Quote

“I have seen the softening of the hardest of hearts with a simple smile.”

Goldie Hawn

Photo: Wikimedia

Hyperventilation

What is hyperventilation? Simply breathing too much too fast thus taking in too much oxygen.

Like anything that’s good for you, too much is detrimental. Like drinking enough water every day. Drink too much and you’re in serious trouble.

Laughing is great for many reasons, one being it oxygenates the body. People can come to the laughter club tired and leave energized from all that oxygen.

But if you start to hyperventilate, you actually are loosing oxygen to the brain. It’s called Bohr’s Law. There is a point where the scales tip. If you take in too much oxygen, the oxygen binds too tightly to the hemoglobin and circulates in the body without being released. Thus you get light-headed from the lack of oxygen to the brain. Not a good thing.

When people come to the laughter club and end up this way, I always know they’ve got breathing problems, whether they know it or not. It’s always the people who go around with their mouths open. Not the correct way to breathe. Chronic hyperventilation. Then they come and laugh and it’s far too much oxygen.

Lesson for today: If you’re not talking, laughing, kissing, singing or eating, your mouth should be shut, so you’re breathing through your nose, the correct way to breath. Because your nose is 3 times smaller than your mouth, this correctly regulates the amount of oxygen you take in.

Photo: stock.xchnge

Lose Weight Laughing?

The oxtail stew at the Caribbean restaurant was so tenderly delicious it made my goat entrée seem a bit 2^nd rate, but just a bit. The dark greens at the Sicilian restaurant were swimming in an anchovy garlic broth that sent me into a spin of ecstasy. And the lamb shank at the Turkish restaurant, which the owner told us took 3 days to cook, was immersed in a sauce so amazing it was hard not to lick the plate.

I love to eat. Almost as much as I love to laugh. I consider it one of life’s greatest pleasures.

I’m a member of a fun, lively, prolific dinner group and I’m having a blast. But simultaneously I am shocked to discover I’ve outgrown some of my clothes. Refusing to become an overweight American, I need to do something quick to reverse this.

People sometimes ask me if it’s possible to lose weight laughing since laughter is aerobic exercise. I'll reference the one study done on this topic.

At Vanderbilt University in Nashville Dr. Buchowski found that a daily 15 minute laughter workout can burn 40 calories and melt away 4 pounds over one year.

But really I think it’s simply a matter of eating less and getting on the treadmill. That’s my plan.

Photo: Wikimedia: Hotei/Japanese Laughing Buddha

Quote

“A person without humor is like a wagon without springs – jolted by every pebble in the road.”

Henry Ward Beecher

Photo: Stock.xchnge

Laughing for a Living

When people ask me what I do for a living, I envy my friend Maurice who can answer “I’m an architect.” Solid. Basic. Respectful. Everyone can understand it.

But for me…. in fact when I sense the question is coming, I avoid eye contact or even change the subject.

Otherwise the banter goes something like this:

“What do you do for a living?”

“I laugh for a living.”

“Say what?”

“I lead programs on the Healing Power of Laughter.”

“the healing power of what?”

(this is where I begin to get aggravated, because I am speaking English)

“I lead programs on what’s called Laughter Yoga.”

“Oh yoga, I’ve practiced Vipassana Yoga for years. How long have you been a yoga teacher?”

Can I just lie and say I’m an architect?

Photo: Stock.xchnge

Is it Flirting or Is it Laughing?

In my life I have been accused of flirting too much, when in my mind all I have been doing is laughing.

So when they see perhaps their husbands laughing it up with me, it doesn’t always go over well.

Yet am I really the problem? Or is the problem that most people just don’t laugh nearly enough.

Statistics show that children laugh hundreds of times per day while adults only laugh a dozen or so times (on the average). Even more telling statistics show that in the 1950’s people laughed on the average for 18 minutes per day while in the 1990’s, for only 6 minutes per day. Not only have most people grown up and stopped laughing, our whole society has gotten far more serious. Something I seek to mend.

Back to laughing socially - I am actually pretty sensitive to when and how and with whom I am laughing, as well as how others are feeling about it. But perhaps others could also try a bit more, as Walt Disney said, to find their own laughing place.

Photo: Stock.xchnge

Walt Disney

“Everyone has a laughing place. Some people just don’t take the time to find it.”

Br’er Rabbit/Walt Disney

Photo: Wikimedia