Parkinson's: Laughter Yoga

Guest Post by Steven Deal

husband, care partner and laughter partner to Nancy Mellon. 

Laughter Yoga (LY) for Parkinson’s Disease (PD)

Nancy 

During my pre-teen years, I was a huge (as huge as a runty pre-teen could manage) fan of the 1960’s Batman television show, I even remember appearing as Robin in a Cub Scout skit.

The special guest villains all had their version of the evil villain laugh. The two standouts,

however, were Frank Gorshin as the Riddler and Caesar Romero as the Joker. Mr. Gorshin had an insanely high-pitched cackle that he must have emitted throughout the entire week of shooting. Mr. Romeo laughed performed Ha, He, Hi, Ho, Hu’s incessantly through his takes. I remember thinking even as a youngster, ‘They must be exhausted from all that laugher.’

A couple weeks ago, Nancy and I attended the 2004 APDA Virtual Conference. Enter Laughter Yoga. I wasn’t laughing too hard when Nancy said she wanted us to attend that session. After all, what does laughter have to do with yoga? Well, Yoga as defined by Yogapedia, is a physical, mental and spiritual practice. It aims to create union between body, mind and spirit. I understand laughter’s connection with mind and body. What in the world does it have to do with spirit? According to Spiritpedia (there really is one), “the entire Creation is actually permeated by spirit. Spirit is energy.” I was still dubious about LY’s inclusion of the spirit dimension.
Laughter Yoga is an exercise program developed by Indian physician Dr Madan Kataria, the Laughter Guru. The premise is anyone can laugh without relying on humor, jokes or comedies. Your body can’t tell the difference between forced and real laughter. LY is practiced in more than 110 countries. There is even a United Nations Committee on LY with the acronym UNCLY (not really) At APDA, it was taught by Jessica Brustad -- improve and standup comedian, yoga instructor,
laughter yoga leader and Chief Fun Officer (CFO) of The Funny Yogi.
She demonstrated how laughter yoga satisfies the Yogapedia and Spiritpedia definitions. It unites body, mind and it requires and generates energy at the rate of sprinting respiration.
You can find Ms. Brustad’s APDA talk here. 

I’ll share a few highlights. She started by explaining the health benefits. Ten minutes of laughter is equal to 30 minutes of cardio for your heart (heart rate up=good for PD). Fifteen minutes equals to 120 minutes (two hours) of restful sleep (insomnia a common non-motor PD symptom). It’s no wonder Jessica has been called on to speak to PD organizations. Laughter boosts our immune system and lowers our stress and generates dopamine!
Jessica started by teaching us the LY refrain. Spread fingers and palms wide and clap twice while shouting, “VERY GOOD, VERY GOOD, YAY!” When we shouted “yay” we were instructed to wave our arms over our heads like an excited Kermit the Frog.

This refrain punctuated many different situational exercises during which we channeled the spirits of Gorshin and Romero. The refrain was followed by a short, calming meditation. The entire session amounted to about 15-20 minutes of glorious, exhausting, energizing hilarity during which the fake laughter became real in much the same way Pinocchio the puppet became a real boy.
In addition to the health benefits, we have found the refrain to have practical uses for common situations.
While participating in Jessica’s APDA session, we noted our energetic family members went out of their way to avoid the room we were in. Not exactly peace and quiet, I’ll admit, but we had no interruptions. The back stairs became amazingly popular during the presentation.
Over the weekend, we stayed at a bed and breakfast. Some of our fellow guests congregated with loud voices outside our room until they heard “VERY GOOD, VERY GOOD, YAY!” coming from our room. Things quieted quickly thereafter with a peace that continued until we left the next morning.
As The Batman said to the Joker, “Namaste.”

Footnotes from Corrine : omg the visuals  I have outside your door at the Airbnb 😂