5 Benefits of Laughter Yoga

Bill and Linda Hamaker • August 3, 2023

Why you should try Laughter Yoga

1. Personal Life

Laughter Yoga will help to add more laughter to your life, develop a sense of humor and a smile. You will feel more self confident, have a positive outlook, hope and optimism. It changes your mood within minutes and if your mood is good, everything seems good and you are at your best everywhere.


2. Business life

Your output and performance depends on your energy level. For optimal functioning of the brain, you need 25% more oxygen than any other body organs. Laughter Yoga increases the supply of oxygen, not only to the brain but to the entire body to help you work more than normal and efficiently.


3. Health Benefits

Laughter Yoga is a powerful cardio workout; in fact 10 minutes of hearty laughter can be a real work-out. It decreases the negative effects of stress on your body which is the root cause of all illnesses. Laughing Yoga is a single exercise that deals with physical, mental and emotional stress simultaneously. It also strengthens the immune system, lowers blood pressure, controls blood sugar and keeps your heart healthy. It is a powerful antidote against depression – the number one sickness today.


4. Social Life

The quality of life and life satisfaction does not depend on how much money, power, position and success you have; rather it depends on the number of good friends with whom one has a caring and sharing relationship. This appreciation and acknowledgment helps in emotional development. Laughter Yoga is a positive energy which quickly connects you with people and helps to make friends easily.


5. Inner Spirit of Laughter

Laughter Yoga will teach you how to keep your spirits high when you face challenges in life. It promotes a positive mental attitude to help you cope with negative situations and deal with difficult persons in a much better way than a normal person.


Come and experience the contagiousness of playful laughter with Bill and Linda HAmaker every second Monday of each month at noon ET! They are Certified Laughter Yoga Master Trainers who have been spreading the joys and health benefits of intentional laughter for over 15 years! They have been loyal volunteers with the GPB since it began. The next fun session will be Monday, August 14th.


Each laughter session is always unique and memorable. Bill and Linda certify others on Zoom to lead laughter sessions and have been named Ambassadors to Laughter Yoga by Dr. Madan Kataria, the Indian physician who created laughter yoga. They have appeared on community television, NBC Boston, been on the radio, in the Boston Globe, and have been featured on the front page of many community newspapers. They run the free Wacky Wednesday Let’s Laugh Today Laughter Club that is open to anyone on Zoom.


They will show you how to bring more laughter into your life and the life of others. Laughter Yoga combines guided laughter exercises with breathing exercises to bring more oxygen to the body's cells. This oxygen boost gives enhanced vitality, energy, a feeling of real well-being, and helps to build up the immune system. It can help with anxiety, pain and depression. Any age and any level of physical ability can do these simple playful exercises. You do not even need a sense of humor! You can sit or stand. Let’s Laugh Today because seven days without laughing makes one weak! 

