Every once in a while, you meet someone who feels like a long-lost friend, even if you've never met before. It was like that for me and Caroline. We crossed paths at UU summer camp about five years ago when I sat next to her for a meal. We had some surface things in common, including being at the camp and being moms of teenage daughters. But over the course of our conversation, we learned that she'd grown up in the same small town clear across the country -- Salem, Ohio -- where I had my first newspaper job after college. She'd also lived a while after that in Pittsburgh, where I grew up. By the end of the week, we were doing the Time Warp together in a dining hall flash mob. "We're embarrassing our daughters!" Caroline said gleefully.
A few years later, when Caroline mentioned she'd become a certified laughter leader, I was not surprised. Today, at long last, I got to take her class. What a hoot! Caroline led our group of five in a litany of laughing exercises. (My favorites include the clam-shell laugh, the lawnmower laugh, the nervous lost-in-the-airport laugh and the laugh you do when tearing off those mattress and pillow labels that say, "DO NOT REMOVE THIS LABEL.")
There's lots of science that shows the many ways laughing is good for our health. It reduces stress and pain, promotes good sleep and gets the blood pumping. (Caroline's 45-minute class today felt like a good low-impact aerobic workout.) Plus it's just plain fun to goof off and giggle.
Caroline is affiliated with the World Laughter Tour, which has laughter leaders and laughter clubs, plus six daily practices for good-hearted living. A similar organization, Laughter Yoga International, has lots of great resources including laughter clubs held several times a day via Skype. Next on my list: Getting to the weekly laugh-in at Harborview Medical Center here in Seattle, where laughter is good medicine for people at the Northwest's major medical trauma hospital.
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