Laughing Yoga* Time Travelers
Six 60 somethings
hold hands, swing arms,
snort, snicker, chortle,
cachinnate,
and find long forgotten
6-year-old selves still here.
We gather to laugh
with a friend undergoing chemo.
No clever jokes,
no judgement allowed.
Just crazy gestures, goofy faces.
While moving our bodies, our bellies laugh
and afterwards, deep restorative breaths.
We strut like chickens.
Giggle like school girls.
Bellies bounce in hoots and hollers.
Our mood rising like rainbow sunrises
lighting the room in lifted spirits.
Magical. Transported to a time
we remembered how to laugh
for no other reason
than it felt good.
*Laughing Yoga is part of a holistic therapy discovered by Madan Kataria in 1995 and is now offered by MD Anderson Cancer Center of patients receiving chemo. “Laughter yoga brings a unique element to the Place…of wellness,” says Moshe Frenkel M.D. medical director of the Integrative Medicine Program at M D. Anderson. “We know from multiple studies that laughter causes a positive physiological response and above all reduces stress and anxiety. This complementary therapy allows us to incorporate humor in cancer care and help patients discover a playfulness that reduces stress and anxiety while increasing their pain tolerance.”
*
Mary Ray Goehring, a snowbird, migrates seasonally between her prairie in Central Wisconsin and the pine forests along the border between East Texas and Louisiana. Grateful to be learning about the flora and fauna throughout the country, she writes primarily about nature, family and friends. You can find her work in several print and online journals and anthologies such as: ONE ART: a journal of poetry, A Path to Kindness – edited by James Crews, The Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Moss Piglet, The Blue Heron Review, Bramble, Your Daily Poem, The Rye Whiskey Review, Steam Ticket Review and others.
