World Laughter Tour, Inc.

We, the Laughter Clubs members, have found a new meaning of laughter, which is known as ‘‘Spirit of Laughter’’. Laughter is not just amusement and entertainment, nor it is only giggling and chuckling - it is the way how we relate to others and how we react to behaviour and attitude of others.

Yet another brilliant idea comes from my friend B.K. Satyanarayan, the founder of Bangalore Laughter Clubs (India). Every year first Sunday of July, will be celebrated as ‘‘Neighbours Day’’. On this occasions laughter clubs members all over the world will invite their immediate next door neighbours or any one staying in your neighbourhood or apartments, for a cup of tea/coffee, lunch, dinner or outing, depending upon the convenience, to show our solidarity and commitment to improve neighbourly relationship. You can even send some gifts, chocolates, and sweets as a token of appreciation and good will. Also invite them to your laughter club meeting.

The Philosophy: Much of our laughter and happiness depends upon the relationship we have with people around us, like our friends, relatives and especially neighbours. Your neighbours can play an important role in the well being of your family, as they are available 24 hours next door.

Friends and relatives may take a while to reach you in an emergency. A friendly and positive neighbour can enhance the sense of security and family well being, while a hostile and negative neighbour can be a source of stress, emotional turbulence, anger, irritation, jealousy and criticism.

Let us make a new beginning and make a commitment to establish and nurture this beautiful relationship based on mutual needs. Keep following points in mind while dealing with your neighbours.

1.. We need their help in an hour of emergency like fire, mishap, theft, robbery, gas leakage, medical emergency and death in a family.

2.. We need their help for looking after old parents, children, pets, plants, while you are away for few hours or even for few days, of course on mutual understanding.

3.. We need their assistance during ceremonies like marriage, birthdays, religious and social functions.

4.. We need to share our moments of success and achievement. Also we need their moral support in an hour of crisis and bereavement.

5.. Looking after your important letters, documents when you are away for a long time or change your house or office.

1.. Always be ready to help your neighbour as your help is like insurance for you to get their help and support, when you are in need.

2.. Remember, birthdays of your neighbours, especially their children, wedding anniversaries and make it a point to greet them personally. Send them some flowers or greeting cards.

4.. Be liberal in paying compliments about their house, children, their success and achievements.

6.. Deliver letters and documents promptly when wrongly delivered at your address.

7.. Be careful about playing loud music during parties and celebrations. If possible make them a part it and they won't complain.

8.. Avoid littering in a common passage and open places that might cause inconvenience to your neighbours.

9.. Children, when they play together in a neighbourhood can create a strong bond between the families and at the same time can create misunderstanding when they fight. So, be careful and compassionate when handling the fights among children. Give suggestions and avoid blaming.

Important: All the anchorpersons please make repeated announcements about the neighbour’s day and send this matter as press release to the local media.

Actual Title: The Anticipation of a Laughter Eustress Event Modulates Mood States Prior to the Actual Humor Experience
L.S. Berk, D.L. Felten, J. Westengard*
Susan Samueli Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, UC Irvine College of Medicine, and *Loma Linda University School of Medicine, Loma Linda, CA.

Lay Summary Title: The Positive Anticipation/Expectation of a Humorous/Laughter Eustress (Positive Emotional) Experience Begins to Change Mood States Before the Actual Humor Event-A Concept of Hope

The present study demonstrates that anticipation/expectation of a one hour experience of mirthful laughter, in the form of viewing a humorous video, evokes significant positive changes in mood states prior to the actual viewing of the video, providing new insights into the psychobiology of anticipation/expectation. Previous work from our laboratories has demonstrated that viewing of a self-selected humorous video for one hour can ameliorate (amend) many of the physiological effects of distress. Many forms of chronic stress result in suppressed immune responses, particularly those related to anti-viral and anti-tumor defenses. These diminished immune responses appear to be the result of increased secretion of stress hormones such as cortisol and epinephrine. Mirthful laughter diminishes the secretion of cortisol and epinephrine, while enhancing the anti-viral and anti-tumor immune reactivity. In addition, mirthful laughter enhances the secretion of growth hormone, an enhancer of these same key immune responses. The biological effects of a single one-hour session of viewing a humorous video can last from 12 to 24 hours, while other studies of daily 30-minute exposure to such humor/laughter videos produces profound and long-lasting changes in these measures.

The present study builds on these previous observations, and on further rather surprising findings that if subjects are informed 3-days prior to the humor intervention that they will be "a subject in" the experimental laughter group (watching the humor video) rather than the control group (sitting in comfortable chairs reading magazines of their choice), these experimental subjects demonstrate a striking decrease in stress related negative mood states and an increase in a positive mood state. As a result of the present study, we further hypothesized that the same anticipatory behavior or positive expectation that led to altered mood states, also would lead to stress hormone (neuroendocrine mediator) changes prior to viewing of the humor video.

