Laughter Yoga with Monnet Zubieta March 21, 2010

Date: March 21, 2010
Time: 6:30PM – 9:30PM
Cost: $5 - $20 sliding scale
Place: Novato Oaks Inn (Oaks Room)
215 Alameda Del Prado, Novato
Sponsor: RAHM Metaphysical Exploration Group
URL: http://www.rahmgroup.org
Email: steve@rahmgroup.org

Laughter yoga is a unique form of exercise developed in 1995 by a medical doctor in India named Dr. Madan Kataria. He was writing an article called “Laughter is the Best Medicine.” His conclusion after doing all the research is that laughter really is the best medicine. Among the many other therapeutic benefits he discovered was that laughter improves self-confidence, fights disease and fights depression by raising serotonin levels. He wanted to prescribe 20 minutes of sustained hearty laughter to all of his patients. While thinking about how to get his patients to do that he came up with the idea of laughter clubs. He started the first club at a park in Mumbai India with his wife and 3 other friends. After a week there were 50 people laughing together. Now there are over 6,000 laughter clubs in 60 countries all around the globe.

Workshop

Laughter Yoga is a unique form of exercise that requires no jokes and no sense of humor. You don't have to be in a good mood and you don't have to twist yourself up like a pretzel to participate!

After a short lecture about
* The unique qualities of laughter yoga
* The benefits of therapeutic laughter
* The contra-indications

Monnet will do a laughter yoga session with participants, which will include
* Warming up the body
* Developing a childlike attitude
* Doing laughter exercises that simulate and stimulate laughter
* Laughter meditation

About the Speaker

Monnet Zubieta was first exposed to therapeutic laughter 20 years ago. When Dr. Kataria came to California for a Laughter Teacher Training in October 2007, Monnet was there. Since that time Monnet has been speaking about Laughter Yoga, training others to do Laughter Yoga, leading Laughter Clubs, and organizing Laughter Flashes. She is now creating a weekly laughter TV show for a local free access station in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In addition to facilitating Certified Laughter Leader Trainings, Monnet has presented Laughter Yoga to a variety of audiences. She has worked in retreat settings, at conferences, businesses, senior centers and in a variety of health care facilities with chemo patients and AIDS support groups. Monnet uses laughter yoga in her Public Speaking classes at Santa Rosa Junior College. In addition, she has facilitated “Awakening Joy” groups for several years, is a Certified Heart Math Trainer, a Safe School Ambassador Facilitator, and has trained in NLP and Sufi Dance Mentoring.