BLC Lesson 3

[Laughter] All right. Oh, yeah. [Laughter] Thank you.

Thank you for laughing with me. Can you believe that? We were just laughing for no [Laughter] reason.

That's the best thing that can happen to your life if you can learn to laugh for no reason. Just laugh. So I tell you the reason why we should be laughing.

Actually, human beings are the only species on this planet who can actually laugh. Other species they say mice can laugh and ukubara can laugh. No that's all animals laughter is not the the kind of laughter we human beings have.

So we are blessed to have laughter. One of the nature's best stress buster program. So I think it's a very good idea that we should learn to laugh for no reason.

Uh friends, I just want to share with you my own journey with laughter. Before starting laughter yoga, I was practicing as a physician, a very serious medical [Laughter] doc. So I never used to laugh like this.

So this is all I have actually trained myself. Ever since I discovered laughter yoga, I learned to laugh in number of ways. It was not very genuine looking laughter in the beginning.

It was [Laughter] like but with practice actually now I don't need anything. I can just press my button and start [Laughter] laughing. It's all training.

It's all here. You can actually program your mind to laugh. And this laughter is not like fake laughter.

It's genuine because I'm laughing out of my willingness. Nobody's forcing me to laugh. I laugh because I want to laugh.

That's the great thing about laughter I discovered. And then if you see that how we are laughing in laughter yoga is laughing like children. We all behave like what are these laughter exercises like role playing like kids?

You are you're imagining a situation like milkshake mixing. It's a play. So who who are the people who laugh the most in this world?

Children. And when do children laugh? When they play.

So in short, laughter yoga is the kindergarten of grown-ups. So we are all admitted to the kinderg kindergarten and learning to laugh the art of laughing for no reason. This is this is our life when we begin when we learn to laugh in the beginning when we were children.

We're just laughing. And that's the objective of laughter. you get back to your childhood.

You can't laugh as a grownup person. So how do you get back to your childhood? And this is the same thing but we are learning in laughter yoga.

Just before I take up this today's topic is essential link between laughter and yoga. What is the connection between laughter and yoga? Why we call it laughter yoga?

So I just want to inform you just to practice more and more laughter there is a 30 minutes class on free laughter club on zoom just before this session you can join the so if you join 30 minutes before there is a separate link for joining the free international laughter club on zoom so vinak please share that link people can register there also there is a WhatsApp group we can give you the reminder. So if you join that laughter club there will be lots of people from all over the world they join join and they laugh together. So this is additional laughter practice apart from your 40-day laughter challenge laugh.

It's a great fun to laugh with 150 people from different countries from all over the world. So that's why we call it international laughter club on zoom. So please uh note the link vin has just shared and save that link and you can you can actually go and register yourself there and so that you get little WhatsApp reminder about the when the session is beginning.

Okay. Now let me tell you that breathing is fundamental to our living. We can live without food.

We can live without water for several days. Nothing will happen. You will not die.

But if you don't breathe for few minutes, you cannot survive. So this is breathing is our life. And why?

What is so what is in it? What what is the important component of breathing? Now yoga says that the universal energy enters our body through the breath.

We call prana in yoga, energy of life. And it makes sense that through the breath you inhale all that life force what we call energy of life prana. But in medical language I will say oxygen.

Oxygen is the most important ingredient for all metabolic processes in the body. Without oxygen nothing will happen. Our body cannot function.

So friends why people fall sick? One of the reason people fall sick is because we are not breathing correctly. We are not breathing fully.

Our lungs have almost like six liters of lung capacity but how much we breathe only point one what we call 5 lit 500 ml in and out very little so we are not utilizing our full lung capacity to give you more oxygen and that is why what I like the best in yoga are the pranayyama the breathing exercises from yoga They are very very important and one of that that is something I like in yoga is the breathing exercise because after doing all those breathing exercises they teach in yoga you feel so energized you feel so balanced and one of the hallmark of yogic breathing style is in yoga they teach you to exhale longer than you inhale. Why exhale longer than you inhale? Because if you study the physiology of breathing, there's a lot of residual air in your lungs and that has more carbon dioxide.

Now if you exhale longer than you inhale you can get rid of all the stale air the residual air from your lungs and that can help you to get more oxygen. So more oxygen comes not from breathing in more oxygen you get by breathing out. Clean your lungs remove all the stale air from your lungs and then you get fresh oxygen fresh air.

All right. So breathing in and breathing out longer can be little bit difficult to breathe out longer because we are not used to breathing longer. Just breathe in and breathe out.

