The Laughter Effect
How to Build Joy, Resilience, and Positivity in Your Life
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Supercharge your "happy hormones" with this motivational self help book featuring mind-body techniques for boosting joy and gratitude through laughter.
Laughter really is the best medicine!
In The Laughter Effect, Ros Ben-Moshe provides a roadmap to tap into the lighter side of life with laughter therapy. Ben-Moshe shares tips and tools to achieve an intentional state of being she calls the Laughter Effect–a way to elevate mindfulness, gratitude, and self-compassion, including:
Laughter yoga, which is comprised of coordinated movements, breathing and stretching, positive reinforcements, and expressions of mirthStarting a humor journal, where you collect things that make you laugh for future referenceSmiling and laughing mindfulness practices, including a gratitude mindful body scanPositive reframing to help you find joy in difficult times
When used regularly, it enhances resilience to stress, enabling you to respond to adversity and bounce forward with humor, levity, and grace.
Drawing on research from around the world, practice and wisdom from humor and laughter therapy, and positive psychology and neuroscience, Ben-Moshe shows you how to use the energy of laughter and joy to counter stress hormones and stimulate a daily dose of positive wellbeing with “happy hormones.”
The techniques, strategies and practices you’ll learn can transform your physical, mental, social and emotional landscape. Viewing life through a laughter lens will awaken a positive change in yourself, how you respond to the world and, in turn, how the world responds to you.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ben-Moshe (Laughing at Cancer), an adjunct lecturer in positive psychology at La Trobe University, sets out to prove in this cheery if disjointed outing that laughter can indeed be the best medicine. Battling chronic fatigue syndrome in her 20s, the author stumbled across "laughter yoga" (which combines deep breathing, clapping, "chanting ho ho, ha, ha, ha" and "simulated laughter exercises") at a health conference. She experienced "immediate" relief, and promptly began studying to become a laughter yoga leader. Writing that laughter switches off the body's fight-or-flight response and activates beta endorphins, the body's "internal source of morphine," Ben-Moshe explains that simply going to a comedy show or practicing laughter yoga can reduce pain and alleviate gastrointestinal symptoms. Elsewhere, she cites a study suggesting women who spent 15 minutes with a clown after an IVF procedure were more likely to have a successful implantation than those who didn't. (Couples looking to conceive would do well to "enjoy a productive laugh" together, Ben-Moshe writes; while the evidence isn't incontrovertible, "worst-case scenario: you'll have a laugh. Best-case scenario: you'll have a life!"). Though the guidance is somewhat disorganized (scientific research and personal anecdote mix with self-help exercises such as writing a "gratitude letter to yourself" and bits of advice from a "Serotonin Sister—an upbeat incarnation of Dear Abby"), Ben-Moshe's relentlessly upbeat tone is hard to resist. This energetic testament to the power of levity has its moments.
