My sister-in-law Katie does this thing every once in a while 
where she will demonstrate a bunch of different types of laughs. Unless you are the Grinch with a serious case of Adultitis, it is hard not to laugh along with her. Laughter is contagious, which is why this new trend of ‘laughter yoga’ is catching on. Have you heard of it? Elina Valkonen shares in a recent article in SixDegrees Magazine that the 2,500 laughter yoga classes worldwide are really helping to improve peoples’ health, relationships, and overall mood.
It works like this. You have a partner. The instructor then models a variety of types of laughs, that are connected with certain movements. While maintaining eye contact with your partner you have to imitate the laughs you hear. Elina shares that at first the laughs may seem fake but looking at your partner helps to create genuine laughter pretty quickly.
There are many different laughter techniques, such as quiet laughter, semi-laughter, lion laughter, growing laughter, swaying laughter, cocktail laughter, and many others.
The classes are about more than just sheer laughter. ‘Against common beliefs, laughing is actually very tiring. One session lasts from 60 to 90 minutes, and 10 minutes of laughter equals 30 minutes of rowing, so you can’t do it continuously for very long. But laughing as much as you can is not the whole idea. It’s also a great workout. By the end of the class everyone is dripping with sweat,’ Kuosa explains.
Laughter yoga enables us to rediscover that childlike ability to feel joy.
In Jason’s book he shares that the average preschooler laughs 450 times a day versus the average adult, who laughs just fifteen times a day. I don’t know about you but when I heard this I was embarrassed to be an adult. I believe that statistic. As adults we are always looking for fun (and easy) ways to improve our health and reduce stress.
Laughing has two major effects on your body. It makes you produce endorphins, hormones that make you feel good, and it lowers your stress hormone levels, which reduces tension and relaxes you.
I think I’ll start laughing my way to a healthier life. Sounds like fun.
I’ve been thinking all week about that statistic that a preschool laughs 450 times a day. I can’t believe that it can be true. The average preschool sleeps 14 hours a day (nights and naps, or at least should). That leaves 10 hours awake. That’s 45 laughs an hour, which is nearly once a minute. I have never seen a child laughing all day long! And my baby is the happiest baby we’ve ever met and laughs an awful lot. But not all day long. The only way I could see it possibly working, and even that would be doubtful, is if a “laugh” is defined as a small percentage of a laughing event. So someone who giggles “hee hee hee hee” in a second would be counted as having laughed 4 times. But the average person would think of that as one laugh, not four. (Let’s say the average preschooler only gets 10 hours of sleep, that’s still 32 laughs per hour which is every other minute. Still more than I can imagine being true.)
So….can you back this up or send me to a research study? I’m amazed, but maybe it’s true!
I googled the statistic and it came up all over the place. Some of them that I found did mention laughing and smiling together. I emailed a Laughologist from Washington who put a similar statistic in an article, asking her about the research study. I’ll let you know when/if I hear back from her.
Having a degree in Early Childhood Education has allowed me to spend quite a bit of time with three and four year olds. I have to say, I believe these numbers. I know you mentioned you have a baby, but babies are a whole different breed. Preschoolers just see things through a different lense. The main point of these numbers is to help us adults see how far we have wandered from our childlike spirits. Whether it’s measuring a small percentage of a laughing event or the whole laughing event, us adults are still falling very short.