Laughter Yoga was developed by Mumbai family physician Dr. Madan Kataria and his wife Madhuri Kataria, a yoga teacher. In 1991, Dr. Kataria was writing an article about laughter and was inspired to create a laughter club. The first laughter club functioned more like a joke club where people gathered together to tell jokes.

From this experience, Dr. Kataria understood that humor and jokes can be exclusionary and wanted to find a way to stimulate laughter in his group without relying on jokes. After remembering the research he read on Neuro-Linguistic Programming, he remembered that the body and brain doesn’t know the difference between what it imagines and what is real so he devised the technique of using simulated laughter to stimulate laughter.

Dr. Kataria’s humble beginnings from a laugher club of 5 people has grown into a worldwide movement of over 6000 laugher clubs in over 60 different countries all spreading laughter as a way to promote joy, health, and peace. Dr. Kataria’s personal mission is world peace through laughter.

For more information about laughter yoga and Dr. Kataria, visit www.laughteryoga.org.