Dr Andrew Weil, Director of Integrative Medicine at University of Arizona, American Physician and several best selling books on health and healing, highly recommends laughter Yoga. Dr Kataria met him during his visit to states last year. Dr Weil is planning research on Laughter Yoga methods. This is what he said in his interview with LIME radio:
Weve all heard laughter is the best medicine, I think that may literally be true. Im not talking about chuckling, Im talking about real laughter when it becomes almost involuntary. Laugh until you cry, and your muscles hurt and you fall down. Theres a really dramatic change in physiology and neurochemistry, and theres now a very interesting formal system of inducing laughter that came out of India its called laughter yoga. It was the invention of an Indian physician who has started laughter yoga clubs around the world.
The method is interesting groups of people meet on a regular basis. They begin by doing some physical exercises to warm up and then some breathing exercises and then they start laughing. They dont use humor to do this, they simulate laughter and after a while in a group this becomes real laughter and it goes on for several minutes and at the end people are refreshed. This appears to lower stress dramatically, to deal with anxiety, to really improve a whole variety of physical symptoms.
About Dr Weil
Andrew Thomas Weil (b.1942) is an American author and physician, best known for establishing and popularizing the field of integrative medicine. Weil is the author of several best-selling books and runs a website and monthly newsletter, where he answers questions relating to health. He is the founder and Program Director of the Program in Integrative Medicine (PIM) at University of Arizona. Weil started PIM in 1994. [1] He has become one of the leading proponents of integrative medicine.
Dr. Weil appeared on the cover of Time Magazine in 1997 and 2005. Time Magazine also named him one of the 25 most influential Americans in 1997 and one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2005. He received the John P. McGovern Award in Behavioral Sciences from Smithsonian Associates in 2005.
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