That's it. That's what we do. But imagine what do we do when we laugh.

You're breathing out. [Laughter] So laughter is extended exhalation, isn't it? Breathing out.

So we are cleaning our lungs or so. Let me show some powerpoints I have. So this is what I discussed just now that more oxygen comes from exhalation breathing out than breathing in.

Then you you can consider laughter as a kind of a breathing exercise. All your laughter muscles around your chest, intercostal muscles, internal and external, your abdominal muscles play a very important role in laughing. Your abs, your rectus.

And for breathing, your diaphragm plays a very important role. Breathe in and breathe out. And so you can say that the purpose of laughter yoga is to increase your breathing capacity.

by breathing in longer and breathing out longer so that you get more oxygen. And now in this graph if you see that both the lungs at a given time they hold three liters of air because lungs cannot function if they are not having some minimum amount of air in the lungs. So they need to be in a inflated position.

So when you are watching this program your lungs already have 3 lit of air and over and above out of 3 lit you can actually force exhale 1. 5 L of air. Suppose if I'm not breathing in, I just blow the air.

You are you can remove this expiratory reserve volume by force exhaling or by simply laughing. Laughter exercises are the best way to exhale the stale air from your lungs, the residual air. That's why we encourage people in laughter yoga to laugh more.

So friends, this is the basics of laughter yoga is that laughter yoga, laughter is a breathing out exercise. If you laugh longer, longer the better. That's why we do this signature laughter yoga practice.

Breathe in and keep on laughing as long as you can. [Laughter] [Laughter] What a workout. What a workout.

My goodness. There's no exercise like laughter which gives you prana, the energy of life, the oxygen more and more. So I think other exercises have their own advantages.

I do every morning cardiovascular running, jogging. I do all my muscle training. I do all my yoga stretches.

But there is no exercise like breathing exercise. Breathing is life. And out of breathing exercise, east or west, laughter is the best.

Just treat laughter as a breathing [Laughter] exercise. Get rid of all the stale air from your lungs. You got the idea.

But uh during our leadership training in the second part of the combo course, I'm going to go deeper to explain to you what are the different lung capacities we have. So like tidal volume, inspiratory reserve, expiratory reserve and what is the vital capacity. All those breathing capacities I will show you graphically by powerpoints during our second part of leadership training because that is where you need a deeper understanding about the science of breathing.

So what is laughter yoga? Laughter yoga is the art of laughing for no reason and the science of breathing very simple. And just to remind you that over 300 research papers published on the benefits of laughter yoga in different applications huge laughter yoga is huge.

So please better you get yourself trained properly as a certified leader practice practice practice and you will be in big demand everywhere. People are going to ask you to come come and make us laugh. So please when you finish this course please uh you will get some certificates basic course and certified leader training course and please laminate or frame your certificate and put this certificate on a very important position.

Don't put it in the draw. Frame it and see it every day. What what what is your identity?

What is your new job description? Make people [Laughter] laugh. Very good.

Very good. One more time. Very good.

Very good. Yay. So friends uh apart from laughter yoga one of the valuations we have with laughter yoga is called yoga nidra.

So yoga nidra is a powerful relaxation technique from yoga. Nidra means sleep. Yoga means yogic sleep.

Yoga nidra. Now there is a problem with people these days. People are not getting enough sleep.

Number of reason people sleep late. Lot of mobile phone, social media and some thoughts, negative thoughts going on. So you're not able to sleep properly.

Even the quality of sleep is not good. You're not getting deeper sleep anymore because too much of information getting into our mind. So you need to relax.

So what happens is when you are not able to sleep properly, you are not healing yourself. You are your memories start failing. So because of the lack of good sleep, you forget the things and people start to think I got dementia.

I'm not remembering the things. It's not dementia. It's actually simply lack of good sleep.

And all the repair and maintenance of the body takes place when you're sleeping in the night. All your immune cells, your temporary memory converted into permanent memories. Every all sort of healing will take place when you go to sleep.

Now what if people are not getting good sleep? Answer is yoga nidra. Yoga nidra is a powerful substitute for those who do not get good sleep.

So they say 30 minutes of yoga nidra equals 2 hours of ordinary sleep. So it doesn't matter if you are not able to get good sleep. You can recharge yourself by doing yoga nidra once or twice during the day.

