World Laughter Day is celebrated annually on the first Sunday of May. In 2024, this day is marked on May 5.
World Laughter Day takes place under the motto “We don’t laugh because we are happy, but we are happy because we laugh” and is the initiative of the Indian doctor Madan Kataria, the founder of the movement “Laughter Yoga” (“Hasyayoga”), which means laughter therapy. Kataria is also the author of the book “Laugh for No Reason” (“Laugh For No Reason”, 2002).
The first laughter therapy club was founded by Madan Kataria in 1995, in a park in Mumbai, with six people. Kataria organized the first World Laughter Day in 1998, also in Mumbai, with over 12,000 people participating. The event soon crossed the borders of India.
In today’s world, more and more people are stressed, depressed, suffer from lack of sleep, harbor negative thoughts and feel lonely and isolated, according to laughteryoga.org. However, the natural desire of any of us is to be healthy and happy. Laughter therapy promises to help us achieve both goals: the reduction and elimination of unpleasant conditions, in parallel with the improvement of physical and mental health.
In recent years, the popular saying that “laughter is the best medicine” has been confirmed by research conducted in India and the USA, published in specialized journals such as the International Journal of Nursing, Geriatrics Gereontology International and Complementary Therapies in Medicine. The effects of laughter therapy are very serious and important. Lowering blood pressure and stress hormones in the body are just two of the benefits associated with laughter.
The first scientist to suggest that the phenomenon of laughter is worth studying was the psychologist William F. Fry, professor at Stanford University, California. He called himself “the first gelotologist” (from the Greek “jelos”, to laugh), notes laughteronlineuniversity.com.
The theme of laughter was also addressed in philosophy, one of the most important contributions in this regard being the work “Laughter. Essay on the meaning of the comic” (“Le Rire. Essai sur la signification du comique”), published in 1900 by the French thinker Henri Bergson .
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