The Healing Power of Laughter, Music and Singing | Ashok Gupta |

Hello and a warm welcome to today's session on the joy and the power of laughter, singing and music. So thank you for joining us today on hopefully will be an illuminating session on all of these topics. And you know, I want to give a bit of background to what really triggered this for me so many years ago. This must have been about 10 years ago. I was actually presenting a workshop in New York. It was a Hilton hotel near jfk. I was presenting a workshop for people with chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and other, you know, conditions that we treat here at the clinic. And you know, everyone was gathering in the room. I was getting ready to welcome everybody and start the presentation and I suddenly noticed there was a couple of people who walked in that there was a lady who walked in with her teenage daughter who was all dressed up, right? I had a lot of makeup on and dressed up, I thought unusual, but you know, that's fine, it's 2 o' clock in the afternoon. Maybe that's how New Yorkers live it up. I don't know. And then suddenly there was another, a few people who walked in. Once again, teenage girls all dressed up with makeup on, with their mums and some occasion their fathers as well. So I was sitting in the back row and I was thinking, okay, this is a bit strange, but you know, it's fine. And you know, they could see on the board it said, welcome to the Gupta program presentation for chronic illnesses. And everyone started looking around and there were more people streaming into the room. And then at that point I realized, hang on a minute, something's really wrong here. And everyone's kind of looking around nervously. I mean, people are very nervous anyway when they first are coming to a presentation or a workshop. They've got chronic illness, perhaps they don't know anybody. It's a bit nerve wracking anyway to be in a new environment. But all of a sudden they're in this new environment and there's all these people who seem to be not part of the workshop. So suddenly one of the ladies piped up and said, oh, is this not the beauty pageant workshop? And I said no. And she's like, oh, yeah, no, I was pretty sure. I was pretty sure this wasn't the beauty pageant workshop. And I said, and I replied, what, so you don't think I'm good looking enough to be in your beauty pageant? Right. To which the whole room erupted in laughter. Right? Because there's this really tense moment, this absurdity of the juxtaposition of these two different types of Workshops suddenly being in the same room. And just in that moment, that laughter, that kind of shared experience, that shared humanity, everyone just relaxed, they calmed down, they started opening up to each other and chatting. And it suddenly dawned on me the incredible power of humor and laughter in a way of bringing us together, making us and reminding us of our shared humanity, as well as just reducing stress and stressful environments. And so we decided to incorporate this idea of re engaging with joy in all of the different aspects of work that we do, whether it's our app or our presentations, adding that slight bit of humor, as well as the Gupta program supporting people in their healing journeys. And so we really wanted to go deeper today into the science of laughter, music and singing and why it's so important to incorporate these things into our lives. And it's incredible, isn't it? Because when we're young, these are naturally parts of our lives. So generally if we're at school, there'll be singing as part of the music classes or part of assembly, as we call it in the uk. I'm not sure what you guys call it in the US Music. Often many of us would have learned a musical instrument or certainly when we're younger, we're far more into music. You know, they say that, you know, you're getting old when you don't know what's in the top 20 of the Billboard charts or the UK charts, then you know, you've kind of let it go, you're no longer cool and trendy, as it were. So music is naturally a part of our lives at a much deeper level when we're younger and as we get older, we get into the challenges of life, earning money, a career, we lose some of that creative juice, that kind of right brained stuff that we need in life, the music, the singing, the dance. I want to include how important dancing is for our lives as well. And we get into a kind of, I suppose, the monotony of life where we get up, we get ready, we go to work, sit in front of a laptop all day, or whatever work it is that you do, come home quite tired, make dinner and then sit in front of the TV and go to bed. That seems to be our general routine. And it's very interesting that in previous cultures, our ancestors lived in a very different way. And a lot of the challenges we're facing in the modern world, our anxiety, our depressions, our suicidal thoughts, which is very much in the news right now, a lot of this can be down to the way that we organize ourselves as a culture. And a civilization. And this is all around the tribal aspects, which we