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Understanding Laughter Yoga
19 Plays6 months ago
Cathy Nesbitt is a Worm Advocate, Sprout Grower, and Laughter Yoga Teacher.
In the 2002 Cathy decided that setting up a worm composting business would be a good way to contribute to protecting the environment.
After ten years of hearing people make derisory comments, she almost made the decision to give up. But then Cathy discovered Laughter Yoga. The lessons she learnt about life saved her business.
Now Cathy also runs Cathy’s Chuckle Club.
In this episode of Fit For My Age, Cathy Nesbitt and Michael Millward discuss why laughing for the health of it has a positive impact on our health and well-being.
Cathy explains the science of laughing and how the process of laughing changes how the human body functions.
Hear what happens when Michael puts Cathy’s suggestions in to action.
Visiting Canada
Cathy lives in Toronto Canada. If you would like to visit Toronto or Canada the best place to make your travel arrangements is The Ultimate Travel Club, because that is where you can access trade prices on hotels, flights and many more travel purchases.
Visit the Ultimate Travel Club and use our offer code to receive a discount on your membership fee.
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Fit For My Age is made on Zencastr.
Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform, on which you can create your podcast in one place and then distribute it to the major platforms like Spotify, Apple, and Google. It really does make creating content so easy.
If you would like to try podcasting using Zencastr visit zencastr.com/pricing and use our offer code ABECEDER.
Find out more about both Michael Millward and Cathy Nesbitt at Abeceder.co.uk.
Matchmaker.fm
Thank you to the team at Matchmaker.fm for the introduction to Cathy.
If you are a podcaster looking for interesting guests or if like Cathy, you have something very interesting to say Matchmaker.fm is where matches of great hosts and great guests are made. Use our offer code for a discount on membership.
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Being a Guest
If you would like to be a guest on Fit For My Age, please contact using the link at Abeceder.co.uk.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Fit for My Age' Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencaster. Hello and welcome to Fit for My Age, the health and wellbeing podcast from Abecedah. Fit for My Age is the podcast where we don't tell you what to think, but we do hope to make you think. I am your host, Michael Millboard, the managing director of Abecedah. As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, Fit for My Age is made on Zencaster.
Zencastr Features and Offer Code
00:00:31
Speaker
Zencaster is the all-in-one podcasting platform on which you can create your podcast in one place and then distribute it to the major platforms like Spotify, Apple, and Google. It really does make creating content so easy. If you'd like to try podcasting using Zencaster, visit zencaster.com forward slash pricing and use my offer code ABACEDA. All the details are in the description.
Meet Kathy Nesbitt and Her Joyful Mission
00:01:01
Speaker
Now that I've told you how wonderful Zencaster is for creating podcasts, we should make one that will be well worth liking, downloading and subscribing to. Now, hopefully you can, I'm smiling. I'm introducing this podcast and I think I have got the biggest smile on my face already because of, I know what we're going to be talking about and I'm smiling about it. But in this episode of Fit For My Age, My guest who I met on matchmaker dot.fm is Kathy Nesbitt, the founder and driving force behind Kathy's Chuckle Club.
Weather Chat: Yorkshire vs. Ontario
00:01:37
Speaker
And I swear, Chuckle is a word that you cannot say without smiling. But hello, Kathy. Hello, Michael. Oh, I'm so excited to be here. Thank you.
00:01:49
Speaker
I'm excited to have you here and it's really great that here I am in wet and windy UK in Yorkshire and you're over there in cold Ontario Canada in a Canadian winter. I know it's grey here, it's grey there. But how cold is it at the moment in Ontario Canada? ah We've got zero degrees set Celsius. Oh, so everything's freezing. young But having experienced a Canadian winter, I can say that although it's cold, it is fantastic. It is a brilliant place to be as long as you wear, as we say in Yorkshire, appropriate clothing. But if you would like to visit Canada, a good place to plan your travel is the Ultimate Travel Club. It is where you will get trade prices on flights and hotels and all sorts of other travel. You'll find a link and a membership discount in the description.
Kathy's Journey with Worm Composting and Laughter Yoga
00:02:42
Speaker
Now, Cathy, please can we start by you explaining a little bit about who Cathy Nesbitt is and what led you to founding Cathy's Chuckle Club? Yes, thank you, Michael. My working title is Cathy Crawley Laughing Queen. I would not i'd say that again, please, Cathy's... Cathy Crawley Laughing Bean Queen. Right. that but It doesn't fit on a business card. It doesn't. It probably doesn't need to, but we're going to find out how you came up with that as well. But what's the story behind Kathy and coming to the the the establishment of Kathy's Chuckle Club? How did it all happen?
