Laughter yoga

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I meant to write about this before; this was something I thought I would try when I saw it on the programme at one of the festivals. After all, laughter is the best medicine and all that. It turned out to be one of my strangest experiences, on a par with the ‘aqua-ceilidh’ I guess, but nowhere near as much fun. It started with everyone in the group doing a few stretches to limber up, then we were instructed to walk around introducing ourselves to everyone else in the group while laughing. After this we were given a series of role-playing type of tasks, for example we first had to pretend to receive a funny 'phone call from a friend, and then pretend to show a funny photo we had received to other participants. Throughout each exercise we had to laugh. We had to pretend to help each other apply suncream and laugh while pointing out blobs on their noses etc. they had missed. We had a pretend pillow fight. The best exercise was where we had to pretend we were mowing the lawn with a petrol mower, so we would bend down to pull the starting chord and go ‘Ha!’ then again ‘Ha ha’ and then ‘Ha ha ha’ until it ‘started’ after which we pushed our imaginary mowers around going ‘Ha ha ha ha ha’. I’m sure you get the idea. We had a pretend snowball fight, and then a pretend sword fight – I found this a bit weird because while a real snowball or pillow fight is generally fun, I wouldn’t normally laugh while running someone through with a sword. Maybe they need to rethink that exercise. In between each task we would applaud, take some deep breaths, reach up and then down to our toes. At the end of the session the friend I had gone with said she enjoyed it and would consider another session, but I found it all a bit peculiar. I don’t think I would do it again. I’d rather just do some stretches and then do something genuinely fun! Has anyone else tried ‘laughter yoga’? The photo is of a fungus I saw on a walk in the woods recently. All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2025.