now ignore. So before, if you look at a lot of ancient cultures, hunter gatherer cultures, small fishing villages, what would happen is, yes, people would be at work during the day, and then in the evenings, they would get together. And mealtimes was a collective experience. Nowadays, we all have our TV dinners. Each member of the family is eating separately sometimes. And I would encourage us all to see if there is a way, or perhaps something you're already doing, where dinner becomes a communal experience without any other screens and stimuli. I'm sure many of you are doing that. And then after dinner, in most tribes, there would be some kind of what we call campfire experience. So the lights would go down, dusk would arrive, and there would be often gatherings around a fire, which. Which would involve storytelling. Yeah, collective storytelling and the power of storytelling. There would be dance and music. There would be communal singing and choir singing. And this would often be honoring ancestors or honoring great heroes from that tribe. And the benefits of this has been shown to be things like the art of bringing people together from an evolutionary perspective. Those tribe members then feel a sense of harmony and community with the other members of the tribe as a result of these experiences. And yet, in our modern world, we don't seem to incorporate that into our lives, or at least if we are going to do that. It's a specific activity that we go to somewhere else. It's not incorporated into our lives. And today we're going to go deeper into understanding why are those things so important, and how can we incorporate these things into our lives? And what is the healing effect on us mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually? And by the end of today, let's really make it a part of our lives. Good. So I'm going to share a few slides with you. Here. Here is a pair of ducks. And this pair of ducks is here to, you know, really emphasize a profound statement, a profound point, which is you are already that which you seek. We strive each moment to feel happier. What is the cause of or the motivation behind so many of our behaviors is to feel happier. If you ask somebody, why do you do that? Well, I do that to earn money. Well, why do you do that? So I can look after my family. Why do you want to look after your family? Because I want them to be happy. Why do you want them to be happy? Because it makes me feel happy. Why do you want to be happy? There's no answer to that final question. Why do you want to be happy? Well, that is just the nature of us as human beings. And so that is the huge pair of ducks. Which is the paradox. This is the paradox we live in. I'm so sorry, I had to throw that in. I got persuaded to do it. That is the paradox, the paradox that we live in, which is we are already that which we seek. And so when we look at this nature of happiness, what is happiness and how do you. Laughter and music and dance and all these things that we perhaps neglect in our lives, how do they contribute to happiness? Well, if we look at happiness, we can very grossly separate it into what I've just spoken about, which is we are already that which we seek. So there's a kind of happiness which is a relative happiness, which is a happiness which relies on the external environment or external situations or people to be a certain way. So that's an excitement, right? We feel happy when things go our way, or there's an anticipatory happiness or excitement that we're going to get what we want. So that's. It's an excitement which isn't a relaxed excitement, it's a very stimulated excitement. Wow. Come on. Yes, I'm excited, I'm happy because this has happened or that has happened, or it's going to happen. And that excitement is good and fine and these are all things that part of the human experience, but it also is reliant on something external to ourselves. So just as high as the ups are, we're all so likely to get the doubts. So when we don't get what we want, then we will experience the opposite of excitement, which might be boredom, negativity, depression. And a second type of happiness is that kind of quality is different. It's a contentment, a satisfaction which is that we got what we wanted and we can breathe a sigh of relief. There's a contentment, there's a satisfaction. So in both of these relative types of happiness, we set an expectation that I want this, I want that. We move and that creates an agitation in the mind. Then we gradually move towards that attainment, and as we move towards it, we become more and more contented, potentially, as we get close. And finally, when we achieve what we want to achieve, we feel one of these relative types of happiness, either an extreme upliftment and excitement, positivity, or just a gentle contentment and satisfaction. I succeeded in getting what I want now. This is part of the human experience. And I now want to introduce a third aspect which is related to why laughter and dance and music and singing are so powerful, because they are an absolute sense of happiness, or what