I don't post much about my job (except when I go crazy over it). I work in substance-abuse treatment, and my company is, in general, good about providing training opportunities: we have trainings at all of our quarterly state meetings, and others as the needs for them arise.
We had a state meeting on Friday, and the training was on Laughter Yoga. It turns out that the physical act of laughing has beneficial effects. First, there is the release of beneficial hormones and neurotransmitters. Second, if the act of laughing is maintained long enough, there are effects similar to aerobic exercise. And caustic humor doesn't do it, apparently; there are detrimental effects associated with that.
This Laughter Yoga, though, is based on laughing even when there is no cause to laugh; one laughs, going through the motions without a real stimulus, like a joke or the presence of people you like. It felt fake. I participated as well as I could, but it's just not my thing. The Laughter Yoga folks say that if you jjust do the exercises, the laughter will become more real (and that it doesn't need to be real to get the benefits, anyway). And I know that laughter is infectious. But it felt forced, fake, and uncomfortable on Friday morning. I was actually glad when case review started in the afternoon.
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