What is happiness? Yales professor Laurie Santos talks about two kinds of happiness: "happiness in your life" and "happiness with your life". The first one means that we are experiencing a lot of positive emotions in our lives and the second one means that we are satisfied with our life as a whole.
According to research, important components of happiness are living in the present moment, having good-quality relationships, being grateful and doing work that makes one feel purposeful.
Laughter Yoga can make you feel happier in your life
Research shows that laughter creates in the body a positive mix of hormones: serotonin and endorphin levels increase and the cortisol, the stress hormone, level goes down. Serotonin is a feel-good hormone that makes us feel happy, while endorphin helps us to deal with pain in a better way.
In Laughter Yoga we do laughter stimulating exercises. Laughter might feel fake at the beginning, but if we allow ourselves to feel weird and we persist, laughter becomes more and more real. Research has shown that the body cannot distinguish between true and fake laughter, therefore we get all the benefits, even though we are stimulating it at first.
"I always feel happy after the Laughter Yoga sessions with Valentina" Agneta
Laughter Yoga can make you feel happier with your life
Being happy with our life depends on some factors, for example being in the present moment, the quality of our relationships or the pursuit of meaningful goals.
Laughter brings us into the present moment
Remember a beautiful laughter that you had maybe with family or friends or in your work team. Were you in the present moment during the laughter and after the laughter or were you in your mind? I bet that you answered the first.
Laughter calms our incessant mental chatter and welcomes us into the present moment. Living in the present moment and savoring reality is one of the components that makes us happy.
Laughter Yoga improves our relationships
When we are constantly in our head worrying, not in the present moment and weighting our words because of fear of being judged, can we truly connect to someone or will we just try to fit in?
When we do not feel comfortable in our own skin, therefore we do not feel comfortable in being ourselves, can we truly be ourselves with someone else?
Laughter Yoga lays the foundations for successful relationships
"Laughter Yoga is just so liberating! After the sessions with Valentina I feel so relaxed and balanced, strong and calm inside." Loredana
Laughter allows us to be ourselves in any shape and form
David Richo, PhD and psychotherapist, author of “How to be an adult in relationships” indicates that allowing the partner to be themselves is one of the most important components of a successful love relationship. If we do not allow ourselves to be just the way we are, how can we fully allow our partner to be just the way he/she is? When we laugh, we learn to feel comfortable in our own skin and to allow ourselves to be just the way we are. From this place of allowing ourselves to be just the way we are, we can then accept our partners more fully.
Laughter allows us to feel happy and this increases our kindness and humanity
Sometimes when we are in pain and dissatisfied with our lives, we become more self-absorbed and focused only on our needs. When instead we create this beautiful inner state with Laughter Yoga, we have first filled our cup and from this place of abundance, we can truly be there for our loved ones and genuinely be interested in them as a person and in their problems. From this place of inner satisfaction and wholeness, we can be better friends, partners, team members and parents.
Laughter Yoga helps us in our career
In order to be happy with our lives, we need to be spending time in purposeful pursuits. Our best work requires energy, creativity and problem solving. Let us see how Laughter Yoga can help us to develop those traits.
Laughter Yoga can give you more energy to execute on your goals
Laughter is a long exhalation and with Laughter Yoga we can learn to breathe deeper and to get more oxygen to our brain. As a result we have more energy.
"A laughter-linked lack of focus appears to allow our minds to juggle and connect concepts in a way that rigid concentration does not" John Kounios at Drexel University and Mark Beeman from Northwestern University
Laughter Yoga can help you be more creative and solution-oriented
John Kounios at Drexel University and Mark Beeman from Northwestern University investigated how problem-solving was affected by laughter. They showed that laughing at comedy clips increased puzzle-solving by 20%. Harvard professor Teresa Amabile has spent her career studying what makes us most productive. She claims that a stress-filled work environment does not foster creativity, but rather kills it. Laughter Yoga decreases the stress level, therefore helps to tune into the most resourceful and creative part of ourselves.
What can you do to feel happier today?
Laughter Yoga represents a simple doorway to happiness and a more fulfilling life. Do you want to try it out?
Join my Joy Superhero Laughter Yoga club. Send me an email: valentina@valentinafermanelli.com
Do you want to feel happier with and in your life? Then you might want to join my exclusive signature journey, The Buddha lab.
Have you not yet downloaded: "5 steps to Happiness in Corona time"? Download it now here. If you have downloaded it, keep implementing the steps suggested in the guide.