You're reading: Laughing your way to health

Ukrainians have a proverb: “Laughter without a reason is a sign of a fool.” But for Owjan Shahmiri, a Persian immigrant who has lived in Ukraine for 13 years, laughter without a reason is a relief from modern-day stresses and a cure for body and soul.

Moreover, Shahmiri teaches others to use laughter to combat everyday challenges and stay fit – he set up Kyiv’s only laughter yoga class, a practice of self-triggering fake laughter.

Despite the fact that laughing yoga is gaining fans around the world, such teachings are often viewed with suspicion in Ukraine. “Laughing without an excuse to them [skeptical Ukrainians] appears pointless and silly,” he says.

But the 39-year-old professional laugher has been serious about the movement since he learned about it from an Indian friend in Mumbai. “Since I was a child, a genuine laugh has been easy for me,” says Shahmiri, who has expressive dark eyes and a commanding presence as well as a light-hearted personality.

In 2007, he decided to go to India and study with the world’s leading laughing yoga teacher, Madan Kataria, or the Giggling Guru, as his followers call him. Kataria, a physician from Mumbai, introduced laughter as a natural way to cure the pains of body and spirit. Those brave or curious enough to try it often are rewarded with significant psychological and physical benefits, he says.

Fans claim thousands of followers in nearly 70 countries and say science backs them up. They quote doctors as saying that the human body gets four times more oxygen through laughter than through ordinary breathing and that laughter helps to push out the stale air that gets compressed in the lungs. Laughter also decreases cortisol, the stress hormone causing heart attacks, and secretes endorphins, the hormones of happiness.

Laughing, Shahmiri says, also burns more calories per hour than running. “It’s like putting on rosy glasses to see the world,” says Shahmiri. Some corporate offices and universities have even applied laughing yoga as a motivational technique uniting staff and establishing a warm atmosphere.

With an instructor’s certificate in hand, Shahmiri started pitching the technique to Kyiv’s traditional yoga studios. He created the website www.ukrlaughter.com.
Some have embraced it.

Ivan Yakovlev, a 31-year-old salesman, got curious after watching a clip online, and thought he could use the help opening up and getting rid of insecurities. “After laughing yoga exercises, everything becomes less serious. The feeling is similar to a light euphoria,” says Yakovlev.

However, Anna Mykhaylova, a yoga instructor with seven years of experience, thinks differently. “I don’t find laughing yoga very interesting, although its mechanism is effective in helping one immerse in the state of peace and harmony,” says Mykhaylova.

Sharmiri thinks more will see it his way. “Through laughter, we lose our inhibitions and break the barriers constructed by shame, guilt, or other insecurities,” he says. “In a way, laughter liberates us.”

Classes begin with breathing exercises followed by students playfully pushing each other around for laughts, imitating a “packed marshrutka [mini-bus]” or a “lion’s roar.” Often in pairs, they clap, shake hands, and jump.

A half-hour into the class, compulsory laughter tends to become contagious and irresistible.

The similarities between laughing yoga and traditional stretch-based hatha yoga are few, except for practicing controlled breathing. In laughing yoga, there are no mats, no stretching and little physical strain. Moreover, while traditional yoga is a solitary mediation, laughing yoga is a social activity.

“Laughter is the language that connects everybody,” explains salesman Yakovlev.

Shahmiri says that there are typically more women in his classes than men. Women are generally considered to be more emotional and comfortable in various social settings, while men tend to be more aggressive and resistant to expressing emotion.

Kyiv Post staff writer Mariya Manzhos can be reached at [email protected]