Very good technique. But you need to understand there's lot of information on YouTube. There's lot of information on Google or you can ask chat GPT what is yoga nidra wonderful my own personal experience I do yoga nidra twice a day because I wake up quite early in the morning 4:00 and then I sleep for 6 hours but during the day I recharge myself same thing if you feel lethargic sleepy yawning all day please do yoga nidra and then you see you feel fresh.

It's a wonderful easy technique and Vinak is going to play the audio of yoga nidra today at the end of the session after he finishes doing laughter exercises with all of you. You just can stop your camera, close your c turn off your camera and then lie down on your couch or or you can do sitting on the chair also. Close your eyes and listen to the audio instructions and relax.

It's no brainer. You don't have to do it anything. Just listen and relax.

And it may happen that while listening to yoga nidra instructions, you may go to sleep. It's okay. Even if you're sleeping, your subconscious mind is listening to the instructions.

So you do get the benefits while listening to yoga nidra instructions. And we are giving you yoga nidra instruction audio as a part of the course. You can use it forever.

You can give it to anybody whoever you think they can use it. So friends, I'll take a break now and hand you over to Vinak to take on with more laughter practice and more laughter exercises and followed by yoga nidra. All right.

Thank you sir. He he he friends first let us unmute and laugh for no reason for one minute. Please unmute and start laughing.

[Laughter] Uh-huh. Uh-huh. [Laughter] Very good.

Very good. Yay. Very good.

Very good. Yay. Friends, today we have a very special set of laughter exercises.

Today's topic we discussed essential link between yoga and laughter. You understood how uh things work. Now related to this topic, I'm going to teach some laughter exercises and they are called well uh breathing based laughter exercises.

Why we call it breathing based? These exercises increase the oxygen supply to your lungs. That's why we call breathing based laughter exercises.

So now let's do the first exercise. The first exercise is three parts of the lungs laughter. So there are three parts in the lungs.

Upper part, middle and lower. They are also called loes. Upper lobe, middle lobe and lower lobe.

Now the breath we normally take when we are not doing any physical activity, we are in a complete resting position. The breath we inhale goes to the lower and uh middle part of the lungs which means the upper part tissues get less oxygen or no oxygen at all. Dr Qataria with his medical knowledge he created this exercise this can provide enough oxygen to each part of the lungs.

So let's do the first exercise how you can provide more oxygen to the upper part of your lungs. For that please join your back of the hands like this and take it back behind your head or neck, shoulder, wherever you can reach. Now take a long deep inhalation.

Hold it. Hold it. Hold it.

And laugh it out. [Laughter] So once you finish laughing, just take a long deep breath and relax. Now let's do the sec the same exercise second time.

Inhale. Hold it. Hold it.

Hold it. [Music] [Laughter] And so this exercise helps more oxygen to flow towards the upper part of the lungs from starting from here to here. Now for the middle lobe, the middle part of the lung, we do mountain posture.

In traditional yoga, they call it parvatasan. Uh in Sanskrit, Parvat means mountain. So we do this.

Please join your hands. And as we inhale, we raise our arms up. Stretch as much as you can.

Stretch. Stretch. Hold it.

Hold it. Hold it. [Laughter] And all right, let's do it one more time.

Inhale. Stretch. Stretch.

Hold it. Hold it. Hold it.

[Laughter] And now for the last lower lobe, we do a very funny yet effective exercise. It's called lion laughter. How to do lion laughter?

Very simple. Please follow me. Set your hands out.

Let's breathe in. Hold it. Hold it.

Hold it. [Laughter] And let's do it one more time. Inhale.

Hold it. Hold it. Hold [Laughter] it.

See friends, first of all, lion laughter is funny. When you're sticking your tongue out and open a wide eyes and laughing, it looks funny. Second thing, when you're sticking your tongue out, you can't laugh from your throat nor from the chest.

The laughter comes deep from your belly. So, it's a belly laughter. And belly laughter is really beneficial.

It moves your diaphragm and uh you there is something called vagus nerve. So that connects the the brain and it's so you you can search more about vagus nerve and where it is located and moving the diaphragm actually helps to activate this vagus nerve and not just that sticking your tongue out it it's a very good massage to your facial muscles Right. And it's funny only uh just to uh small um what we call uh thing to keep in mind.

Some people we I have seen when they do lion laughter they do some roaring actually we are supposed to laugh so there's a lot of difference in laughing and roaring right I know there is a simha mudra lion pose in yoga where they roar like a lion to clean the throat and vocal cords. But in laughter yoga, we try to laugh. So please keep in mind whenever we do lion laughter, we are supposed to laugh.

