Michaela Pearson: Hello everyone, all over the world! This is the first, of I hope many “Roving Laughter Reports!” I hope that a Laughter yoga exchange program will develop all over the world and more people can enjoy an invaluable experience! Everyone enjoys the experience! My adventure began with a late night train and after a train swap, I snuggled down (as much as was possible!)...

Jayne Meldrum, Australia: My name is Jayne Meldrum I live in Sandy Beach, New South Wales, Australia. First time I heard about laughter yoga was in 2009. I had just turned 52, feeling old so I decided to get health & became a fitness instructor. A lady called Kathy Popperwell was advertising in a fitness magazine about becoming a Laughter Yoga Leader; she talked about the health benefit of lau...

Pamela Wener, Canada: Training to be a certified laughter leader has changed my life in so many positive ways. To begin with, I would have to say that I truly feel different inside. I am a much happier, grateful, upbeat person who is able to share this easily with others. Being a pre-school teacher for almost 30 years and the mother of twin sons and a daughter, I have always loved kids and have fo...

Nancy Weil, USA: I became a laughter leader in 2002 and ran Laughter Clubs for senior citizens. After the Laughter Club ended, I stopped offering any laughter programs. Several years later, I started to work at a cemetery working with the families. Part of the job was to offer programs to community groups. Most of them were cemetery related topics, but I also offered Laugh for the Health of It. Th...

Gary Hahn, USA: For me, the sound of laughter has all not always been pleasant. As I lost my father at age 1, and my mother at age 12, I spent a large majority of my childhood in an orphanage. Unfortunately, the laughter was often directed towards me by being made fun of at school and at the orphanage. I chose to overcome this bullying by developing myself physically. I later transformed the initi...

Ana Banana, Portugal: I am a professional clown who spent 30 years making people laugh, but that does not mean I can still do it. On the contrary, my life became darker and darker, eventually reducing me to a depressed and severely ill person. I couldn’t find the light at the end of the tunnel, with my marriage ending, practically homeless, my little 4 year old daughter, Zara, looking at me ...

Sylvie Dagenais-Douvill, Canada: I had the chance to discover Laughter Yoga 4 years ago and have been promoting it full time for the last 2 years, after I lost my job unfortunately. I have since published a book for teenage parents with a full chapter on Laughter Yoga and how to use it has a tool. Shortly after losing my job, my 23 year old daughter moved away from home, and I know that it is with...

Natalie Lui, Hong Kong: Do you believe life composes different magic moments which lead you to the path of your dream? I do. I chanced twice upon Laughter Yoga before finally ending up in the Laughter Yoga Teacher Training Course in Bangalore. Few years ago, I went for a social work seminar to Vancouver, which initially was quite a mess as I faced some visa problems and was not allowed into the...

Cedric Komar, USA: I came across Laughter Yoga through the Internet several years ago. Though the idea was very appealing, I told myself that I would look into it later. And then my life started changing two years ago with my first trip to India for an Ayurveda retreat. The reason why my wife and I went to India was fertility treatment as a last chance to have a baby after 6 years of unsuccessful ...

Ulrike Bauer, Switzerland: One day my daughter invited me to come with her to a Laughter Yoga session as she had already tried it and was all for it. At the beginning, the exercises, especially the ones where I had to force myself to laugh, were so embarrassing that I promised myself never to come again. But as I wasn’t brave enough to leave, I stayed till the end and played along. At the en...

Matti, Canada: It happened spontaneously for me a few weeks ago, after two and a half years of Laughter Yoga practice. I had bought a magnifying lens for reading the fine print on supplement bottles and for reading in bed at night. At work one day, I realized I needed to print something so I got out my lens but instead of using it properly, I unintentionally relaxed my eyes. For a while I could no...

Julie Whitehead, London: I am a Certified Laughter Yoga Teacher and I have practiced Hatha yoga for over 30 years and thought I had a very positive attitude to life – but in 2001 when I saw Dr Kataria on the TV laughing on a beach in Mumbai with John Cleese – I realised that I wanted to get more laughter in my life! Shortly after that I saw a magazine article saying that Dr Kataria was...