we might call joy. And if we were to go too deeply into semantics, maybe joy can mean something different to each person. But when we say absolute joy, what we're saying is that rather than relative happiness, which is dependent on something exterior, joy is something which is internally generated and is always within us. That joy, that bliss, that happiness that is already within us, and laughter and dance and singing and music just bring out that which is already within us. So the pair of ducks. The paradox is that we strive all our lives to get something to make us happy. And yet, truly, that already is within us if we allowed it to be expressed. And therefore, things which trigger laughter, which trigger joy, which trigger upliftment, they're not things that we necessarily rely on. They simply give us an opportunity to connect with. With a joy which is already within us. They are not reliant on the outside world. Which is why one morning you can wake up and you've just woken up, and it's, you know, there's nothing in particular in your life that has made you feel joyful. But for no reason whatsoever, you feel joyful, you feel happy, you feel uplifted, and you think, wow, this is my natural state. And then you suddenly open up your email and you suddenly someone's having a go at you on WhatsApp, and you think, oh, God, all this stuff I have to deal with because we've forgotten to just connect to the true joy that we are with it. And there's a lot of research that's been conducted around the work of Patch Adams. You may have heard of the film Patch Adams with Robin Williams. And Patch Adams was a doctor who found that, actually, I want to cure and help people in so many different diseases through the power of being a clown and the power of laughter. And one of his quotes here, the most radical act anyone can commit is to be happy. And that is something that we can think about. It's a commitment to being happy, to notice and observe our unhappiness and our negative emotions. And those are perfectly fine and okay. But then to realize that it is our own responsibility to process those emotions or work through them and come back to our natural state. This isn't about blind happiness or a spiritual bypass. We're not processing the things we need to process in life, the natural ups and downs of life. Those are part of who we are, but at the same time, really connecting to that joy within. And this is such a paradox as well, that you know how many times a child laughs or a baby laughs? 500 times a day. Do you know when they've done studies, how often an adult laughs? 15 times a day. Now look at that paradox, that contradiction, that as we get older and wiser and we have far more opportunities in life, ironically we're less joyful when we have more stuff, when we're more dependent on the outside world. And a baby laughs for the sheer joy of that experience, the wonderment, the awe of life. What would happen if we were to connect that childlike joy within? And laughing swaps the cortisol in our bloodstream with highly sought after chemicals in the brain. So why do we feel down and negative and anxious and depressed? Because certain thought patterns and certain ways of being being triggered by the outside world or our inner world stimulates all these stress hormones and neurotransmitters. Whereas when we feel happy and joyful and relaxed. Dopamine, the motivational chemical that makes us feel good. Serotonin, another feel good chemical. Oxytocin, the cuddle hormone, the thing that makes us feel connected to people around us. And endorphins, the natural painkillers of the brain, get triggered just by laughing. Yeah. And studies have shown that that is just as powerful as taking antidepressants in terms of those serotonin levels. Similarly, exercise and walking in nature. So let's now give a prescription of laughter rather than artificial drugs and chemicals, which in the long run can potentially become addictive. And there's even this whole area from our research that we've never heard of therapeutic humor. And in fact, there's an organization called the American association for Therapeutic Humor. Right. Who would have thought? And they have a very dry definition of therapeutic humor as any intervention that promotes health and wellness by stimulating a playful discovery, an expression or appreciation of the absurdity of the incongruity of life situation. This intervention may enhance health or be used as a complementary treatment of illness, facilitate healing or coping mechanisms, whether physical, emotional, cognitive, social or spiritual. The only downside from their research is, you know, we all engage in this type of what in the UK they call Mickey take humour, making fun of somebody. And that has its humorous effects and can uplift us. But sometimes that humor can also have negative effects and pose some risks if it's used to humiliate or diminish someone's self esteem. That's something where we just need to watch out for that. But a huge amount of research that we did found that just that experience of laughter can reduce stress by 