In this study we administered the Profile of Mood States (POMS), an instrument that measures changes in tension, depression, anger, vigor, fatigue, and confusion to 10 fasting male subjects (mean age 27 years) at time points 2 days before, 15 minutes before, and immediately following, the humor intervention of viewing of a self-selected 60 minute video. The POMS scores in each of the six areas were charted longitudinally and compared with published standardized test norms for the POMS. The table below shows the relative percentage decreases or increases in mood states.

Relative % Change from Test Norms
2-Days Before the Humor
Before the Humor
After the Humor
Tension
9%(35%(**
61%(***
Depression
51%(*
91%(***
98%(***
Anger
19%(
90%(***
98%(***
Vigor
12%(
9%(
37%(**
Fatigue
15%(
63%(**
87%(***
Confusion
36%(**
63%(***
75%(***
*p<.05
**p<.01
***p<.001
( indicates a decrease
( indicates an increase

Test subjects demonstrated a progressive pattern of significant decreases in depression, tension, fatigue, confusion, and anger (significant at a level of p<.001) and a significant increase in vigor (significant at a level of p<.01). Changes in mood states began prior to the viewing of the humor video, and continued through and after the one-hour laughter intervention. This positive pattern of altered mood states represents a "eustress" profile that is counter/opposite to that provoked by classical stress (distress).

In conclusion, these findings demonstrate that anticipation/expectation, as much as the humor intervention episode, can initiate changes in mood state prior to the actual experience itself. We suggest this may parallel neuroendocrine stress hormone changes that also occur with this type of humor/laughter intervention. Our findings provide both psychosocial (mood state changes) and suggestive neuroendocrine (cortisol, epinephrine, growth hormone) correlate changes as a result of anticipation. Further studies should be done to definitively show that anticipation of favorable positive interventions, such as mirthful laughter and possibly others eustress behaviors, may initiate changes in the secretion of important biological mediators that, indeed, may positively contribute to wellness and counteract many adverse changes related to chronic stress.

We believe that the "biology of hope" that underlies recovery from many chronic disorders includes, in part, the synonyms optimism, anticipation, expectation of positive interventions and experiences. If complementary and integrative interventions/adjunctive therapies, directed towards wellness and recovery from chronic diseases, can incorporate positive expectation or anticipatory experiences ( "hope," the resultant changes may not only 1) contribute to beneficial positive mood state changes; but also, 2) modify important biological/chemical mediators that optimize immune responses; 3) diminish stress-related molecules and inflammatory mediators; and in total 4) potentially contribute to the prevention and healing processes.

"People tell me not to offer hope unless I know it to be real, but I don't have the power not to respond to an outstretched hand."

Detroit Free Press

DESIREE COOPER: Funny thing: Group guffaws are healthy
May 21, 2002

After Sept. 11, principal Daniel Sinnott noticed something different about his students at St. Albert the Great School in Dearborn Heights.

"When I was young, there was always the nuclear bomb bogeyman," he said. "But our parents were able to make us feel safe. We lost little sleep over it. Since Sept. 11, students have a more anxious childhood than we did. We have an annual poetry contest and I noticed this year many of their themes were about death and dying, and more adult concerns about life."

He said he wondered what he could do to get his students back to being children. The answer came to him at the suggestion of a parish member: Why not give the kids a good laugh?

Laughter is no joke

On May 3, the entire school gathered in the gym for a laughter therapy session. As they giggled like a gaggle of turkeys, few suspected they were getting more than just time out of class.

According to a 5-year study by the UCLA School of Medicine, laughing boosts the body's natural defenses, enhances pain management and reduces stress-hormone levels. Another study revealed that a 1-minute hee-haw is equal to 10 minutes on a rowing machine -- and it's more fun.

"Some of the boys went mad," said Sinnott of the laughter assembly. "They never get to be that free while they're in school."

The mirth was carefully engineered by Mike Millington, president of the St. Albert the Great parish council.

"I don't tell jokes," said Millington, even though he's a walking sight gag. He wears a bright red shirt, a patriotic tie and a three-bibbed hat during his trainings. "It's actually about the act of laughing, even when nothing's funny."

He gave me a sampling of laughing styles. There are the He-He (which is whistle-like and wheezy), the Ho-Ho (which is more of a guffaw bubbling up from the stomach), and the Ha-Ha (which circles in the chest and throat). Each laugh exercises a different part of the body.

