something to do a little bit of exercise based on what I was able to do,
00:40because I do have a chronic health condition.
00:44It's a musculoskeletal condition called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, amongst other things.
00:49So a friend suggested laughter yoga because the nice thing about it is
00:53that you can do as much exercise as you want for it within your own capabilities,
00:57which I was very drawn to that.
00:59So I did try it, and then I was hooked.
01:02So I eventually then became trained to become a laughter yoga leader.
01:07Laughter is essentially a breathing exercise.
01:10If you think about what we're aiming for with laughter yoga is a hearty laugh.
01:14It's the hearty laugh that's good for your health.
01:16So if you, for example, breathe in deeply and then laugh,
01:21you're actually contracting your abdominals like this.
01:25That's actually the laugh, so that's what we're aiming for.
01:28We'll do a little breathe in, and then a laugh out.
01:35Then a breathe in, and a laugh out.
01:41Then a breathe in.
01:43And a ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho.
01:46And that just gets you going with your laughter muscles
01:49and exercises your mouth a little bit as well.
01:52People are often a little intrigued and also a little nervous
01:57about just laughing in front of other people, particularly if you don't know them.
02:01So we generally, you know, I'm very steady with people.
02:05I don't make them laugh, but generally if you come to class with a readiness
02:12to laugh and a wish to laugh, it generally just comes.
02:15Brain flossing is imaginary.
02:17We're trying to get rid of any unwanted thoughts that are in our brain,
02:21anything that shouldn't be in there.
02:23Just get it in every way like you would with your teeth.
02:27That's great. I think I've got quite a lot of thoughts out now,
02:30so I'm going to wang that away.
02:32And now I like to shower off just in case there's any more.
02:35I've got a little shower here ready.
02:37All the happy hormones are switched on in your body,
02:40such as serotonin and endorphins that anyone might have heard of.
02:44And it also reduces your stress hormones as well.
02:48We don't laugh because we're happy.
02:51We're happy because we laugh.
02:53So it is one of the main things about laughter yoga
02:56is that it does help your happiness.