40% instantly at once. People found that after a humor break, they're twice as productive. So in organizations and companies, somehow some shape, some form, some way of laughing during our breaks can actually massively increase productivity. We know that it reduces pain. It can protect the heart against cardiovascular disease. It can relax our body, relax our muscles and also reduce negative emotions such as anxiety, aggression, anger, anger and depression. It increases empathy and emotional intelligence and our relations with other people and our communication. And it increases our acceptance to what is so right now. Just try it. Laugh out loud and attempt to feel down about something today at the same time. This is why often in the Gupta program or other programs we do we use the power of an artificial smile. Because when we smile. Yeah, there we go. Fake smile. When we smile artificially, it stimulates the same feel good chemicals in the brain as a real smile. And the same with laughter. Even if we don't feel like laughing, if we just laugh out loud. Ha ha ha ha. Laugh like an American rather than the British tend to twitter. But the Americans are full bodied. Ho ho ho. When we laugh in a full bodied experience, like a child does, you know when a child laughs, when they're really, really laughing, have you noticed their whole body vibrates. Watch a baby laughing, the whole body, the whole head vibrates. Because it's a fully immersive experience. They're not worried about what people think. Sometimes we laugh thinking, what will people think of my laugh? But a full bodied, full belly laugh can have such a powerful effect on our nervous system and our immune systems. So how can we laugh more? It sounds almost artificial. Laugh more with a laugh if I feel like it. This is where it's something to practice. First of all, it's that permission to laugh and let go. So many times in life we think, oh, I can't be happy right now because look, I've got this situation in my life. I've got this argument I'm having with a work colleague or my relationship isn't the way that I want it to be or you know, I have an illness. We think I can only laugh and really let go and be happy once all of those things are fixed in my life. But if we do that, we are dependent on the outer world for our happiness. We're dependent on the outer world for our peace of mind. Let's go to the source and give ourselves permission. You know, there are always going to be stresses in life. It's never all going to go away. You'll have little ups and downs. But laugh today, right now, whatever helps you laugh. Don't wait for circumstances to change and let's smile more. Smiling triggers those mirror neurons. That means that a smile is contagious. So if you're in a room and someone's smiling, or you meet someone new and they smile at you, it instantly makes you feel better and you smile and relax. So in the same way, just practice smiling more. When you meet someone new, smile more. Someone in the street, smile more. And eventually it becomes a habit for your face to take on. That's a form of brain retraining. And look for the jokes and the silliness in life, you know, the ironies in life, the silly things that happen. Self deprecating humor, this has to be used wisely. We don't want to use self deprecating humor in a way that actually and genuinely brings down our own self esteem, but it's a great way of connecting with people, showing vulnerability and a shared human experience. And finally, of course, appreciating and being grateful for your life and really celebrating life. You know, why do we have celebrations? Why do we have Easter, why do we have Christmas, why do we have Diwali, why do we have Eve? All of these different things, these different events in various cultures around the world are there as a reminder to celebrate. They remind us of our connection to a higher power, a connection to spirit, a connection to love, whatever you believe in. As a reminder that life is a celebration. We've often taken life too seriously. We've got so caught up in the achieving and the doing and the wanting and the attachments that we've forgotten to have fun. So many people say, oh, I want to live life as if it's my last day on this planet. And if it was your last day on this planet or your last week on this planet, what would you do? You'd share those beautiful moments, most people say, with their friends, their family, to laugh, to uplift themselves, to sing, to come together in holy communion. And therefore the idea of celebrating life, each moment which involves that joy, that laughter, that appreciating and being grateful for what we do have in life. Happiness is, or unhappiness is an era of attention. 95% of the things could be going fantastic in our lives compared to the average human being on this planet. And yet we'll focus on that few percent of things that isn't quite right, that isn't quite going the way that we want. And we become obsessed with it to the detriment of our own mental, physical and emotional health. And switching the error of attention to appreciating what we do have in life. A Billion people on this planet don't have guaranteed access to clean water. 