Cracking up is therapy for grumps

On a decidedly unfunny Monday afternoon I drove over to a park in Sunnyvale to check out the Bay Area's only laughter club.

Truth be told, after an hour-and-a-half fighting traffic on 880 and 101 I wasn't exactly in a giggling mood. But for laugh expert Arya Pathria, the president of Laughaway ( www.laughaway.com , my grumpiness was just a challenge.

He travels around the Bay Area making even the most depressed people laugh -- the disabled, the sick and dying, etc. -- so I was an easy mark. The moment I came up, he grabbed my hand and let loose big, hearty laughs that made him seem possessed. To be honest, it was more scary than funny.

The group's leader was Col. N.A. Kumar, an architect, yoga instructor and veteran of three Indian wars who was in town visiting his pregnant daughter. Before we got started he told me that laughter was what pulled him through the sadness of his wife's death, six years before.

"We're the only creature on the earth with the ability to laugh," Kumar said. "Sometimes we forget to do it. But no matter what happens in life, we must remember to laugh."

To begin the session, we stood in a circle on a grass knoll at the park and did some verbal exercises, saying "ha-ha-ho-ho-ho" as we moved forward and backward and raised our hands up and down. Judging by the faces of the teenagers gathered nearby, the scene itself was comic: One tall white guy surrounded by a dozen smaller, older Indian men, guffawing and making a scene.

Turns out the club was as much about stretching and socializing as laughing. But we went through a litany of different laughs, aiming to be as loud and expressive as possible, even if the laughter was forced. My favorite was the Devil Laugh (think Dr. Evil), but I also enjoyed the Lion, the Alphabet, the Bruce Lee, the Ice-Cube-Down-The-Back and the finger-pointing Argument Laugh.

The ridiculousness of the poses is by design. The laughter club movement -- and yes, it is a movement, founded in India and now including 600 clubs worldwide -- is based on the premise that few people can do funny laughs and make strange faces without busting into real laughs. Why do it? Laughter is good for you.

I soon found myself cracking up just from my cohorts' sounds and expressions. The exercises were awkward at times, but as the laughter level increased, my discomfort (and bad mood) dissolved.

The Always Be Cheerful Club meets at 6:15 every weeknight at Encinal Park in Sunnyvale. While its members are mostly older people, Pathria says laughter clubs could be a good fit with local young people, too -- especially those who need stress relief, in places such as urban YMCAs and fast-paced technology firms. You only need five minutes to make it work.

"Remember, 20 years ago, very few American people did yoga or meditation," Pathria says. "The same thing may happen with laughter clubs."

The movement began in 1995, when Bombay doctor Madan Kataria (later nicknamed "The Giggling Guru") brought some people together in a park, and every day for two weeks he had them stretch while telling jokes and witticisms to make each other laugh. Everybody went home happier and more relaxed.

When the jokes ran out, though, Kataria got the members to do funny poses, faces and sounds. If you force enough laughter it becomes legitimately funny. And when you integrate some correspondingly comic poses, such as the Giggling Guru's famous "lion laugh" in which the hands paw at the air, eyes bulge and the voice roars, you can get just about anybody to bust up.

San Leandro recreation therapist Sara Lamnin, who lives in Menlo Park, got her laughter certificate after attending a conference put on by the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor ( www.aath.org She has incorporated laughter into her work ever since.

So what makes laughing so magical?

"It's tough to nail down," she says. "On a physiological level, your diaphragm and lungs are moving, and when something's really hysterical it almost feels like a good cry or workout.

"It gives you a release. And if you're genuinely laughing, then you're not thinking about tension, sorrow or grief. One of the best laughter sessions I ever led was after a funeral."

Another great thing about laughter, Lamnin says, is it can bring the most disparate people together.

"It breaks down barriers," she says. "It's hard to punch somebody in the nose once you've laughed with them. You can laugh with people you can't even converse with. ... And if you laugh for 30 seconds a day, that's 30 seconds you spent on just you. What a wonderful thing."

Undercurrents runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. You can call Rory at (510) 208-6449 or send e-mail to rlaverty@angnewspapers.com .

In addition to The Oakland Tribune this article “Cracking up is therapy for grumps” was also published in all the ANG Papers which are as follows: