Laughing Matters

“HoHo HaHaHa.” Thus begins a conversation with Sandra Boris-Berkowitz about laughing yoga. In her interview on the Powerful Patient with Joyce Graff, Sandy discusses her evolution from care-giving educator to full-time laughing yoga leader.

Sandy taught deaf and blind children for 28 years.  After her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she began working as a caregiver educator, coaching caregivers for senior citizens.  As her mother’s condition worsened, she learned first-hand the importance of taking care of the caregiver, and adding joy and humor back into her own life.

While researching humor, she found a family doctor in India who uses laughter as a healing method. Laughter yoga is based on a simple truth that all children know: laughter makes you feel better. Children laugh about 400 times a day; adults laugh only about 15 times a day.

Dr. Madan Kataria got together with a group of people and told jokes.  After a week, they began to run out of jokes.  Some people complained about different aspects of the jokes -– too sexist, too racist, or simply not funny so Dr. Kataria removed the jokes. According to Dr. Kataria, “We started laughter as an exercise, and combine it with yoga breathing. When you laugh in a group it turns into real laughter until it becomes unstoppable, from your deep within. Anyone can laugh: no jokes, no humor, no comedy skills.” From the small group he started in 1995 there are now more than 6,000 laughter clubs in 60 countries.

For Sandy, laughter gave her something she could share with her mother. Even in the later stage of Alzheimer’s, “It was hard for me because my Mom was no longer the mother I had known. She would repeat the same questions, which didn’t leave much room for conversation,” says Sandy.  She began using these laughing techniques with her mother and saw a noticeable difference, “It brought my old mother out.  And watching and listening to her laugh, I realized that my mother was in there still, just different.”  After finding so much joy in using Laughter Yoga herself, Sandy decided to open her own business of teaching Laughter Yoga, in which she combines the methods of Dr. Kataria and her own added techniques.

Laughing has real benefits. It provides support for your immune system, helps you breathe, reduces stress and your risk of cardiovascular disease. According to Sandy, “It just takes one person to laugh and the others will follow.” For all the disbelievers, it is a known scientific fact that your body can’t tell if you’re laughing for a real reason or not. This means that anyone can try.  And as Sandy says, “Fake it until you make it.” Sandy’s recommend dosage of laughter is three times a day.  “Think of it as a vitamin.”

If you would like to hear Sandy’s contagious laughter or join her in a session of Laughing Matters, listen to her interview on the Powerful Patient show at http://www.powerfulpatient.org

        -- and/or --

Join Sandy at the Massachusetts Meeting
February 1, 2009, 2 pm, at the
Watertown Library in Watertown, Mass.
Please call 1-800-767-4845 ext. 4 for details

As printed in the VHL Family Forum 17:1, January/February 2009. For permission to reprint, please contact VHL Family Alliance, editor@vhl.org. Further information is available from the VHL Family Alliance, info@vhl.org.