00:03:27
Speaker
Yes. It's the 22nd anniversary of my worm composting business. That's the crawly part of my title. Okay. So we have to take a break there just for a second and say that you have a worm composting business. Yes. You've got to come in for 22 years. You've been farming worms. Yes. right okay just i just just tell us the website address of where people can find out more information about Kathy's worms Kathy's composting worms yeah it's Kathy's composters right dot com right it's indoor composting with worms
00:04:07
Speaker
um I'm located near Toronto, so so our landfill closed in 2002, and Canada's a pretty large country, but we couldn't find a place to site a new landfill, and we started to export our garbage to the U.M. And I had a solution. right yeah I had a solution. Worms in the house.
00:04:33
Speaker
Yeah. So how I came, sorry, how I came to the, the chocolate club is, you know, selling worms by the pound for indoor composting. It's not everybody's cup of tea. Not everybody wants worms in the house. I didn't know when I started, I had a solution. I was like, Oh, this will be great. I'm saving Canada, you know, and the States, you know, all that garbage being shipped out of the country. And what in 2012, I'd been doing it 10 years. And one more person said, ew, worms in the house. I'd heard it thousands of times. But in 2012, I heard it. I felt it. I questioned everything. And I said, oh my gosh, how can how am I going to do this if people are still afraid of worms and haven't heard of it? And the very next day, I was introduced to laughter yoga.
Laughter Yoga Explained
00:05:17
Speaker
And it saved my life, like, not saved my life. I wasn't suicidal. It was, it it saved my business and it it helped me to become more resilient and not take things so personally. So let me talk about laughter yoga. It was started in 1995 by a medical doctor, Dr. Madan Kateria, and his goal is world peace. So it's not jokes or comedy. It's laughing for the health of it. Okay. So there's no jokes. No jokes. Not that we're anti-joke, it's just jokes are cultural. So if it's about two people going in somewhere, it's not funny for them. Kathy, I prepared for this for this recording of a podcast. I have all my favorite dad jokes. And I don't have any of them. So there are no jokes in laughing yoga. There are no jokes. It's it's completely different. Yeah. it's it's um It's like laughing as an exercise.
00:06:13
Speaker
you know, you can go to the gym and you're on the, truck you know, maybe on the truck or the different equipment doing sit ups or rowing machine. um This is and a cardiovascular workout when you laugh for a certain amount of time. It's ten about 10 to 15 minutes of sustained belly laughter. And, you know, because our diaphragm is attached to all of our organs. So it's like internal jogging when we're laughing. Right. So diaphragm, what function does the diaphragm have in our bodies? Ah, the diaphragm regulates our breathing. For the most part, because of where we're living in our heads today, we're we're under stress a lot of the time. So when we're stressed, we're not breathing properly. So our body's not getting getting the oxygen that it needs, for sure our brain isn't. Because when we go into stress, blood lymph oxygen leaves our frontal lobe because we don't need our brain. We just need to escape from the stressful situation.
00:07:13
Speaker
So laugh what laughter does is forces us to do that deep, again, diaphragm. It's regulating the the breath into the belly. So when we take those big breaths, fill out our belly, moves all of our organs, our brain gets oxygenated, and we can come up with better solutions. Right. Our ability to take on oxygen in as we breathe is impacted by the health and effectiveness of our diaphragm. Yes. Yes. And when we're laughing, we're exhaling. So we have to take a nice deep breath in so we can continue laughing. Right. Right. You can't just ha ha ha. Whereabouts is my diaphragm?
00:07:57
Speaker
So if you put your hands on your belly, like how Santa would do it, like when he's going ho, ho, ho, and you have to say. Yeah, unfortunately, I think I have a bit of ah a bit of a Santa. That's a nicer way to describe it. I have a bit of a Santa, so I put my hands on there. I'll put your hands on your belly yeah and go ho, ho, ho or ha, ha, ha. ho ho And those sounds move our diaphragm. you can If you go ho, like like really feel it in your belly, that's moving your diaphragm. Okay, so that is in front of my my stomach and and all that?
