Read the following passage on“Laughter Therapy” and answer the questions that follow.
1. Laughing is an excellent way to reduce stress in our lives; it can help you to cope with and survive a ’ stressful life. Laughter provides full-scale support for your muscles and unleashes a rush of stress busting endorphins. Since our body cannot distinguish between real and fake laughter, anything that makes you giggle will have a positive impact.
2. Laughter Therapy aims to get people laughing, in groups and individual sessions and can help reduce stress, make people and employees happier and more committed, as well as improve their interpersonal skills. This laughter, comes from the body and not the mind.
3. Laughter Yoga (Hasya yoga) is a practice involving prolonged voluntary laughter. It aims to get people laughing in groups. It is practised in the early mornings in open-parks. It has been made popular as an exercise routine developed by Indian physician Madan Kataria, who writes about the practice in his 2002 book ‘Laugh for no reason’. Laughter Yoga is based on the belief that voluntary laughter provides the same physiological as well as psychological benefits as spontaneous laughter.
4. Laughter yoga session may start with gentle warm up techniques which include stretching, chanting, clapping, eye contact and body movements to help break down inhibitions and encourage a sense of playfulness. Moreover, laughter is the best medicine. Breathing exercises are used to prepare the lungs for laughter followed by a series of laughter exercises that combine a method of acting and visualization techniques. Twenty minutes of laughter is sufficient to augment physiological development.
5. A handM of small scale scientific studies have indicated that laughter yoga has some medically beneficial effects, including cardiovascular health and mood. This therapy has proved to be good for depressed patients. This laughter therapy also plays a crucial role in social bonding.
(a) How does laughter help one to cope with stress?
(b) Which word in the text (para 2) means the same as ‘dedicated’?
(c) Why do you think voluntary laughter provides the same physiological as well as psychological benefits as spontaneous laughter?
(d) ‘Laughter is the best medicine’. Explain.
(e) Given below is a set of activities. Which of these are followed in the ‘Laughter Yoga’ technique?
(f) ‘Laughter therapy also plays a crucial role in social bonding’. How?
