“Hasya Kriya” that is the ‘laughter excercise’ forms an important part of daily Yoga exercises. A laughter club in the ’silicon valley’ of India – Bangalore – is finding its way to better health just by laughing it away! Read on the following item published in the Washington Post on 7 April, 2006 to know more on this :

India’s `laughter yoga’ groups giggle, guffaw to good health
By John Lancaster
Washington Post

BANGALORE, India – In the grainy half-light just after 6 a.m., a few dozen men and women gather in a small park, greeting one another beneath a canopy of flowering trees. Ranging in age from 40 to 80, they clap, form a circle — and unleash a gale of uproarious laughter.

“Ho ho. Ha ha ha. Ho ho,’’ they guffaw, sides heaving and heads thrown back to the sky. “Ho ho. Ha ha ha. Ho ho.’’

A passing jogger doesn’t give them a second glance, and why should he? They’re the regulars from the Mini Forest Laughter Club, commencing their daily ritual of smiles, giggles, chortles and belly laughs that — in combination with stretching and breathing exercises — make up the quintessentially Indian discipline of “laughter yoga.’’

Named for the park where it meets 365 days a year, even during the drenching summer monsoon season, the Mini Forest Laughter Club is made up of middle-class retirees, homemakers and businessmen, among others. It is one of scores of such clubs in this chaotic, high-tech city where beggars and street urchins coexist with eminent scientists and newly minted zillionaires from the booming software and outsourcing industries.