00:08:34
Speaker
Yes. Yes. Right. So that's separate to my lungs, but if the, if the lungs are the bellows, then the diaphragm of the handles that you would press in order to, to, to fill the bellows with air. And then it's what you, you press to get the air out of your lungs and into your. brain That's it. So when you take a belly breath, you breathe into your belly, say, if you breathe in through your nose, it goes into your belly. That's why they say, breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth. It kind of connects the whole thing There's all different ways of doing, you know, breathing for calming. But if you breathe in through your nose, down into your belly, beautiful, nice deep breath, your belly will expand.
00:09:14
Speaker
And then when you exhale, imagine your belly contracting back to your spine and then the oxygen is
Breathing Techniques and Health Benefits
00:09:21
Speaker
pushed out. Right. So when people say take a deep breath and you see people so like expanding their chests, what they should be doing is so like expanding abdomen, their belly, so that the diaphragm is sucking the air into their lungs. That's it. That's it. We fill our belly and then fill our lungs. That's that exactly what you said. Most people are chest breathers because we're so stressed. So that the airwaves are all constricted.
00:09:50
Speaker
Yeah, but I think there's a logic around it as well. There isn't that there's a logic that my lungs are in my chest. So if I expand my chest, then I must be getting lots of air into it. But actually that may be the logic, but the the way in which the machine works is you expand your diaphragm, which sucks the air into your lungs. And then when you select it, you breathe out, right? Yeah we're not we're not using the full capacity of our lungs for the most part so so you can think about the old air that's careening through our body so when we get rid of all like either through deep diaphragmatic breathing or through laughing where you're laughing ha ha ha and you're out of breath your sides are hurting um
00:10:37
Speaker
Then we were expelling all of that old oxygen, all of that old air. And then you get to fill it with kind of fresh air and air quotes, depending where you are. Just as you're doing that, I'm sort of practicing it as you're talking. And so thinking that actually I can feel my diaphragm expanding, but in the process of doing that, I'm actually more upright in my and my torso and I can feel my shoulders going back. as well as I'm breathing through my nose using my diaphragm. I can feel my santa expanding. And yeah, you can you can feel that that process is working very quickly as you're as you're doing it.
00:11:24
Speaker
that's It's doing with fit with intention, right? we We have like all these systems that are working automatically, like breathing, we don't think about it. So when we put our attention on it, then we could be mindful about what we're doing, taking a beautiful breath in and just calming right down. Like it really puts us into a beautiful parasympathetic or relaxed state and and you you said it you'd notice oh look at him i'm i'm i'm more upright my posture is better i'm like maybe the room's brighter maybe you just feel more alert now
00:11:57
Speaker
Because that oxygen is our it's our life. We can live without food and water for a few days. We might be grumpy and uncomfortable, but we could do it. We can only we can only live without oxygen for a few minutes.
The Chemistry of Laughter and Stress Reduction
00:12:10
Speaker
yes And so laughter again forces at us right to to fill our beautiful lungs. yes That, you know, our our body requires our brain requires 25% more oxygen than the rest of our body as an operating principle. Like, ever lost your keys, phone, glasses, and you got to go, and you're like scooting around, ah, where are my glasses? Or where are my keys? I got to go. And so the longer you're flapping around, you know, we say, I can't i couldn't think straight. Like, when you're in an argument with someone, you're like, I'm so mad. I can't i couldn't even think straight.
00:12:41
Speaker
Oh, I'm not argumentative at all. may You said it. I'm not argumentative. But I know what you mean. It's like you can be in a situation where you know you're not thinking straight. you know your Your thought processes are muddled up because of the stress of the situation, whether that's ah there's a deadline to be met or I've got to catch a train or a bus or whatever it is. and I know what you mean that you you get to the point where Well, I suppose you can almost feel that you're you're not getting what you need in order to be able to cope with the situation logically. Oh, we can absolutely feel it. Our body tenses up. If we notice again, if we're mindful, like it's right, this conscious, unconscious actions going in our body, when we put note, like when we notice, then we can stop, take a beautiful deep breath in. If take two or three, take more if you need,
00:13:37
Speaker
ah Because our breath really does once we're stressed that like our brain is not the frontal lobe is not getting oxygen, because we don't need our thinker. We do, but we vote, but it's disconnected. So when we say I couldn't think straight, we we we we literally can't I've been practicing as I've been listening to you and I just feel so chilled out and calm right now but it makes me think that whales and dolphins don't breathe in the same way as we do.
