Laughter behind bars
Lynda Geraldez belongs to the first batch of Laughter Yoga leaders certified by Dr. Madan Kataria, founder of the International Laughter Yoga Movement. She has started conducting LYoga among her senior relatives and friends. Below is her story.
“I grew up in a quiet home on Bulletin Street, West Triangle, Quezon City, where the norms were hushed conversations and low-volume radios and televisions. Dad gets quickly unsettled if he hears footsteps on the wooden floor and, more, if peals of laughter puncture the stillness of the environment. My St. Therese classmates, who dropped by for group work when we were students, jokingly declared our place was quieter than the CICM convent. This rubbed off on me in a positive and healthy way as I turned out to be a listener — reflective, quiet, and reserved.
“When I read about the first certified Laughter Yoga leadership training, I was the first to sign up with Elvie Estavillo, the pioneer certified LYoga teacher and leader in the Philippines. When I took my seat in the air-conditioned bus that was to take us from San Lorenzo Village to the San Miguel Training Center in Tagaytay, how surprised I was to see my cousin Julius Magno also joining the seminar!
“I had never laughed in my entire life as much as we did during the two-day seminar. We went through different laughter exercises, deep and diaphragmatic yoga breathing, which accounts for its identity as Laughter Yoga. Dr. Kataria’s and Elvie’s laughter were so infectious I visited the john a number of times! There was a motley group of 40 persons and their energy level was high. Though of different professional backgrounds, they easily gelled as they came with the same objective — the inner spirit of laughter.
“Julius and I introduced LYoga to our family members during our Christmas reunion. It must have had a positive impact that Coty Pantaleon, president, Organization of Senior Citizens and Retirees, gathered her friends for a LYoga session in her White Plains house last February 7. The excitement was palpable even before we started. Tita Cely Basa, 88, and Nena Tenchavez, 95, sat on monoblock chairs arranged in a circle. They listened attentively as I invited them to experience something new in their lives that would, if done regularly, allow them to lose weight, reduce their blood pressure, cut the risk of a heart attack, make them more relaxed and embrace life with more joy. During the introductions, some giggled, some laughed, some just mouthed the words ha ha ha to loosen up. We started with warm-up exercises, clapping, chanting, stretching. All stood up to do a round of “chicken dance.” Soon, Andy Bautista, who joined us with his wife, asked if there was a difference in the health benefits derived from simulated and real laughter. I told him we get the same physiological and psychological benefits.
“The LYoga sessions are for the healthy who wish to remain healthy and for those who are ill who want to heal themselves. Feel-good mantras and rounds of laughter produce endorphins that make for a happier disposition as opposed to chronic elevations of stress hormones, which contribute to various health problems. Daily exercises, coupled with a vibrant personal prayer life, help us to remain healthy and well-balanced.
“Our house still stands, but there’s one big difference. In what used to be a quiet house, robust belly laughter can now be heard whenever I go to work there and visit my mother. And now, I am committed to laugh to get the health benefits of laughter. Yes, I am now into Laughter Yoga!”
Last January 29, Lynda and Julius joined me when I conducted an LYoga session in the Calamba prison facility for men, who are still undergoing trials and awaiting court decisions. For the first time, detainees were allowed to use the lounge where the LYoga session was done. Some 70 men, young and old, gamely participated while the courteous and pleasant BJMP officers watched smilingly. I stood on a wooden bench so all participants could see as we demonstrated some kinds of laughter, which they all enjoyed immensely. After chanting “I feel good, very good, yey,” “I am happy, very happy, yey,” “I am healthy, very happy, yey,” I asked what they want to add, and they replied, “Free.” So I added, “I am free, very free, yey.” The laughter, interspersed with breathing and stretching exercises, tremendously helped release their pent-up emotions and negative debris that must have clogged their mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual attributes. Laughter releases feel-good hormones!
The ever handy and so easy LYoga clapping, in tandem with ho ho ha-ing, can do the trick and is doable anytime, anywhere under any situation, alone or with other people. When we did the handshake laughter, I approached two elderly men in their 70s, who initially looked serious but eventually laughed heartily as the session progressed. Helping lighten people’s burdens as they navigate their way through the rough-and-tumble, faith-and-courage-testing times soothes the soul like a balm and gives immeasurable joy. “Sana bumalik kayo,” were their parting words. We felt genuinely happy knowing that they forgot even for an hour their human travails and the monotony of life behind prison bars.
The next LYoga session will be held on March 3 at Edsa Shangri-La Hotel for the 30th Convention of the Philippine College of Chest Physicians.
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E-mail author at mega_abundant_lv@yahoo.com.