So friends, the first exercise three parts of the lungs. Upper lobe we do this exercise. For middle lobe we do mountain posture.

And for the last lower lobe we do line laughter. So this is the first exercise in breathing based sequence. Now the second exercise in breathing based we do balloon laughter.

See when we are uh having a birthday celebration, anniversary or anything we need to decorate the room or the hall with lot of colorful balloons right? Any party balloons must but now we don't have any machine to blow these balloons. Let's blow it with the help of our breath.

Hold it. Hold the balloon like this. Inhale.

As you inflate the balloon, keep your hands away. Inhale once again. Oh, it became big last time.

Inhale [Laughter] and so three times you inhale, burst the balloon and laugh. So this is balloon laughter. But twice you need to inflate.

Okay, let's do it one more time. Inhale. Second time.

Inhale. Third time. And [Laughter] And next laughter exercise we do heart laughter.

Heart laughter means you love everybody unconditionally because unconditional laughter leads to unconditional love. So regardless of what other person has done to you, you start loving. So let us do this heart laughter.

Make heart like this. And as we inhale, let's expand our hearts like this. Inhale.

Expand. Hold it. Hold it.

Hold it. And Actually this is the reality. Once you start laughing you stop using your stupid logical mind you start doing everything from your heart.

Actually it's true. I I have experienced many times in my life. I stopped using my logical brain.

I I tell to my logical mind, shut up. You are not supposed to talk. I do it from heart.

Sometimes my mind tells, do you remember what that person has done to you in 10 years ago? Now you say you love him. I my heart says to my mind, you shut up.

So you you stop using this and do it everything from the heart. That makes more sense. Of course, sometimes the chances are high that you may go wrong.

But never mind. As long as you are laughing and doing things is fine. So friends, heart laughter.

Expand your heart. Look everything through the heart and ha. Oh god.

Next exercise it's called jacket laughter. So you when when we are feeling cold we wear a jacket right? Thermal jacket or bomber jacket various types.

And when we feel little warm, we remove it and hang it. Now let's do this in a laughter yoga way. So while you close the zip, let's inhale.

Okay? While you unzip three times in three stages. A a and open the jacket and laugh.

Ready? So let's zip up. Inhale.

and E. E. [Laughter] One more time.

Inhale. [Music] [Laughter] And the last exercise in this series we have already done. It's called signature laughter.

So signature laughter Dr Qataria has already demonstrated. However, let's do it one more time. Stretch your hands out.

Inhale. Hold it. Hold it.

Hold it. [Laughter] Hey, Very good. Very good.

Yay. Very good. Very good.

Yeah friends, now let us quickly have a look at the exercises we have done today. Uh these are breathing based exercises. Please note down or take a photo or screenshot of this and practice and please teach others as some I saw somebody laughing with some children.

That's really nice. So, somebody was laughing with the toy uh doll or something. Oh, really nice.

I really appreciate. So, try to involve somebody and most interesting part is laughing with strangers. That's the real challenge.

In India, it's pretty easy. You go on the street, meet anybody, say that you are laughter the yogi and laugh with them and they say never say no. The moment you take out your mobile phone camera, they start recording and they say unlike the western countries or any other countries.

So in other countries it's quite challenging. I I know it's not as easy as in India but try this proper explanation proper way of approaching may help. So you just say to security guard or somebody or the policeman they are very serious.

Okay friends now we come to the last part of today's lesson. It is yoga nidra practice. So I'm going to play the audio of the yoga nidra and all you need to do is just lie down and uh if you have a couch or mattress, yoga mat, anything just lie down.

If you cannot lie down, you can be on the in the chair seated in the chair like hands resting on your thighs, palms or your legs or food on the floor parallel to each other and sit in a relaxed position. If you are wearing any tight belts or something, kindly remove it. Let your body be completely free from any tensions or any uh tightness.

That's the preparation. So you can turn off your cameras. No, not required.

Lie down. Just hear this and let's practice yoga nidra. I'm going to share the audio of this yoga nidra.

So you will have it in your [Music] he please allow me some time. [Music] Sometimes my computer acts really funny. Welcome to yoga nidra.

Yes. Now we are ready for yoga nidra. Yoga nidra means yogic sleep where your mind is fully conscious and completely awake and your body goes to sleep.

Please give me your complete attention and listen to each and every word I speak. Lie down on your back and get comfortable. Put your hands by the sides of the body with your palms facing upwards.

Keep a little distance between your feet. Take a few long deep abdominal breaths and relax the entire body. Feel the belly rise as you inhale and your belly falls back as you exhale.

