[Laughter]
[Music]
namaste and good evening I mean good
morning everybody
I am Michael Bork and I am a certified
laughter yoga leader and yes I assure
you that is a real thing
I am here to talk to you today about the
three basic ideals or foundational
beliefs of laughter yoga which is in our
title health happiness and world peace
there laughter as a laughter yoga
instructor or leader my goal is to
spread the laughter yoga message and I
know there’s a few people out in the
audience that have heard of laughter
yoga or may have even experienced
laughter yoga fun today you’re going to
get a chance to learn a little bit about
the history of laughter yoga a little
bit about the traditions and why we do
what we do in the practice of laughter
yoga and then you all are going to have
a chance to experience laughter yoga for
yourself so part of my talk is going to
be explanation part of my talk is going
to be getting you guys involved in the
last Ryota message so I guess the first
question is what is laughter yoga and
laughter Yoga is really two separate
things that we combined together the
first part is laughter and with that
what we’re going to be doing is non
humor based mirthful laughter what that
means is I’m not going to be up here
telling you a joke and telling you to
laugh because of that the non humor
based part is no joking all I’m going to
be asking you to do is pretend play a
game with me while we laugh so that’s
non you humor based mirthful laughter
mirthful laughter means we’re laughing
just for the reason of laughter just for
the sake of laughter we’re laughing just
to laugh the yoga part of laughter yoga
is yogic breathing and what that means
is we’re doing in yoga
called pranayama yoga yogic breathing
we’re trying to exhale twice as much as
we inhale in our lungs why because all
of us every single one of you out there
every person on this planet for the most
part are lazy breathers we do not
exercise our diaphragms and we do not do
enough good active mindful breathing and
so we have 30 to 40 percent of the air
in our lungs is state what does that
mean that means that we have 30 to 40
percent of our lungs that are not being
used to their best capacity so in
laughter yoga the remember merciful love
yoga breathing part of it we’re trying
to push out all of that stale air and
then by breathing in in a good yogic
mindful way we’re going to replace all
that stale air with fresh air that fresh
air has oxygen that fresh oxygen is
going to give you a mood boost and an
energy boost so I’m so happy to be here
and to open up this this TEDx Fairbanks
talk because by the time you get out of
here at this very first session you’re
going to be happier you’re going to have
more energy and you’re going to have at
least a little bit of an appreciation of
this crazy crazy thing called laughter
yoga so a few things about what laughter
yoga is and how it got started back in
1995 a doctor in India named dr. Madan
Kataria developed the practice of laquer
yoga in yogic tradition it’s called
hacia yoga and it combines like I said
the laughter the mirthful laughter and
the yogic breathing and the combination
is what we call this experience called
laughter yoga he did this because he was
noticing that no matter how many times
people were eating well exercising
living a good life they were still
getting sick and he theorized that there
one of the reasons behind it was people
weren’t happy enough people weren’t
laughing enough people weren’t
experiencing the childlike sense of play
and
joy that we have when we experience
laughter so he developed along with his
wife Madhuri Kataria this practice of
laughter yoga what we do is we engage in
essentially four different phases we do
some clapping in a laughter yoga session
then we move on to laughter yoga
exercises these are the breathe laughing
exercises along with deep breathing then
we’ll actually do some laughter
meditation and that is actually what I
opened up this session with just
merciful natural laughter is called
laughter meditation so the first thing
that I want to do is go and talk about
health in the three so we’re talking
about health happiness and world peace
so health when we engage in laughter
yoga there’s a few great and amazing
things that happen to our body when we
laugh whether it’s real laughter or not
or what we call exercise laughter this
kind of laughter now when I open the
session right away I’ve heard a few
people laughing out there because
laughter is contagious and everybody can
understand that laughter is contagious
and when I laughed
you guys were responding to that with
laughter as soon as you started doing
that your body started releasing
endorphins your body recognized that you
were engaged in laughter activity and it
immediately started really started
releasing endorphins and for all of you
that aren’t familiar endorphins are
those feel-good chemicals that athletes
experience you get the Remer runner’s
high that’s from those endorphins
so right away just from the act of just
fake laughter just that little bit that
you did your body already started
releasing those endorphins the other
thing that happens when we laugh is we
our body secretes acetic acid and acetic
acid is a vasodilator it causes our
blood vessels to open up and what does
that do that causes our blood pressure
to drop so that’s the second part of the
good health we were getting endorphins
indoor by we’re lowering our blood
pressure we already talked about getting
more oxygen to our lungs and increasing
our lung capacity just through the
simple act of merciful
laughter and breathing so all of these
things combined and then in addition to
that while we are engaging in this
laughter we’re exercising we won’t get a
chance to experience much of it here
because we don’t have the time but when
you engage in 30 to 40 minutes of a
lapper yoga exercise you will be
sweating you’re getting a cardiovascular
workout you’re getting an aerobic
workout but and you’re exercising your
diaphragm and core muscles but you’re
all doing it in a non impactful way so
that’s the good health it’s a healthy
thing that you do when we when we engage
in laughter yoga the happiness part
that’s actually two parts happiness and
joy and there’s a difference between the
two we say that happiness is conditional
something has to happen to you for you
to be happier unhappy or you have to
choose to be happy or unhappy what we’re
going for in laughter Yoga is joy which
we define as unconditional happiness
happiness just for the sake of being
happy so what we hope is that when you
leave here you’re going to be happier
just from this little bit of lacquer
yoga that you’re good engaging you’re
going to be happier we hope that if you
come back and you do laughter yoga as a
regular thing that you start being happy
just for the sake of being happy which
is being joyful and then the third part
world peace there laughter is to me one
of the most profound parts of of doctor
Katara’s belief and why I do laughter
yoga and that is very simple when we are
engaged in the laughs in the act of
laughter when we are making eye contact
and socially engaged with people in this
act of laughter not even again having to
be true humor based just this exercise
laughter while that’s going on we cannot
be at war we cannot be arguing we can’t
be fighting with each other and so if we
were to all engage in laughter on a
regular basis we truly could create
world peace through laughter so dr.
