PUPPETS AT LAUGHTER CLUB

The Lansing Laughter Club made an important discovery this week: laughter club sessions can be conducted entirely with puppets! It just so happened that my car got stuck on a patch of ice in another part of town right as laughter club was about to begin. So as I was laughing and making arrangements to get pushed out, the club met without me. They saw that I had left a big basket of puppets out for the meeting.

Now typically, when we've used puppets for laughter club, we've done one exercise called "puppet laughter." It's simple—everyone puts a puppet on their hand and mingles around laughing their puppets with one another. But this time, the club got creative and decided to do the whole meeting with puppets.

So many laughter exercises can be adapted to use with puppets. Examples are:

• The Wave—the puppets themselves are thrown into the air as the laughter wave is done

• Subway Laughter—the puppets crowd right up together and laugh hysterically as if they were on a crowded subway

• Bumper Car Laughter—the puppets ram into each other and bump around like they are bumper cars

• Static Electricity Laughter—the puppets try very deviously to shock each other with laughter

• Wide Mouth Laugh—the puppets open their mouths totally wide and laugh (puppets can do this much better than humans)

• Library Laughter—the puppets sneak around and quietly laugh together, trying not to get caught

• Drop Dead Laughing—the puppets flop down and roll around, pounding the floor and laughing out of control (even worse than the Tickle-Me-Elmo doll)

Furthermore, the puppets seem to love speaking in gibberish and laugh heartily at the gibberish jokes the other puppets tell. And, we found, they are excellent yoga breathers, as they breathe with their whole selves.

Now as you can see by the photo above, folks in the Lansing Laughter Club have no problem with shyness. But this little puppet experiment made me realize that using puppets more extensively for Laughter Yoga sessions with certain groups would work well. It allows people to be more confident about doing the silly laughter exercises because they feel it's not not them doing the laughing, it is their puppet. It helps them to play the character of a laugher instead of having to jump right in and be a laugher, particularly if this is a new role for them. It provides a back door to playfulness.

So we encourage you to get some puppets and get laughing! Even old socks will do—as long as they're not stinky. Ha ha ha!

GUTTENBERG PRESS ARTICLE

Laughter is the best medicine
By Becky Hefel, Freelance Writer


If laughter is the best medicine then Laughter Yoga instructor Pastor Laura Gentry is a very healthy woman. She doesn’t tell jokes or do stand up comedy but her classes indeed create laughter.

Once a week, for thirty minutes, Pastor Laura leads participants at Lansing’s Laughter Club in laughter exercise and deep breathing. She also takes her laughter on the road to hospitals, businesses, schools, churches and other facilities. “When you laugh with someone you connect,” says Pastor Laura. “Laughter is contagious, it makes you feel good, is exercise and just plain fun.”

Laughter Yoga originated with Dr. Madan Kataria, a medical doctor from Mumbai, India. He stumbled upon the research proving that laughter decreases stress hormones, improves immune systems and boosts endorphins, the brain chemicals responsible for positive moods.

Field-testing the effects of laughter upon himself, Dr. Kataria started a small laughter club with just five people in 1995, which has now grown to 5000 clubs in 55 countries. Laughter Yoga is based on two principles: You can laugh for no reason, your body can’t tell the difference between real laughter and fake laughter.

Pastor Laura first became aware of Laughter Yoga from a documentary. Later, as she was writing an article for a national women's publication about the benefits of living a joy-filled life, she decided to research it further. This took her to California where she studied under Dr. Kataria and received her teaching certification.

Gentry especially likes working with children. “They respond so quickly and without self-consciousness,” she said. “But the beauty of Laughter Yoga is that we all become childlike and develop a sense of joy within.”

Gentry said she has had many positive results from teaching these classes because everyone can do the ‘exercises’ and feel the immediate benefit from them. “There is no age limit to laughter,” she explains. She goes on to further explain some of the health benefits, “Studies have recently shown that laughter can reduce the risk of heart disease by fifty percent and one minute of Laughter Yoga raises your heart rate to an equivalent of ten minutes on an exercise bike.”

In April, Pastor Laura took part in an Oprah show presentation of Laughter Yoga with other instructors from Chicago and was recently invited to be part of a peace- making conference in Jordan for the millions of Iraqi refugees fleeing their war torn country.

Pastor Laura has many local connections, her mother is from Guttenberg and she was ordained at St. John’s Lutheran church as well as officiated there for her sister’s wedding. She loves Guttenberg and has many fond memories of visiting her grandparents here as a child. She now makes her home in Marquette with her husband, William.

If you would like to find out how to sponsor or attend a Laughter Yoga class or become an instructor, check out Pastor Laura’s ad in this week’s Press. She is a delightful, energetic young woman who inspires people to bring fun and joy to everyday life.

Pastor Laura Gentry definitely practices what she preaches.