CHANGEMAKERS PLAYFEST 2025: Creating Power Through Play

By Global Play Brigade • December 12, 2025
CHANGEMAKERS PLAYFEST 2025: Creating Power Through Play If there are two things that define Global Play Brigade, it’s this: First, we love to experiment. We breathe it, build with it, and follow through. GPB isn’t just curious; we are invested in the process and its lessons. Secondly, we love partnerships. Whenever we see an organization dreaming in the direction we dream, we run toward them joyfully, arms open, ready to build something bigger, wider, and wilder. These two parts of who we are collided beautifully at the Changemakers Playfest 2025. GPB featured on Day One of the Performing The World (PTW) 2025, titled: Meandering Through the Mess . It was a conference within a conference, a global playground nestled inside another. Woven into the PTW ecosystem, the energy was electric. GPB’s Executive Director, Rita Ezenwa-Okoro, opened the Changemakers Play Festival with words that set the tone. She spoke of faith and turning mess into message, how changemakers need to navigate complexities without succumbing to burnout, and how play offers a radical way to imagine new possibilities and create hope. Watch Rita’s speech here! One of the participants reflected: “Rita’s speech didn’t just inspire; it was tactile, lived, and actionable. Her words invited participants to sit with complexity without fear, to recognize that navigating mess isn’t chaos, it’s courage in motion.” One of the facilitators added: “Her remarks slowed everyone down, encouraging a collective meandering, turning abstract ideas into lived experience. The festival began not with instruction, but with invitation: to play, to explore, and to build together.” The Art of Connected Conversations playshop turned ordinary talk into bridges. Led by Cathy Salit (USA) and Kahlil Bagatsing (Philippines/USA), participants discovered that listening can be playful, bold, and transformative. “I never knew a conversation could feel like a bridge,” one participant reflected. Their conversations became a space for curiosity, care, and co-creation. Teamwork Makes the Dreamwork sparked laughter and delightful absurdity. Hikaru Hie (Japan), Yvette Alcott (Australia), and Toto Carandang (Philippines) invited participants into improvisational chaos. Everyone became experts at impossible tasks, discovering that teamwork thrives in trust, surprise, and shared play. Power Games in the Workplace / Los Juegos de Poder en Ambientes de Trabajo made invisible dynamics visible. Viviane Carrijo (Brazil), Jordan Hirsch (USA), and Carlos Gaviria (Colombia) guided participants through theater games exploring dominance, influence, and collaboration. One participant reflected, “I’ve been both the oppressor and the oppressed, and play can help us imagine new ways forward.” Power became something to explore, understand, and transform together. Connection and intimacy unfolded in unexpected ways. In one exercise, participants shared the (his)story of their names and responded to each other with curiosity and reflection. Strangers became collaborators within minutes. The festival showed that play isn’t just fun, it’s a strategy for building trust, creativity, and global community. Across continents and cultures, laughter, improvisation, and shared curiosity revealed our common humanity, while playful experimentation offered new ways to imagine, collaborate, and lead with care.

HEART & POWER: Bringing the World Closer to Wellness

By Global Play Brigade • December 12, 2025
HEART & POWER: Bringing the World Closer to Wellness In a world where over 1 billion people are living with mental-health disorders and only one in five get the help they need, Global Play Brigadiers converged this past August at our Heart and Power Playshop to explore the question: How can we bring the world closer to wellness through play? Our carefully curated playshops included: In Embodied Empathy , people didn’t just talk about feelings; they moved them. One participant described the moment they felt another person’s sadness through a simple hand gesture, saying, “It was like my body understood before my mind did.” Guided by Christopher Ellinger (USA) and Jacek Kulkuk (Poland), the Zoom room softened. People softened. Empathy became physical. In What Is Wellness? , a big shift happened. Someone said, “I always thought wellness was personal, but now I see it’s something we build together.” With Lambert Oigara (Kenya), Jeff Gordon (Israel), Jenn Bullock (USA), and Muneeb ur Rehman (Pakistan), wellness became communal, a shared construction site where everyone created new tools. Imagine watching someone’s story turn into choreography; a literal dance of lived experience. Led by Ruben Reyes (Spain), Zara Barryte (USA), Sally Oimbo (Kenya), and Prudence Omale (Nigeria), Story-o-graphy gave participants a chance to see their stories move through another person’s body. It wasn’t just creative. It was healing. Rainbows of Emotions gave us the full colour spectrum of human feelings, from joy to grief to curiosity to frustration. It finally made sense that emotions aren’t good or bad… they’re information, one participant reflected. Steered by Ishita Sanyal (India), Manisita Khastagir (India), Rick Horner (USA), and Medhavi Parmar (India), people painted emotional rainbows with movement, sound, and imagination. Heart & Power didn’t end when Zoom closed. It ignited a new awareness that wellness isn’t a luxury, but a shared responsibility. People walked away with softer hearts, deeper breaths, and a renewed sense of connection across borders, cultures, and personal histories. It reminded us that play can be a global mental-health intervention. It can be one that honours the emotional, cultural, spiritual, and embodied realities. To every participant who danced, moved, cried, laughed, breathed, and played with us, we say THANK YOU. To our brilliant Playcilitators, thank you for guiding the world with courage and creativity. To our hosts, Rita Ezenwa-Okoro (Nigeria), Charly Ford (USA), Murray Dabby (USA), and Medhavi Parmar (India), your presence set the tone on both days. And to our indispensable tech team, you made HEART AND POWER come to life! Click to listen to the insightful musings on Heart & Power by Rita, our Executive Director! Click here to read the collaborative poem created by Heart & Power participants!