Strategies To Add More Laughter Into Your Life And Laugh Alone

Here are some practical ideas for you to experiment anytime, anywhere with the concept of laughing as a form of exercise and adding more joy into your life. This list is by far not exhaustive and it is still a very good place to start. It's helped me greatly simply "being". Enjoy!

1. Decide To Laugh

When you choose to be sad, nobody can stop you. If you choose to laugh, nobody can stop you either.

You don't need to have a sense of humor, be happy or have any reason to laugh.

Life has no meaning. We as humans give meaning to life and what happens to us. Challenging situations of any kind do not mean that we have to become angry, sad, upset, depressed, whiny or adopt any other negative attitude. The choice is ours. Always.

Say yes to life and laughter. Actually just say yes to anything and everything all the time, and mean it. As Patricia Ryan Madson puts it "Accept all offers. Go along with the plan. Support someone else’s dream. Say "yes"; "right"; "sure"; "I will"; "okay"; "of course"; "YES!" Cultivate all the ways you can imagine to express affirmation. When the answer to all questions is yes, you enter a new world, a world of action, possibility, and adventure [...] Life is too short to argue over which movie to see. Seize the first idea and go with it. Don’t confuse this with being a "yes-man," implying mindless pandering. Saying yes is an act of courage and optimism; it allows you to share control. It is a way to make your partner happy. Yes expands your world."

When asked if he could summarize the teaching of the Bible, The Coran, The Bhagavad Gita and all other holy scriptures in one sentence the sage answered "yes, I think I could: You don't know what you are missing."

Just say yes to life and fake it if you have to. Act Happy. Talk Happy. Behave Happy. Think Happy. Ignore the negative. Focus exclusively on whatever is positive in your life (even if all you have to be happy for is the fact that your wrinkles don't hurt.) Become an expert at inverse paranoia: believe that everybody is out there to help and love you.

2. Just fake it

• Try our "do-it-along" laughter exercises.
• Really fake the physiology of "I am in a really good mood", just because. Sing a happy song.
• Try a conditional training. Laugh every time you take a shower. Or open the door of your car / fridge / bedroom.
• Choose 5 laughter exercises that you like and repeat them several time each. First mildly as a warm up, then with more enthusiasm. Do this everyday for 3 weeks.
• Consider joining in a daily 20 minutes laughter session on the telephone. FREE! Click here to read more.
• Although not directly related we would really encourage you to try the 21-days challenge of no complaining. The wretch who constantly says "I am bound, I am bound" only succeeds in being bound. He who says day and night "I am a sinner, I am a sinner" verily becomes a sinner (= misguided). Train yourself to see what works rather than what doesn't work! Acting positive will lead you to thinking positive.
• One way to make money is to save money. Likewise another valuable foundation work in adding more laughter and joy into your life is to wean yourself off the news juice (stop watching the news on TV). Reading / talking / watching negativity every single day is a most certain way to train yourself to see and expect negative. When all you have is a hammer, all you will see is nails.

3. Experience group laughter sessions as often as you can.

Click here to find a Laughter Club near you.

Click here to find a Laughter Yoga class instructor near you.

4. Seek Outside Stimuli

• Seek laughing people
• Collect toys and play with them!
• Laugh along with strangers
• Laugh with children (visit your local playground) or even better, a baby
• Play with small animals
• Watch funny movies: AFI's List Of 100 Funniest American Movies Of All Time
• Watch inspiring movies: AFI's List Of 100 Most Inspiring Films Of All Time

5. Creatively Approach Stress Management

Become a smile millionaire, just because.

Play with laughter cues (finish all your sentences with "Ha Ha Ha" or "Tee Hee Hee"). A great application of this is to share your embarrassing moments and then say "ha ha ha".

Get Some Perspective: see small annoyances for what they really are - just small annoyances. To put a stressful situation into perspective, first try visualizing it getting completely out of control to an absurd degree. Exaggerating your predicament helps you differentiate a small annoyance from a life-threatening problem and allows you to find the humor in the situation.

Another tactic is to write about the stressful situation with a funny slant. Start by simply writing about the problem. Then ask your self: What's a simple solution to my situation, and what's the most ridiculous? Write about both. Your imagination is bound to push a laugh button. Putting your thoughts on paper also allows you to gain some distance from the event, and it gives you the opportunity to revisit the humorous scenario the next time a similar situation occurs.

Express Yourself: state your frustration out loud while doing something silly (e.g. jump on one foot 3 times and then twirl around. Adding a playful element to any charged situation helps counteract stress.)

Shout a positive motto during your most stress-filled moments (this may work best when you're alone.) For instance, you're in your car, stuck in traffic, and you have an appointment in 10 minutes. Rather than blame the drivers around you for everything wrong in your day, shout "I'm so happy" or "I'm really in love with life"

Pull out the props: breathe your stress out into a balloon, write it on a piece of paper and burn it, wear a clown nose, transfer your negativity to a plant (it will know how to recycle it.)

6. Experience Childlike Playfulness

Do not search. That which is, is. Stop and see. Adding more laughter and joy into your life is not about thinking. It's about simply being who you are and flow with it.

