Using humor as a tool to cope with grief is closely associated with another movement: laughter yoga. A medical doctor from India, Dr. Madan Kataria, developed the practice of laugher yoga and it has spread across 100 countries. Adherents say that the scientifically proven benefits range from reducing blood pressure to strengthening the immune system. You can learn all about the techniques at the Laughter Yoga University.
Beyond the general benefits of the practice, Laughter Yoga teacher Carla Brown points out how it is also a wonderful way to help those who are grieving. In the introduction to her video, “Laughter Yoga for Grief – Reclaiming Joy After Loss,” she says that “While regulating our breathing, laughter helps us to reconnect to ourselves and others, it opens up our hearts and minds, it moves the stuck, heavy, numb feelings that come with overwhelming grief and indescribable loss because there are no words and the mind does not need to think or process the grief for a release… but the body still gets relief (through the added oxygen and happy chemicals that get dumped into the system during and after laughter).”
Watch Ms. Brown’s video here — and prepare to set your grief aside, for a moment and maybe more.