About Laughing Lovebugs
Laughing Lovebugs, LLC brings laughter and wellness to groups, workplaces, couples, and children. We are a premium laughter yoga service offering virtual laughter yoga sessions of all kinds. Laughter yoga is perhaps the only interactive exercise routine that helps to ease physical, mental, and emotional stress all at the same time.
In laughter yoga, we combine laughter exercises, movement, and deep breathing, all of which are approached with playfulness. The synergy of all those elements empowers people to connect, unwind, and let go. No sense of humor, flexibility, or yoga mat required!
Scientific research studies show that laughter yoga strengthens the immune system and infection-fighting antibodies, alleviates pain, relieves tension, decreases inflammation, lowers blood pressure, improves cardiovascular health, controls blood sugar, and keeps us healthy in body and mind. Check out our website or follow us on Instagram (@laughinglovebugs) for examples of laughter exercises!
Founders’ Story
Lauren and Alik Colbert, the Laughing Lovebugs, are a husband-and-wife team of certified laughter yoga teachers. You read that right! We are laughter professionals—certified “laughter yogis.” When we realized that we were going to form a business and work together it was a dream—and we don’t have to go to sleep to have it! We love working together and bringing laughter and wellness to many people.
Laughter yoga is a unique exercise routine that was created in 1995 by a physician practicing in Mumbai, India. Dr. Madan Kataria researched the health benefits of laughter. He started laughing using humor, comedy, and jokes with a small group of people in a local park as a way to reduce stress. However, after a couple of weeks, the laughter group size increased but hit a bump in the road as the humor started to emerge into negative, hurtful jokes. Some of the offended members complained to discontinue the group. At the time, Dr. Kataria did not know that this would yield to be a breakthrough moment in the development of laughter yoga.
He went back to review his research and found the most important discovery—the body cannot differentiate between fake and real laughter but both produce the same happy, feel-good hormones. He returned to his group and asked them to pretend to laugh with him and they agreed to give it a try…the outcome was phenomenal! The fake laughter quickly erupted into real, contagious laughter and soon the group was free to laugh without relying on any conditions! His wife, Madhuri Kataria was a yoga practitioner and realized that the breathing patterns of laughter are like pranayama breathing. They had the idea to combine unconditional laughter and the deep breathing that is so fundamental to yoga, and laughter yoga was born
Similarly, we came to laughter yoga because we needed to destress. Both of us were experiencing intense levels of work stress. During our first laughter yoga session, a profound transformation took place internally for both of us. We felt it at the moment, as all of our wellbeing markers were zinging—from our relaxed muscles to our smiling faces. In the days and weeks that followed, our overall quality of life was entirely turned around, from an unhealthy place of anxiety and worry to a sense of optimism and confidence. The external stressors had not changed or vanished. All that changed was our participation in laughter yoga. Because of it, we no longer internalized the stress. The extreme internal shift we experienced meant our emotional, mental, and physical state of being was transformed, and no longer reactive to life’s stressors. It is not uncommon for people to refer to this practice as miraculous because of the transformations that take place. But it is not a miracle… there are scientific reasons for all of it.
All kinds of naturally occurring healthy chemicals, neurotransmitters, and hormones in the brain (the ones that make you feel happy, attached, and relaxed, reduce pain and stress, and flood you with wellbeing) are released when you laugh—and when you play. Endorphins, serotonin, oxytocin, and others are ready to flood you with goodness. All you have to do is laugh!
Once we became laughter yoga practitioners, all we could think about was sharing this life-changing practice with our friends and loved ones, and everyone else if possible. So we became certified laughter yoga facilitators and started Laughing Lovebugs to introduce the power of laughter to clients and improve their quality of life
We do this work because our passion is to empower, inspire, enlighten, and awaken the inner joy within every human we interact with.
What people realize when they try laughter yoga is that they don’t have to wait for something funny to happen to laugh. Sometimes when we are siloed at work, stressed with pressures to perform, and anxious about finances and health, we can go days or even weeks without laughing. When that happens, we miss out on the incredible health benefits.