1. Act playful (not silly)
2. Ask lots of questions with a big smile on your face
3. Be a clown, just for fun
4. Be a kid at heart (that means "don't be afraid to play and dance")
5. Be a smile millionaire
6. Be, do, and sing dobedobedo
7. Blow bubbles
8. Build sand castles
9. Climb trees
10. Collect rainbows
11. Dance
12. Dance funky
13. Daydream
14. Do a belly flop contest
15. Do nothing. Put bluntly "sit down and shut up" (somewhere it says "Be still and know that I am God.")
16. Doodle
17. Draw and paint
18. Draw cartoons
19. Enjoy having a body. When did you last have a massage?
20. Fall down and get up again
21. Feel happy (think about this one: how does "feeling happy" looks like? What do you do when you are happy? Find out. Then do it)
22. Find out how things work always with a big smile on your face
23. Fly kites
24. Get into the habit of doing really nice things for people who will never find out (the best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up)
25. Get really exited about everything, just for fun
26. Get new sneakers (multicolored ones are best)
27. Give Gag gifts
28. Go barefoot. Add lots of "ooooo" and "aaaaaa"
29. Go on adventures (in doubt, just “go”. Void does not exist. Something will happen.)
30. Have a comedy night (go with friends. If you don't have any, invite your neighbor.)
31. Have a food fight in gibberish (click here to watch an example)
32. Have a funny toy throwing contest (i.e. rubber chicken)
33. Have a pillow fight
34. Have a Water fight
35. Have theme days
36. Hold hands. Say I love you. Hug and kiss
37. Jump in mud puddles
38. Just show up, especially when you are most afraid (remember this: you always look better than you feel so if you are afraid don't say anything. Most people will never know.)
39. Laugh a lot at random, whenever you feel like it (fake it as much as you need to)
40. Learn new stuff
41. Listen to happy music
42. Look at the sky and imagine you are a bird flying
43. Make funny faces for a whole day
44. Make funny Sound effects
45. Commit to engage in a heart to heart conversation with a least 1 new person per day / week. The goal is to make new friends.
46. Make up new rules and try them out religiously for a whole day.
47. Play Charades
48. Play with toys
49. Engage in physical play (try jump ropes, hop-scotch, ...)
50. Put on a puppet show
51. Read children books
52. Read empowering comics
53. Recollect your most embarrassing moment ending each sentence with "ha ha"
54. Ride a tricycle all around town
55. Say hello to everyone with a big smile on your face
56. Say the magic words (= engage, exchange, open up, flow with life)
57. Say yes
58. Sing in the shower
59. Skits
60. Slip-n-slide
61. Smell flowers
62. Smile
63. Speak pig Latin
64. Spend time with a baby
65. Start anywhere
66. Stay up late
67. Stop along the way and ask yourself: I know there is beauty right here and now. Where is it?
68. Surprise someone (offer them flowers?)
69. Take bubble baths
70. Take naps
71. Talk with animals
72. Tell a fantastic tale with lots of enthusiasm and hands gestures to at least 1 child of any age every week/month (yes, you can volunteer and do bed visits at you local retirement community or hospital).
73. Try face & finger painting
74. Try juggling (play!)
75. Try Karaoke
76. Try lip synch (cut out the sound of your TV and make up the dialogues yourself)
77. Walk in the rain
78. Wander around
79. Watch funny movies (click here for a suggested list)
80. Watch funny pictures (i.e. baby pictures)
81. Watch the moon and stars come out. Say "aaaaaaa" and "oooooo" a lot.
82. Wear 2 different shoes or sox
83. Wear funny costumes
84. Wear funny noses
85. Wear funny hats

7. Practice Happiness Exercises

The regular practice of any of the following simple exercises will help you create a sense of greater happiness in your life. Just as you can't separate the juice from the orange, you can't separate laughter from happiness.

• Write down three positive occurrences that happened during the day, every night for one week - then for each occurrence write down an answer to the question of why the good thing happened.
• Relate and share good news with others.
• Challenge each negative thought as it arises, then question it to judge if the scientific likelihood or mathematical probability of the forecast disaster is actually existent and if so, to what extent.
  
• Enhance the positive traits rather than rue and mull on the negative thoughts.
  
• Make optimistic attributions to real life situations as a preference to pessimistic conclusions.
  
• Practice appreciation, live proactively, recognize your strengths.
  
• Practice positive affirmations daily
  
• Express gratitude, appreciation and forgiveness

Click here to read more about those happiness exercises.

Last but not least: "do" whatever you decide to do from the above list. don't just "try". "Doing" has nothing to do with a successful outcome. It's about giving your best shot, everything that you have. There is no in-between switch. If you want to turn the light on, you'll have to get up and push the switch on, otherwise it will never work.

"Impossible is a word in the dictionary of the fools." Napoleon Bonaparte.

Consider attending a training with us to deepen your understanding of Laughter Yoga and Laughter Exercises. You'll be surprised at how many doors this will open for you. Here are a few things people have said after training with us:

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