There’s no punch line, no jokes and no fee. It’s not even necessary to get off the couch.

Welcome to laughter yoga.

Imported from India, it mixes the deep breathing and meditative techniques of yoga with life’s simplest coping mechanism: laughter.

Every Wednesday from 8:10 to 8:40 a.m., Humboldt County’s only laughter club gathers in the lobby of an Arcata chiropractor’s office.

Instructors Joy Hardin and Annemarie O’Toole-Dippre take anywhere from seven to 16 people on a gut-busting workout, picking and choosing from 40 basic laughter exercises. Pantomimes and improvisation exercises prime the laughter pump for the participants aged 15 to 80-something.

“My first session, I laughed at everyone else,” said Marla Gleave, a health education instructor at College of the Redwoods. “It’s comical.”

It’s also healthy. Laughter has been shown to strengthen the immune system, stimulate circulation, decrease blood pressure and increase the endorphins that are the body’s natural painkillers.

Dr. William Fry, emeritus faculty at the Stanford University School of Medicine, began researching laughter in the 1950s. He calls it excellent aerobic exercise, pointing out that 20 seconds of intense laughter, even if it’s faked, can double the heart rate for three to five minutes.

Hardin said others find the fog of depression lifts, enabling them to cut down their medication after talking with their physician.

“That really made me want it available to people,” said Hardin, who was a runner and wilderness leader before a bout with cancer led to an autoimmune disorder that has left her physically challenged.

“The single greatest benefit may be the sense of well-being,” she said. “It was a way I could have the yummy flood of endorphins. I’d done it for three full minutes and didn’t know what it was at first. Then I realized: This feels like I used to feel after I went running.”

Laughter yoga and laughing meditations require the deep bellows breathing of yoga with laughing out every bit of air the participants can. It’s a workout for the abdominal muscles, as well as the lungs.

“Hard laughter produces a complete air exchange,” explained Hardin. “Usually, people use only one-third of lung capacity. We had one woman with only 50 percent lung capacity because of lung cancer, but by doing laughter yoga she can use all of that.”

Gleave wanted to learn why organized giggles and guffaw were being used in hospital settings to shorten patient stays and decrease the need for medication. The mind-body connection made sense, but hospital settings aren’t usually jovial places.

“They have a saying: fake it till you make it,” Gleave said. The body, it seems, cannot tell the difference between pretend laughter and the real thing, though participants say the former becomes the latter in no time at all.

“My dad, even tired and grumpy when he came home from work, would sometimes, in the middle of dinner, say, ‘Let’s have a laugh,’” Elizabeth Niemeyer said. “He’d burst into great guffaws, and we kids would fake it until it became real laughter.”

Niemeyer, a teacher of English as a second language at Eureka Adult School, is planning to become a group leader and offer a bilingual class through the school.

“Laughter yoga touches on everything,” Niemeyer said.

“Bilingual is rare in the yoga world,” Hardin said. “But that’s how we’ll reach people.”

Hardin said word of mouth has brought inquiries from a number of Humboldt County organizations representing seniors, foster parents, students and patients who suffer from chronic pain.

“Yoga changes how the body reacts; this changes the way the mind reacts,” Hardin said by way of explanation. “We’re training the body to respond with laughter instead of anger, upset and frustration.”

In Hardin’s case, that’s helped in dealing with being on hold for hours and repeating her tale day after day as she engages in an ongoing conversation with her insurance company.

“I used it as a chance to practice laughing at what kind of health system we have,” she said. But in so doing, she’s changed how her body responds to the stressors it cannot control.

Western medicine has taken awhile to give mind-body alternatives their due.

It helped when Swedish researcher Lars Ljungdahl went to bat for humor therapy in the January 1989 issue of the establishment bible, the Journal of the American Medical Association.

“A humor therapy program can increase the quality of life for patients with chronic problems,” Ljungdahl wrote.

“Laughter has an immediate symptom-relieving effect for these patients, an effect that is potentiated when laughter is induced regularly over a period.”

The research has continued in many venues.