What's important, said Millington, is not that you think something is funny, but that you laugh anyway. A genuine feeling of good humor is sure to follow.

A bunch of chuckleheads

Millington, 58, is the Michigan disciple of a growing international movement of laughter clubs. The movement began in India in 1995 when Dr. Madan Kataria, author of "Laugh for No Reason," gathered a group of people in a park in suburban Bombay and began to laugh in public. Based on what he knew of his patients, he believed that laughter can raise the spirit and heal the body, just like yoga, prayer or meditation. Steve Wilson, a retired psychologist in Ohio, brought the idea to the United States in the late 1990s, establishing the World Laughter Tour.

The WLT has certified more than 500 laughter clubs in the United States. The ultimate mission of the movement? To bring peace to the planet, one smile at a time.

As a self-described upbeat person, Millington was attracted to the movement. He saw immediately how the theory could bring happiness to many sad corners of the world, including Angela Hospice in Livonia -- where he works as a community liaison.

"As I speak to people about hospice care, I find that they can understand death much easier if I give an understanding laugh," Millington said. The three-bibbed hat he wears is made of hats that once belonged to hospice patients. "You can laugh until you die. I should know."

Not for everyone

Although laughter is great medicine, it's not without its dangers. Millington warned the kids at St. Albert the Great to remember to breathe while laughing. He pointed to a box of tissues for anyone who found that laughter unleashed a river of tears. WLT warns people with heart conditions, hernias, hemorrhoids, pregnancy, stress incontinence and colds or flu to avoid the sessions.

But the St. Albert the Great students had none of those impediments. Following Millington's example, they hardy-harr-harred like a cowboy, roared like a lion and even made up their own laughing styles.

"The younger kids loved it," Sinnott said. "The eighth-graders were too self-conscious. They'd rather stand in a corner and burp and punch each other."

It's not surprising that the older kids expressed more reservations than the younger ones, according to Karen Schneider-Chen, a certified laughologist in Seattle.

"Preschool children laugh 300 to 400 times a day," she said. "Adults laugh seven to 15 times a day. As we grow up, we lose a lot of playfulness in our lives. This is really a silly movement, an effort to bring that joy back."

The students at St. Albert the Great were less philosophical about their laughter experience. When second-grader Javier Torres was asked to invent his own laugh, he came up with the Dinosaur Roar -- mostly, it seemed, to push the sound barrier.

Eighth-grader Teresa DiStefano did the roller-coaster laugh with Millington, starting first with a low moan, increasing to a shrill scream and descending into relieved giggles. She came away entertained, yet clueless as to the session's purpose.

For Millington, that was exactly the point. "I'll keep on doing laughter sessions," he said, "as long as no one gets hurt."

Tough enough to leave 'em laughing at the best of times. Tougher still to leave 'em laughing when your audience is primarily people with cancer along with their families and friends.

John Gupta is up for the assignment. Since last fall, he has been conducting laughter workshops at the downtown Gilda's Club. And this would no doubt have tickled Gilda Radner, the woman for whom this club - and the many others around the world - is named.

Radner, a Saturday Night Live stalwart and one of the great comedians of her epoch, died of ovarian cancer in 1989. But even in the final stages of her battle she clung to the belief that laughter was the best medicine.

Gupta, though not afflicted, has picked up the baton. On the surface, this slight, serene, 60something gentleman could pass far easier as an actuary than a chuckles-meister.

The Laughter Club he heads here is part of a fast-mushrooming international organization that was started in India eight years ago. Initially, Laughter Club leaders had tried to assume the role of stand-up comedians, but results were decidedly uneven and often the joke was on the would-be wit.

So a different approach was taken.

"Instead of trying to be funny and failing miserably at it, we decided to simulate laughter to stimulate laughter," Gupta explained before beginning his workshop at Gilda's yesterday. "To make people laugh for no reason."

Class commenced with Gupta's dozen students, ranging in age from 6 to 66, standing in a circle, clapping and belting out: "Ho, ho, ho! Ha, ha, ha!"

To the uninitiated, the atmosphere might seem strangely surreal with gusts to a method-acting class and the Twilight Zone. Gupta doesn't care how silly or simplistic it might look; it's the bottom-line benefits that matter most.

Next, Gupta had his students make eye contact with one another, which led to a round of forced giggles, and then into belly laughs, and finally into outright and spontaneous hysterics.

And all this without benefit of mind-altering pharmaceuticals.

Over the next 20 minutes, Gupta and his charges went through a series of arcane set-ups, ranging from Harry Potter to cocktail party, designed to break them up. And when not laughing, they did breathing exercises.

