Laughter Yoga

Laughter Yoga practitioners lead a group of about 40 people in an hour of laughing in New York City’s Riverside Park. Dr. Madan Kataria, a Mumbai, India, physician, thinks one of the keys to fighting stress and depression is laughter. So he started the first laughter club in 1995, and has since taken them around the world. Participants start sessions, which normally last 30 minutes, with yoga breathing, then move to fake laughter exercises, accompanied by simple actions, such as acting like a lion. According to Dr. Kataria, the idea is to “fake it, until you make it.” The forced laughter becomes real, and participants come away energized by the experience.