00:14:12
Speaker
they make a conscious decision to breathe. We breathe all the time without thinking about it from the point at which we are born and take our first breath to the time at which we we die. We don't consciously breathe unless there's a doctor saying, I breathe in, I breathe out and with a stethoscope or we do something like this. It's just something that happens. When you actually do take the time to pause and take that deep breath in through your nose and then slowly release it through your mouth, it has you just different, don't you? You feel different. It changes everything. We're in charge of our own pharma. The beautiful part about our bodies is it's it's ah this incredible machine. we we miss We mistreat it for decades.
00:15:06
Speaker
<unk>s before things happen sometimes. Because it's so resilient. with with laughter okay so When we're laughing, we're secreting the love drugs, dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins versus cortisol and adrenaline when we're stressed. We're in charge. We get to decide. When we're flopping around, we're stressed. We're not in both parasympathetic and sympathetic at the same time. We can only heal in parasympathetic. And I recently learned that the body uses 80% of its energy digesting. So how many people do you know that stress eat? They're really stressed. I don't know. Things are happening. They're stressed. So they're eating whatever junk food because it's comforting. It's like, oh, good. You get the dopamine hit, right? You get all these chemical hit. Maybe they have a drink or whatever. That's like no judgment. Just that's what we do. Instead of that, imagine if we could laugh and change everything in an instant.
00:16:05
Speaker
We can, we just need to know about it. Yes, because what you're talking about is those those love drugs that our body creates as a result of the actions that we take. the happy The happy beans that I sometimes talk about in my head, if I do some exercise or you go for a run or spend time in the gym, you create those happy beans in your head that lift your mood. You can take on the world. when you've When you've created those drugs for yourself, in your own body, by the choices that you make, about the actions that you will take. That's it.
Online Laughter Yoga and Wellness Practices
00:16:45
Speaker
You create those whole sort of thing. And laughter, of course, is the is the easy way to do it. um so like What's it like on a first visit to Kathy's Chuckle Club?
00:16:58
Speaker
So now we're doing most, it's mostly online now and it's beautiful. You have it in gallery view. yeah My club is 30 minutes of super fun self-care. As a laughter yoga teacher, I incorporate tapping, EFT, emotional freedom technique, uh, brain gym, Chi Kong, All kinds of modalities, I'm always learning. I i love learning new techniques. So i I go, I learn all this stuff and then I bring it to my laughter club. Laughter goes with everything, so it's just beautiful. um And my goal with my laughter club, my online club, is to help people get out of stress and into joy.
00:17:35
Speaker
you know when we're when we feel good we do good so imagine if we're all laughter just raises our vibration that's all like it's just another way for us to feel good we could dance we could sing you know there's all kinds of things that we can do to feel good maybe laughter's not for for everybody but there is something for everybody just keep looking for whatever it is because i think that feeling good helps us You know, again, raise the vibration of the planet. it It helps us become more productive at work, at home, in our relationships. We just feel good. We have more energy because it's just energy.
00:18:12
Speaker
Yes. It's, it's almost as if, I mean, I'm no expert and I'm learning from everything that you're saying, but as part of, part of this, which is about creating the energy within ourselves, having the right positive energy, which enables us to do the things that we need to do, that we want to do, that will help us with building the life
Preventive Self-Care vs. Reactive Healthcare
00:18:37
Speaker
that we want. You won't be able to fulfill your ambitions unless you've actually got into a place where you're equipping yourself to fulfill those ambitions. That's it. Self-care is health care. You know, we spend so much time looking after other people and and we we put off looking after ourselves. Like, I don't have time to go to the gym this week because, you know, I got to work overtime, whatever, all these things that we say.
00:19:02
Speaker
And it's like, we need to put ourself first so that we can, you know, putting your mask on first, or your yeah, your oxygen mask on the plane, right? Same idea. We need to look after ourself all the time. We're important. And then we can function better. And then we're, you know, we' then we're not a burden on the healthcare sin system, because we're vibrant, like, so we're saving money overall, I think that that if we, you know, in North America, we we talk about our great healthcare care system, we it's sick care, yes, because there's nothing about prevention, or
00:19:35
Speaker
you know eating properly or getting exercise it's like oh just come and take this pill because that's a great business.
Corporate Wellness and Laughter Yoga
00:19:41
Speaker
It's an incredible business model. We we focus on the cure rather than the prevention and the prevention is is it better to prevent it than to cure it. I'm wondering as well about the advantages of this type of approach from an employer's perspective. You mentioned that people who are happier, have more balance, better breathing will actually be more productive, but how could a an imp employer introduce this type of approach?