The breath should be slower, longer, and deeper. Keep on inhaling as much air as you can and hold for a while. Then while exhaling relax all the muscles of the body.

Exhalation is relaxation. So let's take long deep breaths. Inhale.

Breathe in. Breathe in. Breathe in.

And exhale. And relax. Relax.

Relax. One more time. Take a slow long deep breath.

Inhale. Inhale. Inhale.

And exhale. And relax all the muscles of the body. Relax.

Relax. Now we are going to move the awareness throughout the body from one body part to another. I will ask you to bring your attention to a particular body part and you please relax that body part with the countdown from 5 to 1.

As you hear my voice, please bring your attention to your forehead muscles and relax. 5 4 3 2 1 Relax your eyebrows. 5 4 3 2 1 Relax all the muscles around your eyeballs.

5 4 3 2 1. Relax your right cheek muscles. 5 4 3 2 1.

Left cheek muscles. 5 4 3 2 1. Relax bridge of the nose.

5 4 3 2 1. Relax your upper lip. 5 4 3 2 1.

Lower lip. 5 4 3 2 1. Relax your jaw muscles.

5 4 3 2 1. Relax your tongue. 5 4 3 2 1.

Back of your head. 5 4 3 2 1. back of your neck.

Five 4 3 2 1. Relax both the shoulders. 5 4 3 2 1.

Upper arms. 5 4 3 2 1. Relax both the elbows.

Five 4 3 2 one. Forearms. 5 4 3 2 1 And relax both the hands.

5 4 3 2 1. Please bring your attention to the front of your chest and relax. 5 4 3 2 1.

Relax your abdominal muscles. 5 4 3 2 1. Pelvic muscles.

5 4 3 2 1. Bring your attention to the upper back and relax. 5 4 3 2 one.

lower back. 5 4 3 2 1. Relax your buttocks.

5 4 3 2 1. Relax both the thighs. 5 4 3 2 1.

Knee joints. 5 4 3 2 1 Relax both the calf muscles. 5 4 3 2 1 and relax both the feet.

5 4 3 2 1. Imagine there is a wave of relaxation starting from the top of your head going all throughout the body to the tips of the toes and tips of the fingers. You are completely relaxed.

Each and every muscles of your body is relaxed. Relax, relax, relax. Now I would like you to bring your attention to your breathing.

Now please bring your attention to your abdomen and start feeling the movement of your belly up and down with a deliberate conscious mind. Take a long slow deep breath into your belly. Your belly moves up when you inhale.

and it moves down when you exhale. Make your breathing slower, longer, and deeper. Take a slow, long, deep breath in.

And while exhaling relax all the muscles of the body with each exhalation, feel that you are 10% more relaxed than the previous breath. Now imagine you are breathing into the entire body. Take slower, longer, deeper breath into the whole body.

Imagine your body is like a balloon. It is expanding with your inhalation and deflates like a balloon. When you exhale, take a few more deep breaths into the whole body and exhale and relax.

Inhale slowly into the whole body and relax while exhaling. Relax, relax, relax. With the countdown from 10 to 1, we will slowly wake up.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 and 1. Start moving your fingers and toes. Slowly take a long deep breath and stretch your body.

Stretch. Stretch. Stretch.

And relax. Keep on stretching. stretch and relax.

Now rub your palms and place it over your eyes. Please turn to one side. Put your hands on the floor and sit up.

Yog nidra is over. Thank you very much. Oh haha wake up.

Wake up. [Laughter] So friends, if you think that your quality and quantity of sleep is not up to the mark or as per the requirement of your body, please try this yoga nidra and uh you will see the magic and of course uh I also travel with Dr critaria. Sometimes we we we get up so early to catch early morning flight and when we go to the next city and straight away go to laughter yoga conference or uh you know any training so the day will be too long.

What we do sometimes in the flight itself we have the headphone and then put the yogidra on and relax and as soon as we land on in the car we just again have the yogidra so we are recharged. So I request all of you uh have this in your relaxation kit. Use it whenever you want.

With this we come to the end of lesson number two. Yes, I am almost sleeping. Yes, you end up sleeping.

That's a good sign. So, thank you very much friends. I wish you all happy happy night.

So, somewhere somewhere it's midnight, 12:30, somewhere it is 11:30. But we really appreciate your commitment. Yes, I will share the audio in the WhatsApp group.

So, please download it from there. Haha. Please unmute and let's say bye-bye.

Thank you very much. Keep laughing. I love you.

Bye.