Life-changing for a 70-year-old Laughter Volunteer
Dorothy, one of our volunteers, trained as a Laughter Yoga leader in her 70s. She said this about the laughter activities:
“It turned my life right around. It came to me at a time when I had lost 2 family members. I found it has helped me with pain relief from arthritis, and it stopped me from dropping into depression, which I could easily have done. I still have osteoarthritis. But now I don’t suffer from it. I don’t take any painkillers. I don’t need to. I used to have lots of back pain, a lot of joint pain, and the laughter really has helped relieve that. It also helps with depression. I lost my husband and my daughter. The laughter is uplifting, joyful, childlike. It doesn’t put any pressure on anyone to do things they don’t want to do. You just sit back and watch others and join in if you feel like it, or not if you don’t. It is a bonding. It is social glue. It brings together people who wouldn’t otherwise meet each other.”
A GP Trying Their First Laughter Session
Dr Philip Dawson attended our session at the Royal College of GPs’ annual conference. He then ran his own session! Here is his feedback.
“I just wanted to email you to say that I have run my first Laughter therapy session today as a result of your session for the RCGP in October last year. I enjoyed your session and copied it for the old ladies in the church. It was the first time I had heard 20 x 80-year-old ladies give a primaeval scream! En masse, with hearing aids disconnected, it was a truly frightening sound! Thank you for inspiring me to run a session. I had never heard of Laughter therapy till last year. All the elderly ladies left with a smile or a laugh on their faces. I was surprised at what a physical workout it was! All the ladies got the idea of what was going on from scratch and wanted to try it again. They have all been practising in the mirror. And found it an incredible stress buster and pain reliever. They will find it much easier to fold into another session! Thank you for opening my eyes after 30 years in general practice.”
GP’s Consultation With an Anxious Child
After a laughter session for GPs in Manchester, we handed out small smiley toys to all the doctors. A while later, Dr Avril Danczac sent in this:
“I thought I would give you some follow-up from your session that you did here before Christmas. I have my little smiley ball hanging near my exam couch, where it mostly just gets in the way (although it reminds me to relax), but it came into its own with a very anxious child the other day. Unfortunately, she needed to have an unpleasant procedure done…her dad was there and we were trying to reassure her. Then I “pinged” the smiley man at her and she giggled and we were able to proceed in a quite different way. We got the exam done, but she also started making jokes about some other things too, so thanks… an unexpected bonus.”
