How to Laugh Well

Here is an excerpt on how to laugh (really laugh) from my upcoming book “Celebrate Your Emotions: A Guide to Eight Incredibly Transforming Feelings”

Physical Exercise

Purpose: To help you physically link agony and ecstasy

into laughter.

Step #l: Practice full-bodied laughter regardless of whether something seems funny. • Rock gently back and forth between backward circular arching of your spine and forward circular arching of your spine. • Breathe in and out of your loosely opened, smiling mouth. • In your backward arch stretch your chin as far upward as comfortable.

• In your forward arch stretch through the top of your head as if you are a giraffe. • Say “ha-hah-ha-hah-ha-hah” as you rock and stretch. • Breathe as deeply as possible, so your belly “jiggles like a bowl full of jelly” (or at least somewhat deeply and loosely).

Step #2: When you laugh, notice your mixed emotions. Keeping your teeth or lips together in laughter indicates tension or anger. • Keeping your head erect instead of tilting back and upward while laughing indicates discomfort or vigilance. • Hunching up your shoulders as you laugh suggests the presence of shame. • Slouching your shoulders and dropping your chin on your chest indicates helplessness.

Step #3: Separate your laughter from the other emotions it’s mixed with. • Throw your head back to take a deep breath as you prepare to let loose in pure laughter. • Double over as you exhale in full-bodied laughter. • Stick your tongue out or think “yuck” to tell yourself to “dump” the connection that causes you to express some other emotion mixed in with laughter.

• Express the mixed-in emotion(s). • Again rock back and forth in laughter. Notice whether your expression is more in the direction of free, full laughter. • Wonder what the mixed-in emotion was about—the tension, vigilance, shame, helplessness, etc.—and how it became entangled with laughter.

Step #4: Practice “inviting” the full spectrum of liveliness into your expression. • Yawn in pain. • Jump and grin for joy. • Throw your head back and laugh. Each day expect to experience pain, joy, and hearty laughter. As one spiritual master said, “If I have not cried and laughed every day, I have not truly lived every day.”

Step #5: Yet another step?! Yes…it takes a lot of work to get to full, clear, laughter. So watch to see when…  “Some people laugh through their noses;  Some people laugh through their teeth goodness sakes, hissing and fizzing like snakes; • Some laugh too fast; • Some only blast;• [Some] squeak as the squeakelers do; • [Some] let go with a ho-ho-ho-ho…  or a ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha too” [“I Love to Laugh” from “Mary Poppins”, lyrics by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman]

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