If it appears like they're going through an elaborate workout, it's no accident. "This sort of laughing is like inner jogging," Gupta explained. "You fake it until you make it. But it works."

Gupta is dead-serious when he asserts that laughter can save the world. And there are hundreds of like-minded souls around the world trying to spread the message. Last Sunday, for example, was International Laughter Day - a fact unbeknown to many in these parts where almost every day is laughter day, but for less noble reasons.

"Yet thousands of people observed the day everywhere in the world by breaking out into natural bursts of laughter," Gupta said. "Our goal is peace through laughter and love."

That works for workshop participants Carole Jeghers and her two sons, aged 6 and 8. Jeghers, an actress and one-time stand-up comic, will soon be certified to conduct laugh classes on her own. "I'm a single mom and the stress-level can be very high. But the effect of this workshop is like throwing out a big bundle of stress," she said.

She re-enacts the exercises at home with her kids, which prompts the question as to whether her neighbours think she's nuts. "I hope so," she shot back with a smile. "But this has sure saved me from going completely nuts."

Advocates insist this laugh-route not only releases stress, but pain as well. Emotional and physical, that is.

Agnes Sharma joined Gilda's and subsequently Gupta's Laughter Club shortly after her mother died of cancer. "I didn't think I could ever laugh again, but I also felt I needed the release or I'd fall apart," she said. "Thankfully, I found this class."

Guy Weatherhead feels the same way. His prostate cancer has been in remission for seven years, and he credits the laugh class. "It's not always easy but you learn to accept your lot and you learn to laugh again," he said. "And there's no feeling like it."

Mother's Day is a particularly painful time for Sharma. "I can't ever forget, but at least I can learn to cope," she said. "My father died when I was 13, so it was left to my mother to hold the family together. It was not easy, but she instilled such great values. In spite of everything, she also had a terrific sense of humour and felt the world would be a better place if people could learn to live and laugh together."

Sharma plans to celebrate her mother today by having a laugh in her memory. "That's the sort of gift she'd want."

From boosting your immune system to reducing stress and the risk of heart disease, laughter really is the best medicine, some experts believe. For these reasons, a revolutionary method of laughter therapy -- The Laughter Club -- has come to Boone County, thanks to Witham Health Services and psychotherapist Lynn Shaw.

Shaw and co-facilitator Jean Kolp, a registered nurse with Witham Health Services, lead the "support group" that incorporates a systematic method of giggling and guffawing that promises to reduce stress and improve attitudes. Believed to be the first laughter club in central Indiana, the Boone County Laughter Club meets the third Monday of each month at 7 p.m. The meetings are held at the Witham Medical Office building, 2505 N. Lebanon St. in Lebanon and last approximately 30 minutes. The club is free and open to anyone who would like to attend and laugh.

Shaw and Kolp join dozens of other Laughter leaders across the country who are showing Americans how to laugh their way to better health. After attending the laughter sessions, participants have lower blood pressure and fewer complaints about aches, reports Shaw. "They have increased energy and a healthier outlook," she says. For more information on the Boone County Laughter Club, call 1-765-482-8693.

Permission to reprint or copy this article/photo must be obtained from The Seattle Times. Call 206-464-3113 or e-mail resale@seattletimes.com with your request.

Yes, say the believers. Laugh, they claim, and you may live longer. Laugh and you may boost your immune system.

"It may take 1,000 years, but we hope to see world peace through laughter," declares Steve Wilson, the country's leading "joyologist."

Officially, this means Wilson is a man who dedicates his life to the pursuit of joy. For the Ohio physician, laughter is the triumph in his bag of healing tools.

"Laughter prevents hardening of the attitudes, a vital step toward the goal of peace," he says.

In the United States, more than 500 laughter clubs exist, and in Seattle, 50 more laugh leaders received certification from Wilson last month, bringing the total to about 55. Locally, participants include students at Blanchet High and inmates at King County's North Rehabilitation Facility in Shoreline.

Many laugh-club members find themselves transformed into children again, and why not. The average preschooler laughs up to 400 times a day. The average adult? A sad seven to 15.

Observing a laugh club in India, Wilson sensed the potency of a gaggle of beaming adults coming together, making eye contact and laughing as an aerobic workout. Perhaps the most startling detail of the laugh club is the price. In this world of often-expensive New Age improvements, these chuckles come free.

Free of humor, too, which is subjective — and potentially offensive. Laughter clubs are fueled by unbridled chortles in a format as disciplined as a yoga classroom, but far more fun.

Laughing became a formal discipline in India, where family physician Dr. Madan Kataria invited five of his patients into a city park to experiment with the healing qualities of laughter. The effect on the patients' spirits and health was striking, and in 1995, Kataria founded laughter as a form of yoga.

