Laughter Yoga helped me with depression and chronic pain

Tove Kane, Ireland: The person that you are seeing here is not the person I was before Dr Kataria and Laughter Yoga. I was actually really depressed. I’d had a very serious heart condition. I’d had an incident in the swimming pool. I used to be a tri-athlete, and when I was training I had a problem when my heart stopped and we all know what that means. I was saved and I ended up having a pacemaker put into my heart. But, I became very depressed after that. I couldn’t get used to the fact that I had technology in my heart. And it was difficult for me because I had wanted to be an Ironman athlete and this wasn’t the kind of Ironman that I thought I was going to be.

Eventually after some time, I became progressively more and more depressed. I became diagnosed with a chronic illness called Fibromyalgia. I ended up being not able to move my body, not hardly at all and it just became this very dark place of loss. And it was one loss after another. My relationship. I lost my relationship. My beautiful pets which I’d flown all the way to Ireland. My Dalmatian passed away. Then my mother died on Boxing Day. We flew all the way to Australia and you know it’s not like the movies. It was not an easy thing. I physically held her and felt as she passed. And not long after that when I came back and I was training with Dr Kataria, I, then, my next dog passed away.

So, I was in this terrible spiral of loss and anguish and suffering and depression. And I was feeling isolated but I discovered Laughter Yoga again. It was like a rediscovery. I first came across it in 2011 for my 41st birthday, I gave a Laughter Yoga party to my friends and they loved it! And I’ve always remembered Laughter Yoga but I hadn’t re-encountered it up until 2020 and I was writing a book. It’s called, Mind Over Matter, it’s about how your inner critics, you can overcome it with mindfulness. And I was research and one of the books that I found, was Dr Kataria’s, Laughter Yoga, and I loved the book immediately. When I read Dr Kataria’s words, about not letting your laughter be given up to chance …and just reading his words, “Ha ha!” well that opened up my world again and then I knew I needed to find this Dr Kataria and find out more. And then I discovered he was doing online training and it was like a dream come true—what an icon, a legend! And I was able to get on to his online training and work week after week with him. And I learnt about the four elements of joy. I learnt how to sing and to dance and to play and to laugh. And he taught me about brain gym and he taught me about grounding as well about the importance of calming down and being grounded as well as being effervescent and crazy and full of life and full of love. And that sense of loss that I found? I discovered I wasn’t lost anymore. I was found through Laughter Yoga. Dr Kataria and Laughter Yoga saved my life.

I’d been on the brink. I’d been in a place where I was in that space where you feel your life is not worth it anymore. And I was in that place. I was in a very dark place. But Laughter Yoga showed me that the voice I choose to have, the voice I choose to express, is all about that spontaneous, unconditional, deep belly laugh that just brings joy to me and joy to others.

Now I’m a Laughter Yoga Leader, later in the year I will be training as a Laughter Yoga Teacher. And I’ve brought Laughter Yoga into that book that I was researching it’s coming out soon. And I’ve even released a brand-new song called, “Laugh it off.” And I got the idea from Dr Kataria. When we were on the online course, we were part of a group of fellow Yogis, learning from the master, and that interconnection, that sense of family, that you’ll feel if you are able to join that online group, well, it’s something special because now, still to this day I am friends with all of these people. I go on to their laughter clubs, they come to mine, we have a lovely time, and it’s all thanks to Dr Kataria. So, bless you Sir, thank you for the laughter, thank you for the joy and thank you for showing us how we can all just laugh it off ha ha! Thank you.