34 body & soul are you having a laugh? Beccy Golding is getting merry with Joe Hoare and his laughter workshops T imes are hard. And when times are hard, you gotta laugh, else you’ll cry. With this in mind I sought out laughter specialist Joe Hoare. Joe developed Natural Laughter Skills (NLS) “to impart the skills to generate your own laughter.” This is in contrast to Laughter Yoga, which works from the outside in, using exercises to create physical laughter, “I’m a big fan of Laughter Yoga,” he assures me “ and I incorporate some of their exercises, but I do understand it may alienate some people. We have a cultural resistance to it (in the UK).” “People are often resistant to the idea of laughing as a yoga-style practice” Joe adds, “feeling that its about ‘having to force a laugh’ but I have looked for gentler ways in, from the inside out. It’s about loosening up, getting our attention into the body and the head; a willingness to laugh, a lightheartedness. The key is to start gently and invite the playfulness and creativity.” Joe’s life hasn’t all been full of laughs. “I hit the rails a number of times,” he explains. “in my early 20s I was suicidal and in my mid-30s I had a mild breakdown caused by a year of insomnia, which was hell. I didn’t know how to relax or discharge tension from my system. When I emerged I vowed that there had to be a better way of living. I had a ‘healing wake-up’ – KAPOW! - my life became all about ‘The Healing Power Of..’. I became voraciously interested in the healing world. I trained as a healer, started a daily Chi Gung practice, learnt to breathe properly using (Buddhist meditation practice) za-zen, but I still had to find my own modality. Then I did voice work with Chris James and started teaching ‘Free Your Natural Voice’ sessions. I found there was lots of natural laughter – to free the voice you must relax the body and you often start to laugh. “My job is not to make people laugh, but to help them get back in touch with their own laugh. The benefits of laughter come from the act itself. In the West we have the mindset that laughter comes from an external stimulus – a joke or something funny – so what do you do if nothing external makes you laugh?” The benefits are, simply, that a good old belly laugh makes you feel better – it’s a psychological release, but it is proven to have positive physical effects on the cardiovascular “My job is not to make people laugh, but to help them get back in touch with their own laugh. The benefits come from the act itself. In the West we have the mindset that laughter comes from an external stimulus – so what do you do if nothing external makes you laugh?” and pulmonary systems – it oxygenates the blood and improves circulation which energises us and helps us think better, and it releases seratonin. Two years ago The Royal Society released research showing that laughter increases pain thresholds. Laughter has also been found to be good for psoriasis and diabetes. “In mind body spirit terms,” Joe adds “laughter is liberating; people become more intuitive, more present – living ‘here’ in their bodies, with a whole-body consciousness, not distracted.” Now he’s found laughter (and never has insomnia) Joe uses it in a range of settings. He runs stress management courses for NHS staff and team-building and conferences for corporate clients; he’s developing sessions for the Thomas Pocklington Trust, who work with people with sight loss, with the working title of Natural Laughter Skills for Mindful Resilience. “It’s about helping people get in touch with their inner resources; an antidote to the increasing issue of loneliness and depression.” Joe offers one-to-one coaching, “I always bring levity to the sessions.” He runs laughter retreats, laughter facilitation skills courses and laughter workshops at festivals. In 2013 Joe published his own book Awakening The Laughing Buddha Within (co-written with his pal Stephen Russell, the Barefoot Doctor). His Bristol Laughter Club is “almost certainly the longest running series of laughter workshops outside India”. Dr Kataria, a practising GP, cardiologist and the founder of Laughter Yoga, who Joe studied with in the early 2000s, suggested the idea of the Laughter Club and it has now been running every month for ten years. www.joehoare.co.uk www.bristollaughterclub.com Royal Society research into laughter & pain thresholds: bit.ly/GZ9vd6 www.laughteryoga.org - for laughter clubs, events & training internationally other laughter practitioners in Sparkland include: Neely Good: Laughter evenings, parties & workshops 0772 207 2279 agoodfeeling.yolasite.com Sue Holmes, who runs ‘Laughter Medicine’ evening workshops at The Bell Inn, Bath, and is touring the UK this autumn with ‘the world’s first Chocolate Laughter Ceremony’, a day of laughter, healing and celebration including a drink of ‘magical healing’ raw cacao from Guatemala. 07786 291967 www.thehomehealer.co.uk Luke Andreski, happiness guru, author and poet who has created the Maxus Irie religion-free cult: 07445 542631 www.captivatingcult.com www.lukeandreski.com below: Joe Hoare (centre) news • Huge congratulations to Paula Rainey-Croft of Heaven on Earth, the bespoke green funeral directors based in Bristol, who won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Good Funeral Awards in September. Established in 1995, Heaven on Earth is also a Natural Death Centre, specialising in helping families plan a personal, individual celebration of the life of the person who has died. www.heavenonearthfunerals.co.uk • Reading Well Books on Prescription is a new scheme, piloted around the country but available nationally since June 2013, providing access to self-help books for people experiencing a range of common mental health issues including anxiety, depression, phobias and some eating disorders. 30 books are available, all with some form of CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) angle. The books can be recommended by GPs or other health professionals and are available to be borrowed from your local library for free. For full book list see www. booksonprescription.org.uk http://readingagency.org.uk/adults/quickguides/reading-well • The Friends of Arnos Vale Cemetery, formed as a campaigning group in response to the south Bristol cemetery’s threat of closure and potential redevelopment, celebrated 25 years of achievements in rescuing and rejuvenating what is now a beautiful green space, with a cafe and music/ theatre venue, as well as still being a working cemetery. Sadly many of the graves had become invisible, unreadable or hard to reach. As part of the celebrations the Remembered Graves project was launched to find and mark the graves of people of local or national significance. Those honoured so far include pioneering physician William Budd, prison and education reformer Mary Carpenter and graves belonging to ‘babies who died at birth or shortly after.’ www.arnosvale.org.uk • A new outdoor gym has been installed at Ladies Mile on The Downs in Bristol. It consists of five stations, providing a range of exercises for both gentle new-to-it exercisers and more sporty-types, to help improve physical health, fitness and well-being. • If you are interested in psychic and clairvoyant self-development the new Heaven Sent Spiritual Centre, based at Wapley Stables near Yate runs courses and circles as well as classes in Shamanic, Reiki and horse communication work. www.heavensentspiritualcentre.co.uk photo: Simon Chapman