Laugh your way to wellness with yoga

"Ho, ho, ha, ha, ha," students in a fitness class at the University of Michigan (U-M)Health System chant repeatedly while clapping their hands and walking around the room.

They're just getting warmed up. In the next half hour, they will stretch their muscles and work on breathing exercises. They'll also laugh for most of the 30 minutes, from self-conscious giggles to uninhibited belly laughs. All in the name of fitness.

This is a "laughter yoga" course, part of a growing trend in parts of the United States, India, and other countries. The students are re-learning something children already know instinctively: Laughter makes you feel better.

"Kids laugh about 400 times a day, and adults only about 15," notes Barb Fisher, a certified laughter yoga leader and the instructor of this class offered by the U-M Health System's MFit health promotion division. "Laughter is a gift that has been given to us to make us feel better."

Fisher teaches her students that not only is it fun to laugh, but that laughter yoga (also known as hasya yoga) can provide many health benefits:

• Helps to reduce stress
• Enhances the immune system
• Strengthens cardiovascular functions
• Oxygenates the body by boosting the respiratory system
• Improves circulation
• Tones muscles
• Helps with digestion and constipation

"Studies have shown that 20 seconds of a good, hard belly laugh is worth 3 minutes on the rowing machine," Fisher says. "However, that does not mean we want to stop doing all other exercises. It means that incorporating laughter yoga can add to the benefits we see from our regular exercise routine."

Like more traditional fitness classes, laughter yoga requires a warm-up period. Since students can't necessarily start a class prepared to break out into deep laughter, they begin with the clapping and chanting. Then they perform breathing exercises, followed by stretches and laughing games.