guitar is belief in health and happiness
health happiness and world peace through
laughter are the three basic foundations
but the first thing before we can engage
in laughter yoga is I need everybody to
learn how to clap so if you notice I
opened up the left or yoga session and I
said
state and what namaste means in laughs
in yoga is the spirit within me honors
the spirit within you and we bring it
together in a show of respect and
greeting and we say namaste so if
everybody would join me and say namaste
thank you now in laughter yoga we have
an alternate and I like to use it we say
that the funny bone in me tickles the
funny bone in you we bring it together
in a gesture of respect and we say ha
mistake so I must say as well everybody
now the reason that I teach you this
gesture right here is this is how we’re
going to clap so this is called namaste
flapping and so what I need everybody to
do is rip their hands together just like
that very good now go ahead and stop
just from that little bit of clapping
like that your fingers and hands should
be tingling just slightly
what you’ve done is immediately you’ve
already started getting some benefits
physically because you’ve activated
acupressure points and that tingling
that you feel is your circulation being
simulated through just the simple act of
clapping now we’re just continue doing
this that step tingling would travel to
your arms and your elbows and all over
your body eventually but just clapping
like this in a group is really boring
so I’m going to teach you the proper
laughter yoga pattern for laughing while
we clap and it’s called ho ho hahaha
everybody say that with me ho ho ha ha
exactly now you notice I didn’t say oh
ha ha I didn’t do that
I said ho oh ha ha ha and everybody put
your hand right on your diaphragm or
where you think your diaphragm is and
every time you say that you should be
able to feel your diaphragm bounce oh ha
ha ha alright so that is the type of
laughter that we do we do full belly
laughter trying to engage that diaphragm
in core now we’re going to bring the two
of those together the clapping and the
ho ho hahaha
alright everybody got it alright we’re
going to do that and we’re just going to
just follow along with me this is a
clapping warm-up exercise and we’re
going to start out at a slow pace and
we’re just going to get a little bit
faster and faster
this is a good warm-up so everybody
very good all right now I didn’t teach
you the last part of the clapping which
is very very important now you are here
you just from that little bit of
clamping you should already feel a
little jazzed up a little a little heart
rate up but I didn’t teach you our
childlike show of exuberance and what
that is is we’re trying to breathe
engage our childlike sense of play with
laughter yoga so what I want you to do
now is is engage with me in three ho ho
hahaha
and then at the end you’re going to
throw your hands up in the air and yell
yay all right
so just just because that can be a
little scary here’s what it looks like
hey all right you guys ready you guys
are awesome then the other the other fun
part about doing that ho ho hahaha
clapping three times is that’s a good
way for me to signal then we’re going to
end one exercise and move on to another
so we’re going to do our first laughter
exercise and it’s called cocktail so I
need everybody to hold two glasses in
your hand you imagine that you’ve got
one glass it’s filled with a tasty
beverage
it could be non-alcoholic for those of
you underage whatever other kind of
Asian beverage you want for those of age
and one glasses full one glass is not
full alright so we’re going to pour from
one class to the other we’re going to
make a transition sound of the
transitions now it sounds like this it
goes and all right everybody practice
that with me and alright so very good
you guys are experts at this I don’t
even know why I’m on the stage we’re
going to go and then we’re going to pour
it back we got to make sure properly
aerated and and then we’re gonna kick it
back and go out alright is everybody
ready should we pour we pour and then we
kick it back all right so everybody
yay excellent I did not want to leave
you without doing a deep breathing
exercise so we’re going to do a seated
deep breathe this one is called the
mountain deep breathe and it’s based on
one of the yoga poses called the
Mountain Pose we’re going to make the
namaste sign and as we breathe in we
breathe into our nose and we’re going to
hold it for a couple of seconds to allow
for maximum oxygen exchange and then
we’re going to we’re going to exhale but
we’re not going to exhale just go we’re
going to exhale we’re going to laugh
alright so everybody ready make them
make the namaste sign make sure make
sure you’re sitting up nice and straight
shoulders nice and straight and we’re
going to breathe in bring our hands up
over our heads breathe in hold it hold
good job now with laughter yoga remember
I said we’re trying to exhale twice as
much as we’re inhaling and so we want
you to laugh just a little bit past
where you feel comfortable we don’t want
you to run out of air and pass out
because laughter shouldn’t hurt right so
we’re going to do one more exercise and
then I’m going to leave you for the day
I do have some fliers if you want more
information out front because there’s
not nearly enough time to cover
everything that there is to know about
laughter yoga in a short TEDx
presentation but this next one I always
like to try and teach you a fun and
silly game that you can take back and
when you say I just did at out TEDx talk
about laughter yoga before people call
the institution or the men in white
jackets you say no watch watch this I’m
going to show you so this is the next
exercise it’s called magic trick so what
I want everybody to do is put your two
fingers out in front of you now you have
to pay very close attention folks
because this is highly technical I’m
usually only teaching this to people
with at least six months of life through
yoga experience we’re going to make the
transition sound to bring our fingers
ladies and gentlemen thank you very much
you [Applause]