Published in the Guttenberg Press
August 29, 2007

To find other articles about the Laughter Yoga work of Laura Gentry, visit the Press & Testimonials page.

DES MOINES REGISTER ARTICLE

If you want a good laugh, join the club

Iowa members hope there are health perks to be found
from being in stitches.

By MARY CHALLENDER
REGISTER STAFF WRITER

If you want to finish off Wednesday in a good mood, head to Lansing.

The local Laughter Club is holding its sixth meeting. For half an hour, residents of this northeast Iowa river town will participate in a series of exercises guaranteed to make even the most dour person giggle and guffaw.

"The first time, I laughed so hard I had to sit down," said Avis Davis, 60, unleashing a boisterous chortle just at the memory.

"The time goes bam. You get to giggling and it's gone. It feels so ... oh honey, you just come home feeling like, woo, you really feel good. It makes your whole evening."

The group - apparently the only one of its kind in Iowa - is led by the Rev. Laura Gentry of Our Savior's Lutheran Church.

Gentry said she first heard about the Laughter Club concept, which began in India and has spread from Bahrain to Brazil, from a BBC series called "The Human Face" and couldn't stop thinking about it.

Finally, last year, she approached her church council with a proposal: What if the council members paid her way to Los Angeles over Thanksgiving weekend so she could become a certified laughter leader?

Not surprisingly, they thought it was pretty funny.

"It sounds so silly," Gentry, 36, said. "I didn't experience any resistance. As soon as I got back for my council report, I made them do some laughter exercises. They were sold."

That a sense of humor has serious health benefits is something scientists have been saying for a long time.

Studies in the emerging field of gelatology (the study of humor) indicate laughter improves the function of blood vessels, boosts the immune system, reduces levels of stress hormones, makes people feel more hopeful and may help prevent heart disease.

The problem? Adults tend to be a pretty humorless lot.

The average adult, according to a study by researchers at the University of Western Ontario, only laughs about 17 times a day.

In 1995, Dr. Madan Kataria, a general practice physician in Bombay, India, set out on a mission to raise the public hilarity level.

He collected a bunch of funny stories and began leading group giggle sessions. Within a week, he was out of material.

His solution was simple: Why not just have club members pretend to find things funny?

Using yoga as a guide, Kataria created a series of laughter "exercises" that mimicked the physical attributes of side-splitting merriment without the jokes.

The concept proved infectious, and Laughter Yoga International (www.laughteryoga.org) now boasts more than 5,000 laughter clubs in more than 40 countries.

Although the Lansing Laughter Club is the only Iowa group listed on the organization's Web site, a Quad Cities-area Laughter Club meets in Illinois.

Gentry said the Lansing group, which is free and open to the public, draws as many as three dozen people a week, some from as far as Waukon, 15 miles away. The club has outgrown the church, she said, and next week will move to the Kerndt Brothers Community Center.

In Lansing, club sessions always begin with a greeting exercise. Members exchange handshakes, make eye contact, then laugh in each other's faces. As the night progresses, they may find themselves popping imaginary laughter pills, soaring around the room with their arms extended like laughing airplanes, or snickering like they're in a library and trying not to get caught.

If it all sounds rather, well, childish, that's the point, Gentry said.

"It's playful, and adults just don't get opportunities to play very often," she said. "It's a safe place I can come and be goofy for half an hour, and I don't have to be self-conscious."

The laughter may be a bit forced at first, but watching the expressions on the faces of other participants soon has them cracking up for real, participants say.

In fact, some members report guffawing so hard their muscles ached.

"When you get home sometimes, you're kind of sore in the bottom of your rib cage and your cheeks are sore," said Janet McMillan, who makes the weekly drive from Waukon with her husband, Gary Jones. "I just love it."

Gentry said she warns people that Laughter Yoga is vigorous exercise and chairs are on hand for people who need a break.

"No one's ever died from it, but it would be a good way to go," she said. "I think the bigger risk is not laughing."

Gentry has personal experience on that score. As a high school senior, she said, she was so stressed out she had to take prescription ulcer medicine.

The pain went away in college as she became immersed in dorm life and new friends.

"That's when I kind of made a life decision - I'm a laugher," she said.

Gentry hopes the Laughter Club will help people in Lansing develop more meaningful connections with each other and create a more harmonious community.

At the end of each meeting, she said, participants engage in heart-to-heart laughter. They hold hands, or hug, and laugh together.

"I hope it's going to make Lansing a more loving town," Gentry said. "A laughing loving town."



Reporter Mary Challender can be reached at (515) 284-8470 or mchallender@dmreg.com

Copyright © 2005, The Des Moines Register.

This article appeared on the front page of the Des Moines Register on February 6, 2007

For more press on Laughing Laura, visit the Press & Testimonials page.