Known as the Guru of Giggles, Kataria's influence on the movement is profound. In Seattle, a Harborview Medical Center employee brought laughter back to Washington state last summer after attending a laughing group in India. Nearly every laugh leader carries a copy of Kataria's book "Laugh For No Reason."

In Seattle, it's easy to find an enthusiastic group of bellowers in the Phinney Neighborhood Center each Wednesday after work.

Laughter really is the best medicine

Why bother laughing? There's tightening up, and then there's lightening up.

::	Aerobic workout for heart and lungs.
::	Decreases the negative effects of stress.
::	Boosts the immune system.
::	Improves digestion.
::	Stabilizes mood.
::	Inspires creativity.
::	Rests the brain.
::	Enhances communication.
::	May enhance romance. A sense of humor is the most desirable trait in a mate.

Source: World Laughter Tour.

Laugh leader Teresa Verde, who smiles throughout the night from beneath big, wide eyebrows, begins by demonstrating a laugh. The laughers repeat it, rush into the circle making eye contact and laughing with each other, and then find their places again, cooling down with the ritual "ho-ho-ha-ha-ha" and two rounds of deep breathing.

The 30-minute session includes about eight silly laughs, from snorts to guffaws to the secret-weapon silent laugh and the ice-cube-down-the-shirt laugh.

The laugh club that gathered here seemed like any other group of Americans: a little stiff from a day of work, a little tired. But their laughs! Their laughs were wild and crazy spurtings.

Leader Verde encouraged members to laugh wildly — "to fake it until you make it" — and to invent their own. One woman demonstrated an animal laugh, undulating with the sounds and mannerisms of a chimpanzee. Inspired, the group let out bird laughs, pig snorts, dog woofs and Cheshire-cat caterwauls.

"Wow," says Verde, surveying the heated participants, who, if anything, had a hard time coming down off the eruptions of peals and gales. "I'm almost scared." But she was laughing, too.

"It's not that we don't still have all the same problems," Verde says after the class, "but through laughter, we also feel more joy."

Seattle laugh leader Karen Schneider-Chen tells the story of holding a laugh club for women from Egypt, Asia and the Middle East. "We didn't share a single language, but the laughing was universal."

Clearly, laughter is fun. But what of the medical benefits? Kevin Wilhelmsen of Harborview Medical Center cites several medical studies that show laughter orchestrates changes in neural chemistry and gives the body a cardiovascular and respiratory workout, releasing muscle tension and stimulating the thymus gland.

Medically, this means laughter may improve sleep and digestion and offer an antidote to anxiety and fear.

Like Wilson, Wilhelmsen speaks of the peace-giving aspects of laughter. "It's a way to avoid intense and difficult emotions. It's part of my spiritual practice."

Have a good laugh

Celebrate World Laughter Day beginning at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Phinney Neighborhood Center and join the thousands around the world laughing for health, happiness and world peace.

Neighborhood Laughter Club meets at 6:30 p.m. Wednesdays center's Red Room, 6532 Phinney Ave. N. There's also a Laughter Club at 11 a.m. Monday at the Northwest Senior Activity Center, 32nd Avenue Northwest and Northwest Market Steet. All ages welcome. For more information, send e-mail or call Teresa Verde at 726-3050.

Harborview Laugh Club meets 8 a.m. Monday, Patient and Family Resource Center, Ground East Hospital, Room 76. Call Kevin Wilhelmsen at 731-3544.

For more information on the international laugh movement, call 800-NOW-LAFF.

Wilson's, too. "Laughing," says Wilson, "is the easiest form of meditation. The reason we have war is because there is so much war inside of us as individuals," Wilson explains. Laughter helps diffuse those hard emotions, bringing people together, he says. "Laughter is joyous and infectious and contagious."

Whether laughter becomes a major world movement, a little serenity does seem to shower down over the Phinney Ridge group. Verde looks around, smiles. She thanks the group and says she's closing the

Guru of giggles in India

First skeptical, then sold

Laughing on way to bank

Detroit Free Press

DESIREE COOPER: Funny thing: Group guffaws are healthy
May 21, 2002

Laughter is no joke

A bunch of chuckleheads

Not for everyone

Guru of giggles in India

First skeptical, then sold

Laughing on way to bank

Detroit Free Press

DESIREE COOPER: Funny thing: Group guffaws are healthy May 21, 2002

Laughter is no joke

A bunch of chuckleheads

Not for everyone

DESIREE COOPER: Funny thing: Group guffaws are healthy
May 21, 2002