Lesley Lyle - Laugh your way to happiness : the science of laughter for total well-being

To all members of the New Forest Laughter Club, thank you for sharing the laughter and the joy. To Dr Kataria and all those who continue to spread the sound of laughter around the world. And especially for Iain.

It has become a rarity today to see someone smile and laugh with gay abandon. It seems as if people have forgotten how to laugh. In this competitive high-pressure and high-tension world, laughter is fast disappearing and people are succumbing to daily stressors that relentlessly rob them of the ability to laugh.

In my quest to find a solution to put the smile back on peoples faces, I walked different paths before creating Laughter Yoga. Laughter Yoga proved to be a panacea for all negativity. It is indeed the best prescription for good health and happiness. A daily dose of laughter is the one solution that has the power to unwind stress and uplift joy; the power to slow down a racing heart and strengthen the mind; the power to raise the spirit and fend off pessimism and all this in an instant. Sounds crazy, but works like magic! It is, in fact, natures most creative and complete way to keep healthy and safe.

For centuries, laughter was referred to as the best medicine for body and mind, but never was there a reliable delivery system. Laughter was simply the end result of entertainment or amusement, but Laughter Yoga has taken laughter to a new level. It is a complete delivery system, allowing laughter to actually be prescribed as part of a daily routine in order to realize all of its health benefits. It enables everyone to laugh, even those who are serious, introverted and uncomfortable being funny. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that laughter could be as simple as that just laugh, because we can!

The benefits of laughter are numerous in all facets of life personal, professional and social. Laughter, backed by countless evidence-based studies, is being practised not only as a fitness exercise but also as a therapeutic tool to control chronic diseases such as depression, hypertension, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis and migraines.

This wonderful book by Lesley is not just about learning Laughter Yoga: it will teach you how to bring laughter fully into your life and use it optimally to enhance your well-being. But remember, the secret is to share your laughter with everyone around you. If you are happy, but people around you are not happy, they will not allow you to stay happy. Therefore, it is imperative to bring happiness to others in order to become happy yourself.

Lesley is doing a great job of sharing her joy and laughter with everyone she meets. An airline professional, she travels around the world spreading the word of love and laughter and connecting with other laughter leaders to generate awareness about the significance and value of laughter in peoples life.

This book will help you understand how unconditional laughter helps you get in touch with your true self and spiritual nature. The narration of Lesleys personal experiences is inspiring and will help you keep your spirits high despite the challenges of life. This book will teach you to shift your perspective through laughter so that you can navigate your life in a better way and discover the benefits of laughter for body, mind and spirit.

I thank Lesley for her inspired contribution to bringing more laughter into peoples lives.

And remember: keep laughing and smiling it really can change your life ha ha ha!

Dr Madan Kataria
Bangalore, 2013

Lesley Lyle is a certified Laughter Yoga teacher who uses laughter therapeutically in her work as a coach, facilitator trainer and consultant. She has a DipHe in Clinical Hypnosis and was trained in Laughter Yoga by its founder, Dr Kataria. Lesley is also a qualified NLP Practitioner and Stress Management Trainer. It was Lesleys insistence on focusing on peoples solutions instead of their problems that led her to learn about Positive Psychology Training and enrol on MAPP (Master in Applied Positive Psychology) to become a Positive Psychologist herself. Lesley now practices hypnotherapy and happiness consultations in clinics in Harley Street and New Forest.

The key to happiness is to start where you are right now, today. From there we can learn to adopt the habits that make us feel happier and more resilient. Whether you laugh because you are happy or laugh to become happy really doesnt matter, the outcome is still the same.

Id like to thank the people who have helped me to find my way to here and provided me with support and encouragement. My family (Iain, Bernard, June, Tim, Ben, Katy) and the family I have come to know at Watkins Publishing (in particular, Sandra, Francesca, Deborah, Lydia, Vicky and Stephen) and the people who inspire me through their work of NLP, Stress Management, Clinical Hypnosis, Laughter Yoga and Positive Psychology.

A day without laughter is a day wasted.

Charlie Chaplin

If there is a route to increased health and happiness, then I believe that laughter is the superhighway!

This has been my experience and one I have shared with countless people around the world who have also discovered that the power of laughter brings about positive change. Research has shown that people who frequently laugh and smile are likely to enjoy a higher income, have better relationships and better health, live longer and are regarded as more attractive by others. They feel happy. The aim of this book is to show you how you too can discover the power of laughter to change your life.

My starting point and inspiration has been the work of Dr Madan Kataria, the Indian GP who founded Laughter Yoga and invented the concept of laughing for no reason. Rather than relying on humour and comedy for laughter, which we may not encounter every day, Dr Kataria found that laughing as an exercise is just as effective and may actually be even more effective than mere humour. This is because participants are able to engage in extended, hearty laughter that provides maximum health benefits. The most important element of Laughter Yoga is that it is based on the scientific fact that the body does not know the difference between fake and real laughter. As long as you do laughter exercises with willingness, they will provide the same physiological and psychological benefits as a real laugh. In practice, as laughter exercises are carried out in a group where there is lots of eye contact, authentic laughter is almost guaranteed because laughter is so infectious.

This book is about laughter, not about humour. The distinction between the two is that humour requires something or somebody to make you laugh, like a joke, comedy or a funny situation. I do not dismiss the value of therapeutic humour and there is some wonderful work being done across the world where humour is used as an intervention to promote health and wellness for example, therapeutic clowns working in hospitals and other organizations. However, in this book I look at what is often called unconditional laughter. It is the sort of laughter that is always available for you to access as long as you are willing to allow yourself to laugh for no reason, whether you are with others or on your own. Of course, once you get into the habit of laughing for no reason, you may find that you are more easily amused and your sense of humour develops, but to begin with, you just need to be willing to fake it till you make it.