Laugh it Off
Story by Erin Miller // Photo by Kevin McMillon
Caution: Adults and Kids at Play plaster the windowed walls of Bellingham''s Co-op Connection Building - a well-deserved warning if you catch sight of the local laughter yogis.
Loyalists flock to weekly laugher yoga meetings to reap the benefits of a belly laugh - an improved immune system, less stress and better digestion, according to research conducted by laughter-yoga founder Dr. Madan Kataria.
Eighty-year-old Mary Lou Richardson, who leads the group with club co-leaders Mary Jensen and Linda Read, started attending laughter yoga a year and a half ago after Walt, her husband of 58 years, died.
"I just couldn't sleep," Richardson says. "And when I went to that, the very first day I came home and slept 12 hours. Twelve hours and that''s all it took, and I thought, this is something I really, really need. And then I just kept going."
Richardson has macular degeneration, a condition that has severely reduced her vision - but you wouldn''t know it watching her maneuver through her 100-year-old renovated coal-mining cabin cradling a pot of chicken noodle soup,
"I know I don''t look blind and therein lies the problem sometimes," Richardson says.
During the week Richardson guides Columbia Elementary School students in a series of laughter exercises sounding "hahas," "hehes" and "hohos."
"With the children, there is just no holding back," Richardson says. But not all the students are able to laugh with their classmates. "I just told the principal the other day that there are a couple of kids in second or third grade, and they don''t laugh. It just breaks my heart there is some stuff going on in these kids lives that is so out of the realm of their experiences."
Richardson attests to the alternative medicine''s advantages, and caters the club''s philosophy to assisted living and retirement homes to help other senior citizens catch on to the quick cure: laughter. Her own health, vivacity and spirit are a sure testament to smiling in the face of adversity.
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