In 2005, researcher Michael Miller from the University of Maryland School of Medicine found that members of a volunteer group watching a scene from the comedy movie “King Pin” had the inner lining of their blood vessels expand to increase blood flow.

But the opening scene of “Saving Private Ryan” did the reverse.

Miller also found that people with heart disease were 40 percent less likely to laugh in a variety of situations than those of the same age with healthy hearts.

Researcher Lee S. Berk and colleague Dr. Stanley Tan at Loma Linda University Medical Center spent much of the last decade looking at how humor and laughter impact physiology.

“We looked at the data and fell on the floor,” Berk said in a 1999 news release from the school.

Berk and Tan showed that hormones such as epinephrine and cortisol, which harm the immune system, were lower in participants who laughed than in those who did not.

They also found that humor and laughter increased the number and activity of the natural killer cells that attack virus and tumor cells and that more T cells are activated than normal. The antibody that protects the upper respiratory tract increased and other immune system contributors remained elevated during laughter and the next day.

The Laughter Library at the Loma Linda University Cancer Institute is traced to this research.

The late Saturday Review editor Norman Cousins initially funded Berk’s research. Cousins suffered from a form of arthritis that impacted spinal connective tissue. He found no medicinal relief, but discovered watching Groucho Marx and “Candid Camera” produced a couple of hours of pain-free sleep. Cousins built on that observation to design a program he credits with reversing his illness. He published “Anatomy of an Illness” in 1979.

“Quack” was the initial response. But as credible research examined what laughter does to the body, the idea that giggling like children might do more for health than a prescription drug gained acceptance.

“A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones,” is how the Old Testament noted it in Proverbs 17:22.

“We’re more aware that there is a significant relationship between the mind and the body,” Berk stated. “Now medical science is starting to recognize with substantial scientific support what we as an institution were well aware of many years ago — the true right and benefit of whole-person care.”

If a laugh a day keeps the doctor away, then Hardin’s phone will be ringing nonstop. Those who want to give it a try should contact Hardin or Dippre at 707-834-5742 or e-mail laugh@hahahayoga.com.

Laughter yoga wants you

July 25-27 training class is key to growing county options

By Carol Harrison

the eureka reporter

Laughter yoga founder Dr. Madan Kataria claims to have 5,000 clubs in 40 countries, but adding more in Humboldt County is dependent on developing more group leaders.

The Open Door Community Health Centers, the Eureka Adult School in conjunction with St. Joseph Hospital, and College of the Redwoods may all offer laughter yoga groups in the near future, instructor Joy Hardin said.

A 14-hour course in laughter yoga leader training is scheduled for July 25-27 in Bayside.

Sparkie Lovejoy, who is introducing laughter yoga on radio station KGGV in Guerneville and on public access television in Santa Rosa, is conducting the session.

“Can you imagine how seriously it would help road rage?” Lovejoy asked.

Laughter yoga came to Humboldt County via Kari Jacobsen, a member of the advanced disease support group in the Humboldt Community Breast Health Project. While participating in a clinical trial in Tucson, Ariz., clinic staff recommended a daylong laughter yoga session to boost her immune system while undergoing the cancer treatment.

“She said we should bring this to Humboldt County,” recalled Hardin. “She and I were going to train to be leaders.”

Jacobsen died in January, but laughter yoga is her legacy.

Hardin asked Annemarie O’Toole-Dippre, a friend of Jacobsen and a 30-year practitioner of yoga, to join her at a February training conducted by Lovejoy. They started the Humboldt County group in April and are hoping the July 25-27 leader workshop conducted by Lovejoy next week will train more locals to meet growing demand.

The training workshop runs from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on July 25 and from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on July 26-27.

Cost is $275 per person, or $250 each for participants who enroll with a friend. Some partial scholarships are available.

Lovejoy has certified 25 instructors since she began training sessions last year. Of her many interests and motivations, beating cancer is one of them.

“There’s cancer in my family,” Lovejoy said. “My dad died of lung cancer. My sister had cervical cancer; my brother, throat cancer. I am laughing for prevention.”

The workshops number six to seven participants, who are asked to enroll by 5 p.m. on July 23. Phone Lovejoy at 707-528-8878 to register or ask questions.