Laughter

We had a strange session earlier today in the office.

At was Renee's brainchild after she met Jo Bluett, whose business card lists her job title as 'Laughter Consultant.'

I think you can probably see where this is going.

Monday morning, the team turns up for work and Jo turns up right behind them.  We stand in a circle and Jo explains a little bit about Laughter Yoga and the science (which is fascinating) behind it.

For example, most people have heard of endorphins, the body's natural happy drug.

Did you know, though , endorphins can help lower blood pressure, slow the onset of early Alzheimer's disease and are natural stress busters?

And one of the best ways to release endorphins into the body is through laughter... and it doesn't even have to be natural laughter, it can be faked. You still get the same benefits.  Graham Eden from Contempo Lettings who rents a desk with us and was roped in to the session, asked me sotto voce whether it was the same with an orgasm, but I didn't know.

So, picture the scene if you will.  We're in the conservatory bit of our office with four massive windows.  Or to put it another way: with no-where to hide: yes, those big windows you can see on the corner.

With people standing at the bus stop, driving and walking past all looking at us or trying to ignore what was going on.  The strange thing was, when they saw what we were doing, lots of them started smiling, too.

We're standing in a circle and Jo takes us through a series of exercise that all involve laughter... and singing and being silly.

So, for example, Jo wanted us to walk up to everyone else and (if they were a lady) say: 'You are the most incredible Goddess.'  If you were a bloke, it was the same, only 'You are the most incredible God.'  And in response we had to say 'Thank you.'

I have to say there was a fair bit of self consciousness to start with, not least from me, but think about it for a minute.  As Jo said, 'How many times do we pay others compliments, even when we see them doing something incredible (or even something just plain 'good')?  And then the other side of the coin, when we're paid a compliment, how often do we belittle it?

'You look great today!'  'No I don't, I look fat!'

Anyway, even though self consciousness was the name of the day it didn't 'alf get people giggling to be forced to walk up to a colleague and saying 'You really are the most incredible Goddess.'

There were several more exercises based around movement, breathing and laughing.  It has to be said, Andy was the star of the show.  Once Jo started him off he just couldn't stop himself laughing and we all followed suit.  His laughs were very big and very genuine... as he said afterwards: 'I love to laugh'.

I for one, would have thought Andy was a little less extrovert, so I'm really glad I got to see him chortling!

The upshot of all this were very many red faces in the office, quite a lot of pointing from passers by, but also an awful lot of laughing, too.  Some of it was even natural.

As a result I'm going to try laughing a little more... I might do it where no-where can see me to start with, though!

You can find out more about Jo and how she helps people by visiting her website: www.laughterforhealth.co.uk