Laughter yoga lets laughter into your life no matter what’s going on. Because guess what? The brain does not know the difference between real and artificial laughter. That old phrase, “Fake it till you make it?” That works for laughter yoga. You can laugh and laugh and laugh in laughter yoga and reap all the rewards, even when you’re not in the best of moods. Over time, the more you laugh in laughter yoga, the more joyful and hopeful you feel, and the laughter begins to feel oh so real!
Laughter also creates human connection, which means a lot to us too. Human connection is vital to our wellness and longevity as a species. Laughter is a universal language and the most enjoyable form of human communication. We are on a mission to spread the word to encourage people to participate in doing something that not only feels good but is good for them.
Laughter yoga can be done during celebrations, at the workplace, at family events, and can alleviate, reduce, or eliminate anger, loneliness, anxiety, and comfort and heal those dealing with loss, pain, depression, and more. Most importantly, laughter yoga allows the opportunity to experience the present moment.
Challenges
Businesses face countless challenges around their workforce in an average year. During Covid, the struggles of everyday people have increased. For those lucky enough to still be employed, things like burnout, lack of engagement, absenteeism, and turnover are even more prevalent than before.
Laughter yoga is an innovative wellness tool that is accessible to people of all ages and types. By introducing laughter yoga to the workplace, we can help shift workplace culture and improve business performance by reducing work-related stress and exhaustion, fostering team cohesion, and improving morale. In terms of workplace skills, laughter yoga has been found to enhance creativity, connection, communication, and leadership skills. Business owners and leaders notice that employee longevity, stability, and wellbeing all benefit.
The way we see it, we can help employees feel healthier, happier, and more productive while making employers happy because of an overall improvement in work culture, efficiency, sustainability, and bottom line.
It is indeed a challenging time for many businesses, but our business was able to pivot quickly to an online platform so we never had to interrupt the delivery of laughter yoga to those who needed it. We are so grateful!
Opportunities
Our business, and those of many others who deliver health and wellness services and programs, took advantage of the opportunity to implement virtual programs. We offer team-building experiences, lunch and learn, a human resources development group, conferences, and many more opportunities remotely in order to introduce laughter yoga and make workplaces better. We find that many employers like to schedule our programs during work hours to emphasize the importance of the leadership of their employees’ wellbeing by making them easily accessible to all. In other cases, we provide sessions after work hours at the convenience of the employees, or at special events. We are happy to be flexible in order to reach as many people as possible.
Laughter yoga sessions break down barriers among employees and help create a much happier workforce that can sustain efficiency while maintaining mental and emotional wellbeing, leading to greater retention, productivity, and morale. Because of all these benefits, we feel strongly about our whole-person/whole-business approach. By helping each individual within the group, we bring an equal opportunity benefit to the group as a whole.
Advice
Healthcare is the second largest expense for businesses and loss of productivity due to illness, injury, and sick days is difficult to measure. What if, as a business owner, you could reduce your employees’ vulnerability to chronic illness as well as improve their overall immunities? Sounds impossible, right? But it’s not.
We know that most chronic illnesses can be avoided with lifestyle changes. Research studies show that changing personal behavior and choices in relation to stress can have a more significant impact on reducing healthcare costs over the long haul than having great health and wellness providers.
Laughter is proven to relieve pain, boost your immune system, reduce stress, and more. Knowing that we believe many businesses will want to introduce laughter yoga to their employees. Workers who feel good do more and earn more. By prioritizing their workers’ wellness before health problems arise, business leaders can not only improve the quality of life of their staff but improve their own bottom line! The more successful the business, the better for everyone.
We advise other businesses, big or small, to prioritize their own and their employees’ mental, emotional, and physical health through laughter yoga!
Ksenia Sobchak enjoys blogging on fashion, style, lifestyle, love and CBD areas. Prior to becoming a blogger, Ksenia worked for a renowned fashion brand. Ksenia is a contributing author to leading fashion, lifestyle and CBD magazines and blogs. You can bump into Ksenia at her favourite cafe in South Kensington where she has written most blogs. Ksenia is a staunch advocate of CBD and its benefits to people. Ksenia is also on the panel of CBD reviewers at CBD Life Mag and Chill Hempire. Her favourite form of CBD are CBD gummies and CBD tinctures. Ksenia is a regular contributor at leading fashion, lifestyle as well as CBD magazines and blogs.
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