The giggle doctor will see you now
After losing her job and struggling to find work through lockdown, Sonja Morgenstern turned to a different sort of therapy to lift her mood
When I lost my job at the end of February this year, I trudged home feeling low. Before the pandemic struck I was an actor, but when Covid forced theatres to close, I struggled to find work.
I started a gardening job in September, and when temperatures dropped, I was offered an admin role with a computer firm. But it didn’t work out and, after just a few months, they sent me home clutching my redundancy letter.
I was gutted, and didn’t know what to do. I sat on the sofa feeling despondent. But two hours later, my feelings of hopelessness made way for hoots, giggles and belly laughs, as I logged on to my weekly online laughter yoga class.
My shoulders heaved up and down and I couldn’t keep a straight face.
Why? I was wearing a colander on my head, along with everyone else.
The class was set up at the start of the pandemic by Suzy Harvey, 45, a specialist in joy and connection from Oxford. Its mission? Cheer people up.
First sessions focused on breathing, and making laughter sounds while raising our arms or rolling our shoulders, which soon gave way to genuine laughs.
Early classes were Covid-themed. “We did movements based on hand washing or referencing keeping people two metres away. While laughing, obviously”, says Suzy.
This moved on to everyday activities people were doing at home, such as DIY, cutting their own hair and going to the shops.
Suzy would demonstrate three movements based around a theme, which we would copy, all the while making laughter sounds – such as rubbing our hands in a washing motion, pretending to chop at our own hair, or using utensils to re-enact painting our walls at home. Suzy says: “In one session I asked the participants to find something to wear as a disguise. One lady showed up on screen wearing a colander on her head, so then the theme was born for another class: Colander Tuesdays – it’s hard to feel sad when you have a colander on your head.”
In the classes I’ve attended, we have pretended to go on holiday, a school trip and to a disco, and have laughed along to movements that relate to making pizza in Italy, snorkelling in Egypt and dressing up in sequins.
Suzy plays music people dance along to, such as the James Bond theme, while we make hand gestures like pointing a gun, or if it’s a birthday we sing “ha-ha-ha” instead of the words to Happy Birthday. Watching other adults being silly on screen and enjoying themselves always makes me laugh for real. The costumes are great. Over the months, I’ve found myself in my living room wearing my son’s snorkel mask, a pizza box on my head, or a feathered hat that I last wore to the races. Pre-pandemic,
Suzy worked at children’s hospitals as a clown doctor and ran training sessions in care homes.
When her hospital work was cancelled she got a feeling the pandemic may last for many months.
Stuck at home like the rest of us, she decided she would move her laughter yoga online.
“Everyone is welcome,” says Suzy. “I have participants ranging from babies to a 94-year-old. It’s not only our body that needs exercise, our mind is like a dusty rug that sometimes needs a good shaking.
“If you move in laughter, all your cells are woken up and your mental health benefits.”
There are health benefits too. One person joined the class two weeks after contracting Covid, and while they had to duck out of shot or mute themselves to cough, they felt the exercises encouraged them back to
normal breathing. I found out about the class through a ‘stuck at home’ Facebook group, and it sounded like a good way to connect with others while isolating as a single parent.
Participants love the connection it gives them with others, and many friendships have been made.
One thing that surprised me about laughter yoga is how emotional it can be. Sometimes I feel tearful during a class, the emotional release bubbling up. Suzy tells me this is common.
She says: “Lots of people email me and tell me something made them cry, as there are so many emotions running through us at this time.”
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve certainly come to think of laughter yoga as part of my emotional hygiene, and I am no longer worried about what people may think of me when they see me goofing around on the screen.
Laughing breaks negative thinking. It has reminded me to breathe and be thankful, and not to take life too seriously, even in a pandemic.
Sometimes I feel tearful in a class, it’s the emotional release bubbling up