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Happy therapy: Making sense of humour

The infectious benefits of having a giggle are spreading from
laughter clubs to hospitals

by John Naish

November 15 2003, 12:00am,The Times

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Whenever you encounter a bunch of people rolling about

hooting with laughter, you want to know one thing: whats the
joke? When theres no obvious reason, then you really want to
know. And if the laughers are clapping hands and giggling in a
distinctly mechanical manner . . . well, that can be positively
disturbing.

If Julie Whitehead is at the bottom of it, the answer is that there

simply is no joke. In fact, it could be deadly serious. Whitehead
is at the forefront of moves to bring laughter and happiness into
one of the great British bastions of misery, the National Health
Service.

You might have heard of Whiteheads movement Laughter

Yoga which was started in Bombay by an Indian doctor and
has spread to groups around Europe. You might, like me, have
dismissed it as a ditzy fad that would quietly go away once the
giggling had died down. But Whitehead is on a mission, and she
is not alone. Several groups and charities, involving comedians,
 coaches and clowns, are working with health service doctors
MENU tuesdaywho
may 30 2017
realise that joy and happiness play a deadpan therapeutic
role.
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Professor Duncan Geddes, a consultant in respiratory medicine

at the Royal Brompton Hospital, says, for example: Laughter is
an important medicine. It is an expression of happiness, and
happiness is good for all of us. It stimulates the bodys defences,
reduces pain and helps recovery from illness. Laughter therapy
is developing fast and new research is looking into the ways
that laughter happens, how it aects hormones, how it
stimulates the brain and how it makes us all healthier and
happier.

And, just as important for a cash-strapped health service, says

Whitehead, laughter is free, it has wonderful health benets
and there are no side-eects. It just doesnt make the
pharmaceutical companies very happy.

She adds: New research at Indiana State University compared

groups of people who watched either comedy lms or a boring
tourist lm, and found the group who laughed had their
immune system boosted by 40 per cent. Levels of the stress
hormone cortisol go down after laughing, and endorphins are
increased.

Whiteheads laughter sessions last around an hour and a

quarter. We start by clapping hands, and saying ho, ho ho, ha,
ha ha, while maintaining eye contact with each other. We also
do milk-shake laughter, where we say oooh, ohh, ooh, eee ee
eeh. Then there is the lion laugh, a yogic practice that involves
sticking out your tongue. Other exercises involve laughing
 higher and higher. This can all feel excruciatingly embarrassing,
MENU tuesdaybut
may the
30 2017
idea is that soon it should turn into real laughter. Fake
it, fake it, until you make it is our mantra, says Whitehead.
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She rst encountered laughter therapy three years ago, after 20

years teaching yoga. She was having a miserable time working
in an estate agency when she saw Dr Madan Kataria, the
laughter clubs creator, on television and contacted him. She set
up her rst session in Brixton for 200 people and has run
regular clubs for two years, in Clapham and Hackney, ever
since.

Kataria had rst tried using jokes, but jokes tend to have a taste
problem, and not everyone laughs at the same gag. He knew
only so many jokes, anyway, so instead the club uses simulated
laughter exercises it has the same physiological benets for
respiration and circulation. There is also a psychological side,
We encourage childlike openness it is about losing
inhibitions, and nding and creating reasons to laugh. We play
silly games and sing nursery rhymes, breaking down
inhibitions. It builds condence and helps you look people in
the eye, says Whitehead.

Which is perfectly nice for the inquisitive, open types who

congregate at the laughter clubs monthly open-air meeting on
Clapham Common, South London. But Whitehead is turning
her skills to health service users, and has started day-long
workshops with Carrie Graham, an NHS manager and life coach.

Already she has run sessions with groups with ME, with
diabetes groups through a local doctor, and with a southeast
London cancer group. Another laughter club is being held with
people with Alzheimers. Graham now uses it at NHS
conferences, by opening them with ten minutes of laughing. I
know I could make much more money at corporate events, but
that doesnt interest me, says Whitehead. The future is in
working therapeutically.
 Meanwhile, clown doctors are being introduced into British
MENU tuesdayhospitals
may 30 2017to make sick children laugh themselves back to health.
Cynics might say there are enough clowns in the NHS already,
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but these arent managers: they are trained entertainers who
perform magic tricks and show children how to juggle.

The rst two clown doctors were introduced to Great Ormond

Street childrens hospital, London, almost ten years ago. I toured
the hospital with them in the early days, and was amazed at
their warmth and depth of emotional generosity. It takes a lot to
bring joy to a building lled with sick children. The project has
proved a lasting success and now a team of nine clowns, funded
by the Theodora Childrens Trust, works in a growing number of
hospitals, entertaining about 27,000 children and their families
every year. Jokes, japery, balloon animals, magic, puppets and
singing are in the repertoire.

The clowns visit hospitals in London, Manchester, Brighton,

Cambridge, Southampton and Lingeld, two days a week. The
trusts next year-long training programme will qualify ten more
clowns to work with hospitals in Leeds, Sheeld and Cardi.
Theodoras executive director Joanie Speers, says: Bringing
clowns into hospital is like turning on a huge tap and letting the
tension all go hiss.

They are not the only health service humourists. Kate Hull
Rodgers has run workshops on humour and mental health for
more than a decade. These were a spin-o from her award-
winning play Cracked Up, which told her story of being a mental
health patient. During her year of being institutionalised, Kate
says she was chemically coshed and physically restrained. She
responded by creating her own programme of healing through
humour. Last month the comedienne opened a free event for
people recovering from mental health issues, Toolkit for
Recovery, in Morpeth, Northumberland, leading workshops on
eective laughter therapy.
 But its not all hee-hee, ha-ha, for pioneers of healthy humour.
MENU tuesdayWhen
may 30 2017
Roland Schutzbach and his partner, Christine Fleur de
Lys, the European Laughter Queen, tried to cheer up
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Aberdeen, the locals failed to see the gag.

Last month the pair took to the streets dressed in bright red-
and-orange wigs, Dame Edna glasses, huge ties and angel wings
wacky stu for two natives of Switzerland at the start of a
three-year mission to look for the laughter cities of Europe.
We hope to develop laughter schools and to coach them to
remain happy cities, Schutzbach says.

Schutzbach, who has worked with drug addicts, cancer victims

and people suering with depression, found the couples mirth-
inducing antics failed to tickle the Scots. Aberdeen is a dicult
case, he laments. People did not even look at us. They did not
laugh with us either.

Laughter Yoga clubs: www.laughteryoga.co.uk Theodora

Childrens Trust: www.theodora.org

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