Research shows the third most important thing to keep our personal health and wellbeing in tip top condition is a good, hearty, belly-crunching laugh. The line is blurred on just how scientific the research is… but according to laughter and humour therapist Bronwyn Roberts, in terms of health, laughter lays somewhere between breathing, having birthdays and eating chocolate and is followed by all those other – more famous and less fun – things (think exercise and a healthy diet).
“I have this idea, I don’t know if you’d agree with me…” Bronwyn says. “But, those of us who have the most birthdays live the longest.”
“You don’t have to celebrate them, but when it comes to your own health and wellbeing, the most important thing is breathing and having birthdays... and then smiling and laughing.”
Touring the Western District of New South Wales this week as part of the Royal Flying Doctor Service’s Mental Health Roadshow, Bronwyn’s been empowering audiences with her tips on how to get more laughter out of life, and hopefully live longer while doing it.
With a history in post-traumatic rehabilitation and stress management, Bronwyn was drawn to the world of laughter coaching by a series of happy accidents. “What I could see, working with post traumatic rehabilitation, was that the clients that laughed and smiled more didn’t necessarily have better outcomes, but they certainly had better journeys and they were more willing to accept what had happened to them, try new things and work towards improving themselves,” she says.
It was several years later when her children recorded an episode of Tony Wilson’s Race Around The World for her, which showcased Dr Madan Kataria’s laughing clubs of India, and Bronwyn was inspired to begin adding some laughter techniques into her stress management classes.
“And then one day in Melbourne I was walking down the street and I saw the doctor from the video, the doctor from India, and I said, you’re Madan Kataria! He said he was running a workshop and invited me to come along….and so I was one of the first people he actually trained up to do the laughter exercises.”
Bronwyn backs up her simple laughter techniques with yearly research trips to America, meeting with psychologists to study the scientific side of why we should laugh more. While everyone knows we should be aiming for 30 minutes of physical exercise a day, Bronwyn says there’s also a recommended daily dose of laughter – 15 minutes. “And for every 15 seconds of laughter that you get, the benefits continue for between 15 and 30 seconds, so if you spread your 15 minutes out throughout the day you can actually end up with a couple of hours of benefits,” she says.
Those benefits include reduced stress, tension and blood pressure, a boost to your immune system, improved circulation, more energy and a clear and creative mind. “The reason that we start to laugh early in life, at about six to 12 weeks of age, is it produces chemicals in the brain that actually get your immune system going,” Bronwyn says.
“As we go through life and go through school, we’re actually taught not to laugh for very good social reasons, but then as adults we tend to hold all our emotions back.”
The aim of her coaching clinics is therefore to give people the skills to bring laughter back into their lives, and as any adult will attest to, practice makes perfect! “It’s about giving people a bit of information about really simple ways to look after their mental health; to keep ourselves happy during the difficult times; to know that it’s OK not to have a good day, but to encourage people that if they’re not having a good day, to use the smiling and laughter skills, and then to perhaps approach and talk to somebody about it.
“People will take away a few of the exercises that they’ll actually add to their life and hopefully down the track they’ll think more about laughing and remember to smile during the day… and it really is good for your physical, mental and social health. Communities that laugh together, bond together.”
If everybody knew how simple it really was, just what an affect a deep breath and big, beaming smile could have on your overall happiness, we would do more of it, Bronwyn says. “The saddest thing is, because all you need is to learn a few simple techniques, and you don’t need a prescription, it takes off very slowly. Whereas if I could bottle it, everyone would buy it,” she says.
“A lot of your day is spent inside your head. A lot of your day is based on how you see your day, your attitude, so if things aren’t going so well and you need someone to cheer you up… smile more and laugh more, even if people might think you’re a bit crazy.”
Related Links: www.letslaugh.com.au
Totally agree. I love laughter. I am a laughter yoga leader and hold laughter sessions free on Skype. If I miss a session I feel something is missing from my day. Bronwyn laughs with us on Skype and she is a great laugher :)