Laughter Yoga

Although DC may be the hub of our nation’s government affairs (case-in-point, one of my roommates saw Obama’s motorcade yesterday), there’s a quirkier side to it as well! One of my friends in DC recently signed up for a session of Laughter Yoga and asked anyone if they’d like to join her. Well, there’s four of us in my dorm-styled apartment and our goal has been to literally jam-pack our entire summer with interesting activities. Plus, this session was free! So of course one of us responded with a quick yes and told her we’d meet up at the Sri Sri Center for Peace and Meditation at Columbia Heights that evening.

Because all of us are money-pinching college students, we decided to walk there instead of taking the metro. Looking at the address we figured it wasn’t too far from Dupont Circle. Well, it was a good thing we left an hour before the class started because the walk became a lot longer than we anticipated! By this time in the evening, though, the weather had considerably cooled down, and it was actually quite nice seeing everything above ground as opposed to taking the metro.  I think that’s what made the walk memorable. I’m a personal believer in stumbling across things when exploring new cities. It was the way I explored Florence, and I remember being so excited about everywhere I went. I wasn’t as focused as getting to my final destination as I was observing everything around me. Same situation with this walk. While we trekked over to Sri Sri, my roommates and I began planning where to go next. We noticed that certain streets were great for restaurants, others for pubs and clubs, and other places to put on our to-do list. We even bumped into several William and Mary students, which has happened quite a bit since I’ve come to DC. I find that walking is the best way to explore a new city that you’re still unfamiliar with. If you have time and you’re in no hurry, always walk over taking the metro. Saves you money, gives you exercise, and provides you with new sights-in business speak, we’d call this a “win-win” situation.

45 minutes later, we’re finally at the Sri Sri Center. It’s a spacious, echo-y house that used to be an embassy. When we walk inside, it seems like there’s only going to be four of us. At this point, I have no idea what to expect. One of us girls had done some research on it and reported that the entire session would be us laughing at each other. It sounded really bizarre, but I decided to go with the flow. Anyway, there was no backing out now after I had invested nearly an hour walking over. All of us started giggling nervously hoping that we hadn’t gotten ourselves into something regretful. When we started laughing at the sheer hilarity and somewhat randomness of this situation, our instructor, Carla Riechman, let out the most horrific and absolutely terrifying laugh. She literally reincarnated Disney’s Ursula laugh and boy did that get all us of girls going. We couldn’t stop laughing because she laughed with no inhibitions! She held nothing back. Have you ever realized that even though laughing is supposed to be an unconscious act, there’s still a socially acceptable way to laugh? Well, Carla had no qualms about pleasing anyone. So here we were, three college students and one recent alum laughing hysterically at our instructor who’s laughing because we’re laughing, and we’re still standing in the foyer! Right then, I knew this was going to be an interesting night.

We start our session and our yoga instructor tells us that laughter is crucial for our health. Not only our emotional health, but our physical health as well. She gave us information on how research and studies show that laughing daily relieves stress and tension and may even ward off colds! While we took out our mats and stretched, she sat at the head of the room peacefully. Our first exercise was to close our eyes and think of a happy thought. It was one of those progressive activities that takes your happiness within yourself and expands it out. So over a period of time she’d essentially say, “Take your happiness and spread it across DC, spread it across the nation, across the planet, to the sun, now bring it back.” It was surprisingly calming to focus on beads of happiness within yourself and spread them to every ounce of your body. When I opened my eyes, I already felt at peace.

The next set of activities was really the heart of this session. We did basic stretches, but we laughed to the rhythm of our stretches. Any time our laughter felt too forced, Carla told us to recite “HEHE-HAHA-HOHO” as loudly as we could. I’m sure we all looked stupid laughing our heart out, but there was something strangely liberating about the whole experience. I mostly laughed in reaction to others. I think most of us did, and then it became a chain reaction. There was another woman who came into the room a little later, and she was such a natural! She laughed as if there was no tomorrow, and her laughter encouraged me to really let go and not think too much about creating a laughter as opposed to letting it out. By the time that exercise ended, my sides were hurting and most of my eyeliner had rubbed off from tears of laughter. I’m sure I looked a mess, but the entire situation was so funny I didn’t really care. I mean, who laughs just for the sake of laughing? All of my friends and I would periodically turn to each other and all of our eyes read the same thing: “I can’t believe I’m doing this, but it’s so funny that I’m actually enjoying it!”

Our final exercise consisted of us laying down and meditating, although for most of us, this translated into falling asleep. I fell into a deep sleep and felt like I had slept for ages when Carla woke us up. When I looked beside me, one of my roommates kept sleeping, she was so relaxed! She almost looked hypnotized, which was pretty funny. Once everyone was up, we talked about our experiences with this form of yoga. We were all experiencing a form of euphoria, and it was reflected in our inability to stop smiling. In fact, I was in such a good mood that I didn’t mind our long walk back!