Laughing yoga, the best medicine

Laughter's good for the soul, and is beneficial health-wise. Doctor Madan Kataria, from Mumbai, asserts that a good giggle in conjunction with the power of yoga has a remarkably positive effect on well-being.

Madan Kataria: "When you laugh, your immune system gets stronger, you don't fall sick so you're more healthy. Laughing together with other people we become happy."

Believing in the health-enhancing gains that laughter brings, Dr Kataria has founded a "laughter yoga" practice, an approach blending laughter's energising force with the discipline of yogic breathing, or "pranayama".

Madan Kataria: "Laughter yoga is a unique concept where anyone can laugh without using jokes, humour or comedies. We laugh as an exercise, combined with the breathing techniques from yoga that brings more oxygen that makes you more healthy and happy."

At the "Bali Happidemic" - a colossal laughing yoga event on the eponymous Indonesian island - over 11,000 participants laughed their socks off in unison.

In line with many foreign devotees, Elke Seesing deems the long trip from Germany worth making for the uplift.

Elke Seesing: "If you are laughing that happens a lot in your body, a lot of hormones get in action, you're feeling better, everything rises, and it makes you a better mood."

Evidence from clinical research in India and the US has confirmed that a hearty giggle or guffaw lowers blood pressure and also levels of stress hormones like epinephrine and cortisol.

What's unique about Kataria's practice is that a user isn't dependent on hearing a corny joke to set them off! By regulating breathing and focusing on laughter, it's feasible to exploit the technique, for example during stressful periods. A mere 10-15 minutes of regular practice per day is sufficient to arm users with the tools to counter tension, as Lilis Wardani, a fraught homemaker can vouch.

Lilis Wardani: "Now my mind is wide open, even during the most difficult situation. Everything feels easier to bear and I become more easy-going to live my life with my family."

One interviewer who spoke to Ms Seesing was curious about the challenges of laughing on cue, however.

Journalist: "One last question, can you laugh?"

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