Laughter Yoga was first developed by an Indian physician named Dr. Madan Kataria. Kataria was inspired by the science of how laughter could relieve stress and help the human body so in 1995 he launched the first ever laughter club on a warm march day. Today, laughter yoga has become a worldwide phenomenon with over 6,000 laughter clubs in over 60 countries. People everywhere have fell in love with the wonders of laughter Yoga and can read all about Kataria’s practice in his book Laugh For No Reason.

Laughter yoga is not your average yoga routine. It is a combination of eye contact, child like playfulness and laughter exercises. When practicing laughter yoga fake laughter quickly becomes real. Studies have been demonstrated that the body can’t tell between real or fake laughter. Laughter yoga is proven to make you feel much better and relieves stress.

Each laughter club uses different laughter yoga techniques depending on the age group of the class. All techniques depend on fake laughter turning into real laughter causing the yoga students to relieve stress as they laugh and have fun! The following slides list several different Laughter Yoga techniques!

Many people wonder why laughter exercises are considered yoga. The primary reason Dr. Kataria called it yoga is because he incorporated yoga breathing into the laughter exercises. The word yoga is from the Sanskrit root “Yuj.” Yuj means to harmonize and to get hold of. Dr. Kataria thought that the exercises could also be considered Yuj.