World Laughter Day is on Sunday 5 May 2024.
This is the laughter yoga community’s global awareness day to promote laughter for health, happiness and peace through its daily practice.
But at a time when the world feels so heavy — what with heightened tensions in the Middle East (and let’s not forget the continually besieged Ukraine) and unimaginable violence on Australian home soil in recent days — World Laughter Day and all it stands for cannot come soon enough!
Here are three perhaps surprising ways in which laughter can actually add, not only to your health and happiness but to world peace.
We all laugh in the same language. Laughter is a universal language that bridges cultures and connects people. In our community laughter clubs, we build hubs of joy and compassion, kindness and unconditional love.
Laughter yoga is a body-mind practice in which we allow ourselves to ‘just laugh’ rather than respond to something funny or humorous. This in unconditional laughter. When we laugh in a laughter yoga session, it is more than a polite teehee. It is sustained long enough to actually alter our internal chemistry, uplifting our spirits and improving our sense of wellbeing.
Laughter enables SHIFT to happen. When we feel good inside, our perception of the world around us changes too. We may act and react differently to others. It starts within.
Some years ago, Laughter Yoga’s founder Dr Madan Kataria said: “when we laugh, we change and when we change, the way we look at the world changes too.”
Please on Sunday 5 May seek to look at the world through your giggle goggles by laughing for health, happiness and peace.
I will be hosting a special community laughter in the park session on World Laughter Day, starting at 10.30am, in Bicentennial Park, Woody Point. Overlooking beautiful Bramble Bay, looking over towards Brisbane CBD, we’ll be laughing for wellbeing seriously for about an hour.
If you’d like to come, please just show up. You’ll find me in the grassy open space just beyond the carpark and Parkour. This is a free community event although donation tins will be on hand to raise funds for The Breakfast Club Redcliffe, feeding the homeless and others who are disadvantaged.
(Wet weather contingency plan is in the Breakfast Club’s hall a few blocks away in Cornelius Street, Clontarf)
Joyfully
HeatherJoy Campbell
Laughter Yoga Trainer, Global Ambassador, Laughter Yoga International