00:20:10
Speaker
into the way in which they will with sort of services or benefits or part of a health corporate health care plan into an organization. How does it work inside an organization? Yeah, so when you when you have a laughter professional come in, it's not talking about it's not talk therapy. It's a wellness program. So it helps people get connected when we're laughing together. It's contagious in a good way. You know, we're making eye contact, it breaks down barriers. So the president and the male person can all be laughing together in one room. And it's not, it's not weird. It's it's an activity that just helps everybody get connected. And
00:20:51
Speaker
again raises the vibration, it helps boost our immunity so people are away from work less. um Some corporations have start their day with a laughter club. So every morning you do like a five minute, it doesn't have to be long. You said already just a few deep breaths and you feel different already. That's exactly it. You can do five minutes and bone. Yeah, that's what it is. The laughter is like you said at the beginning, I think, jogging through your diaphragm, it exercises your diaphragm. And once that is activated, I suppose it then gets to the point where more of the breaths that you take every day will be the right type of breaths, bringing the oxygen in.
00:21:35
Speaker
enabling you to manage those happy beings, which will improve your mood, improve your productivity, leading to better, more sustainable, more profitable organizations. That's it, because people will be more creative, right there, their brain is all fully oxygenated, the neural pathways are all illuminated, just come up more, you just have more, more connections, you're looking up instead of looking down. You know, one of the challenges today, Michael is because we're on our cell phone so often, oh we actually have the physiology of depression.
Posture, Mood, and Technology's Impact
00:22:09
Speaker
Your head is down. That's when you've got your cell phone, your mobile phone, your smartphone, whatever it is that you call it in which other part of the world, when you're using one of those, your head is down. Yes. Even saying the phrase, your head is down is depressing, isn't it? It is. it Yes. So, so we're sending mixed messages to our brain. No wonder we're so anxious and and depressed and disconnected. It's because we're always, we're addicted to our, you know, our technology. Yeah, it's like it's impossible to cry if you hold your head up. But he try here's ah here's the thing, try putting your hands. So one of the things in laughter yoga, there's clapping and. and
00:22:52
Speaker
you know, different sounds and stuff. So you clap between activities, you would say, because you imagine you're in a room and you're all laughing, it's pretty loud. So when the laughter leader figures that, okay, that activity's gone on, then we would say, very good clap your hands, very good, very good. And you throw your hands in the air over your head like a V, yay. and And I say to people, you can't have your hands over your head and be like, oh, I'm so sad. No, it's, it it you can't even say it. The activity facilitates and encourages the change in the attitude, which then changes the behavior. I can see, yeah, I can see what what you mean about, yeah, you certainly got me thinking there, Kathy. Certainly got me thinking. Yay! Woo! Isn't that what the podcast is all
Join Cathy's Chuckle Club Online
00:23:38
Speaker
about? this is This is very, very, very true. It is. You said it's online, but where is Cathy's Chuckle Club held? what what's Where can people find it? if they're Regardless of where they are in the world, where can you find Cathy's Chuckle Club? Okay. So the website is Cathy's Club dot.com. right And the information to register is at the top of my laughter page. It's on Zoom.
00:24:01
Speaker
9 30 a.m. Every Tuesday Eastern time Eastern time that's Eastern am yeah 9 30 a.m. Eastern time in Canada and Tuesday mornings sounds brilliant Thank you very much Kathy.
Podcast Closing and Episode Promotion
00:24:18
Speaker
I've really enjoyed our conversation and Thank you for helping me to make such an interesting episode of fit for my age. It's been great. Thank you, Michael. I appreciate it. Thank you. I am Michael Millward, the managing director of Abecedah, and I have been having a conversation with Kathy Nesbitt, the founder and driving force of Kathy's Chuckle Club. You still can't say that word without smiling. Chuckle. You can find out more information about both of us at abecedah.co.uk. There is a link in the description along with a link to Kathy's Chuckle Club.
00:24:50
Speaker
I must remember to thank the team at matchmaker.fm for introducing me to Kathy. If you are a podcaster looking for interesting guests, or if like Kathy, you have something very interesting to say, matchmaker dot.fm is where matches of great hosts and great guests are made. There is a link to matchmaker.fm and an offer code in the description. The description is probably well worth reading. If you've liked this episode of Fit From My Age, please give it a like and download it so that you can listen anytime, anywhere. And to make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abhacita is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to make you think. And last, but most importantly of all, thank you to you for listening. Until the next time. Goodbye.