2 billion people on this planet live on the poverty line. Hand to mouth. We have so much to be grateful for and thankful for, and let's celebrate that and let's laugh out loud because we have so much to laugh about. And in terms of those external shifts, you know, watching humorous content is. Sounds really silly, but actually when you are going to watch something on TV, rather than some, you know, heavy drama or some serious horror movie, shift more of that percentage of time watched to things which uplift and are funny. And when you watch these things laugh out loud, you know, are there people around us that we love being around? Because they're always laughing, even at small things. They will laugh a lot. Yeah, unless it's a protection for something deeper, a mask. But we love being around people who laugh more, who look at the silly things in life. And it's the same with us. We can make more of that effort to laugh out loud at humorous things we see on YouTube and Facebook and all these different channels. And nowadays, compared to previous civilized, previous generations, we have so much more access to that type of content and seeking out funny people who make you laugh and putting a funny spin on what happened today. The irony and absurdity of life. Just the small things make us laugh and make people around us laugh. You're probably wondering, why is there a person dressed as a sheep on this mountainside? Well, you know, as many of you know, we produce a lot of videos or documentaries around the world in the area of personal development. And something which we've had so many bizarre situations happen. You know, this particular situation was we were filming in Switzerland, filming the Gupta program, and we're on the side of this beautiful mountain, incredible view in the Valais area of Switzerland, and you couldn't hear a sound. It was beautiful, apart from the sheep bleating and the goats and whatever. And suddenly. So we were filming some very healing topics around the mind and emotions. And suddenly this van arrived. In fact, two vans arrived and it was a Japanese film crew and it was a very famous Japanese singer who was dressed up in Swiss traditional attire. And there's like 10 film crew with a drone and then five people dressed up as sheep chasing her up this mountainside, right? And myself and the production team are looking at this thinking, you couldn't make this up. I mean, it was just so bizarre. And obviously it completely spoiled our filming day because we couldn't film then on that particular mountain. And we spent two hours driving to. Now we could have got into that negativity. Oh God, the whole filming day is lost. But we just laughed and laughed and laughed at how ridiculous this situation was. And it was this high pitched Japanese singer singing this song whilst being chased by sheep up this mountainside and this drone flying everywhere and people kind of clapping on the side. I mean, it was the funniest thing you've ever seen. And, you know, that's just one example. Another example is, you know, we were filming, we're going to film on this beach in the southern Spain. And so we, the whole production team jumped into the car, we drove about two hours to this beautiful beach, incredible views and vistas. And so we're setting up the camera, we're getting ready to film. And then suddenly in the corner of my eye, I could see some people walking up the beach and they had no clothes on, which is apparently quite common in southern Spain. But we didn't realize that we'd actually turned up to a nudist beach right out of all the beaches we could have chosen. And so we're sitting there thinking, we can't waste another filming day, what are we going to do? And so we had to walk over to the group of nudists, it was a massive nudist speech, and tell them that we were going to be doing some filming, but we weren't going to be filming then, all right? And so we started filming and believe it or not, what we were filming in that moment, the script that I was filming was all about what we call centeredness and not allowing the temptations of the world to pull us out of our centeredness. You know, one of those very deep spiritual concepts. And so I'm speaking to camera, filming this whilst there are nudists walking up and down the beach. And I just thought, what a funny situation the universe has put me on or put me in. It's just, just incredible. You couldn't make it up. So this is where we just laugh at the absurdity and the irony of so many things that happen to us in life and just keeps it all light hearted. Engage in silly activities for your inner child. So, you know, we had a few weeks ago an event on our inner child and how we heal our inner child and we connect with our inner child through the power of humor and silliness and playfulness. And that's such an important part of life and connected to laughter. You know, why when we go to an event which is a celebration, might be a wedding, might be a birthday, might be.