If laughter is the best medicine, try laughter yoga

Feros Care villages are renowned for taking a positive approach to ageing, and their laughter yoga sessions are no exception.

Feros Care’s villages host laughter yoga each week, and residents are literally laughing themselves to wellness.

Laughter yoga is a joyous half hour of laughter breathing exercises, hand clapping, stretches, and deep breaths – all without a joke being told. Participants move their bodies to familiar tunes, smile, sing and laugh out loud.

A favourite tune of the residents is to swap the words of ‘Mamma’s little baby loves shortening, shortening’, to ‘Every little cell in my body is happy, every little cell in my body is swell’.

As the song ends and the words fade, faces remain lit up. Participants are positively radiant as they complete their fun healthful new exercise program that provides ‘sunshine on the inside’.

Laughter yoga was introduced to Feros by Cleo, one of Feros Care’s residents at Wommin Bay Village. Cleo said she wanted more laughter in her day, and told the Positive Living Team about a group of people she used to regularly see laughing under a huge Moreton Bay fig tree in Brisbane.

In typical Feros fashion, the Positive Living team researched this phenomenon and the enrolled in a laughter leader training program so they could ‘share the joy’. This was in November, and since then, the villages host weekly laughter yoga groups.

The benefits include residents doing gentle exercise and laughing all the way through. Laughter Yoga is a gentle and effective cardio workout that:

• increases blood circulation
• reduces blood pressure
• strengthens the immune system
• relaxes muscles
• energises body and brain.

Villages do laughter yoga group sessions as well as one-on-one sessions. This kind of yoga is ideal for everyone including people with dementia

So next time you think laughing is a joke, take a moment and remember – it’s simply good for your wellbeing.