A yoga class is built on a series of specific exercises known as poses, as well as specific breathing techniques and meditation guidelines. Some variations and improvements can be made to help students if a pose causes pain or proves too difficult. Props such as blocks, blankets, straps, and even chairs can be used to help you get the most out of the poses. Yoga is not a one-size-fits-all exercise: the best yoga workout for you will be determined by your specific needs and goals. One of the foundations of yoga is building a mind-body connection. This is developed through noticing your breath while doing the asanas or the poses during yoga. The key is to be mindful of your body by deep breathing while performing the asanas. This is how yoga turns into not only an exercise but a form of lifestyle that embodies a healthy relationship between mind and body. There are numerous yoga styles, varying from gentle to physically demanding techniques. Variations in the types of yoga used in research studies may have an impact on study results. Yoga and two Chinese practices, tai chi and qi gong are sometimes referred to as "meditative movement" practices. All three practices include both meditative and physical components. So, what are some of the benefits of yoga?

Help improve overall wellness by relieving stress, encouraging healthy habits, and enhancing mental/emotional health, sleep, and balance.
Assist people who are overweight or obese in losing weight.
Assist people in quitting smoking.
Assist people in coping with anxiety or depression caused by difficult life circumstances.
Relieve the symptoms of menopause.
Assist people suffering from chronic diseases in managing their symptoms and improving their quality of life.
Relieve low-back and neck pain, as well as tension-type headaches and knee osteoarthritis.
Improves flexibility
Cultivate better breathing
Builds strength and enhances balance

One of the fun yoga techniques that is recently getting popular is laughter yoga. It is a movement and breathing technique to deliberately enhance laughter. Laughter exercise aims to foster joy and find the inner child within us that will help us to deal with our daily stressors better.

Laughter yoga combines of:

Laughter exercises
Breathwork
Clapping

We have often heard the phrase, "laughter is contagious", and motivated by this phrase, laughter yoga is often done in smaller groups. It's used to treat physical, psychological, and spiritual ailments, with supporters believing that intentional (simulated) laughter can provide benefits comparable to spontaneous laughter (e.g., laughing at a joke). Laughing yoga will help you improve your mood, calm the mind, boost the immune system, increase your energy levels, improve your quality of life, and enable you to deal with difficult situations better. We cannot always rely on external factors to make us happy and trigger laughter. Therefore, when we give cues to our body and mind to laugh deliberately, it will motivate the mind to be more optimistic about stressful situations. It also helps in activating our parasympathetic nervous system, which is our body's relaxation system by providing more oxygen to the body which is necessary for relaxing and feeling calm. This is because laughter increases endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin which are the "happy hormones" in our brain.

So how do you perform laughter yoga?

The ultimate aim is to make our exhales longer than our inhales to achieve a calm, healthy state, and the best and most efficient way to accomplish this is to laugh it out. Finally, clapping has a distinct form and function. Then clap palm to palm, finger to finger, to activate the hands' 30+ acupressure points, which boosts every organ and part of the body. So go ahead, and share a laugh with your friends and family to increase your lifespan and manage mindfully your daily stressors difficult to join a laughter yoga club, call your friends or family, and form a group of your own to implement this easy exercise.

Also Read: 13 Surprising Facts About Laughing