Haha here, heehee there...

Laughter was all the rage this spring. First there was the 1st National Sponsored Laugh-a-thon in London, then there was the Cheltenham Science Festival.

At the Laugh-a-thon, hosted by Mind Body Spirit Festivals, 50 people gathered to practice their ‘sustained chuckle’, and we were delighted to be joined by Matthew Jay Lewis from Hollyoaks.

He and his mum came and were enthusiastic players.

We started with a lighthearted yet vigorous laughter workout where we used Laughter Yoga techniques with others devised in the Bristol Laughter Club and the Laughter Network. We became progressively less British - you know, cut off, unexpressive, stiff upper lip, and more, well, European – expressive, spontaneous, even verging on the flamboyant.

Fortunately everyone was able to retreat to their Britishness every so often so they could regroup and remind themselves of their roots! We stimulated our laughter reflex, remembered what it felt like, practiced it lots, and finally settled down to two good long sustained chuckles which lasted almost an hour.

This event was also a fundraiser, and we raised almost 3000 for the British Heart Foundation, were filmed by BBC news and were broadcast to a few million viewers that evening. Not bad for a first!

This momentum carried over to the Cheltenham Science Festival where the theme had been picked up by Professor Kathy Sykes who wanted it on her ‘stress’ panel. The audience here numbered well over 100, listened closely to Angela Patmore’s effective debunking of the stress industry, including her dramatic flourish when she unrolled this list of 300+ conflicting definitions of stress! From then we moved on to the Positive Psychology aspect of laughter and the Norman Cousins healing power of laughter story, and the audience decided they were up for a go. They had taken onboard that first, it was good for them; second, that they enjoyed it!; and third, they probably didn’t do it enough. So almost, not entirely Kathy assured me with a chuckle, the audience took part in a classic Ted Heath chuckle, shoulders bouncing up and down vigorously, and because they were so game, we decided to ramp it up a bit. So, here was this 100+ audience, average age 65+, sitting with their shoulders bobbing up and down chortling away, and then they turned and shared this chuckle with people either side. Oh! lala! This was the heart of merrie ing-ur-land, and yet they loved it. So did Kathy who won plaudits for this panel and apparently it was referred to glowingly all week.

Joe Hoare is a laughter facilitator and a healer member of the nfsh. His clients range from bluechip companies to voluntary organizations. He can be contacted on 07812 159 943 or at joe.hoare@laughternetwork.co.uk.