Laughter Really Is The Best Medicine For More Reasons Than We Realize with Cathy Nesbitt

Laughter might be a miracle cure for a lot of things that ail us. The best parts are that it's free and contagious. When we laugh a deep belly laugh it makes us breathe in very deep bringing more much-needed oxygen. A lot of breath to shallow anyway. You actually burn calories as well kicking your brain into high gear. Also leads to an endorphin boost.

About Cathy

Cathy Nesbitt is a Worm Advocate & Founder of Cathy's Crawly Composters (est 2002). This environmental business specializes in vermicomposting. Laughter wellness is her latest offering. Simple solutions for today's challenges. Worm composting, sprout growing, and laughter yoga.

Cathy Nesbitt is a certified Laughter Yoga Leader, Teacher. Appointed Laughter Ambassador in 2017 by Dr. Madan Kataria (founder of Laughter Yoga est 1995)

Since 2015 Cathy has been leading Laughter sessions at assisted living facilities, summer camps and other venues. She shares her energy, passion, generosity and vast professional experience to help you take advantage of the natural health benefits of laughter yoga.

Cathy chose Laughter Yoga because of the profound benefits she has experienced when she first discovered this unique, fun and easy exercise modality. This is a simple exercise system that anyone can participate in that will increase one's overall feeling of wellbeing while decreasing feelings of stress.

Wonder of Worms and Simplicity of Sprouts

We offer simple solutions for today's challenges. Worm composting for amending the soil, sprouts for eating, laughter for overall health and wellness, and now Organo Gold, reishi mushroom-infused coffee and tea.

Vermicomposting is a great way to make the world's best soil. Discover how worms convert organic matter into nature's finest soil amendment known as castings. Worms are going to play an ever-increasing role in waste management, soil production and therefore food security.

Sprouts are considered nature's superfood. Grow sprouts at home, school, work.

Laughter wellness is our latest offering. Discover the magic of laughing for no reason.

www.cathysclub.com

www.ageucational.com

Full Transcript Below

Laughter Really Is The Best Medicine For More Reasons Then We Realize

Sat, 7/24 11:33AM • 47:02

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

laugh, laughter, laughter yoga, people, stressed, kathy, hand, life, day, brain, cell phone, contagious, roy, aging, smile, haha, breathe, talk, big, class

SPEAKERS

Cathy, Terry, Roy Barker

Roy Barker 00:05

Hello and welcome to another episode of AGEUcational I'm your host Roy and I'm Terry course we are chronicling our journey through aging trying to you know navigate the different things in our life. Part of that is getting healthy we want to carry good health and good habits into our older age and then also our parents and some of the struggles that that they're going through and then also, you know, US learning and developing new information and if you haven't seen it yet, Terry just posted an awesome piece on the new Alzheimer's drug so please check out the website because there's we're gonna have some alternating not only the podcast but some posts on there as well. So if you haven't read that, go check it out a lot of great information. Also we have professionals with us from time to time in different disciplines and today's no different. We have Cathy Nesbitt with us. Here am I let you introduce Cathy.

Terry 00:59

Cathy Nesbitt is a health and wellness advocate. She's the founder of Cathy's Crowley composters, Cathy sprouts and Cathy's laughter club. She's a multi award winning environmental innovator who uses workshops and inspirational speaking to motivate people to live a more sustainable life. Cathy's working title is Cathy Crawley laughing being Queen simple solutions for some of today's challenges. Cathy, welcome to the show. So excited to talk to you about laughter yoga and the movie laugh ology which we just watched, and how laughing is so important to everybody's health, but very much so for the aging because there's just so much stress involved all around.

Cathy 01:50

Absolutely, yes. Thank you, Terry. And Roy, I'm happy to be here. Yeah.

Roy Barker 01:55

Yeah. Before we jump in too far. Tell us a little bit about how you discovered laughter yoga, and you know, really what it's done for you.

Cathy 02:05

Yeah, thank you, Roy. So I do have a worm composting business. I could have chosen something easy like selling coffee or something. But no, I chose worms. Where they chose me I'm not sure. worms. Yeah, so I am on this mission to put worms in every every living space to convert our trash into beautiful black gold for growing more delicious food. Hmm. important mission. It's 19 years and about 10 years in I was kind of getting discouraged. You know, it takes me time. That takes me time to get to realize oh, not everyone's gonna buy into this. I'm a slow learner. No, it's fine. Haha, good. So 10 years in, I was kind of getting discouraged. And I was like, wow, this is this is hard. And I was introduced to laughter yoga, sort of serendipitous, serendipitously mean, easy for me to say. And I loved it. I love laughing I don't do yoga. So I love the idea of just skipping the yoga part and just laughing. And I started to attend laughter yoga with there was a class monthly class where my mother in law lived. And so we would go and I loved it. I got trained as a leader, I got trained as a teacher, because I loved it so much. So what did it do for me? Wow, it helped me stay in my worm business. Right? Because I was like stress. I was like, how am I going to pay the bills? How am I going to get people that had to do all those stuff? and laughter allowed me and I will talk about how laughter allowed me to release all that stuff. Let it go breathe. Ha secrete the love drugs, not cortisol, and now magic and now it's a marriage like now I'm laughing. I laughed first. And then I'm like, hey, but by the way, I have words to

Roy Barker 04:00

yell. There's some and there's a lot of science behind this. I mean, me and Terry, you know, we've, we've talked before with you and so I think you told us about the documentary laugh ology, and it's a pretty good it's a pretty good history, and it goes pretty far back in, you know, time but also it talks about all these great benefits for us. You know, besides anyway,

Terry 04:25

laughter is the best medicine.

Roy Barker 04:27

Yes. Yeah, it truly is. I think that was an old thing in Reader's Digest that they had a little deal laughter is the best medicine and it it really is proved to be that way. Yeah, it is the best medicine right? Have you had your daily dose? Right, don't sorry.

Terry 04:45

I'm sorry. I was gonna say why is it the best medicine What does it What does it do for us? Yeah, so

Cathy 04:50

many, many things, but just that that acronym of alone like dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins, so Right off the bat, we're in charge of our own farm. And we know that because when we're stressed, and I know you've done a whole lot of cover, you've done a whole lot of that's great speak. I know you've covered stress and Alzheimers and I mean, when we're stressed, we're not we can't heal. First of all, we're just fighting or fleeing or freezing. We're not we're not, we're not mending. So when we when we're laughing, we're co creating the love drugs versus when we're stressed and to create courses. Sure, that was a big long,

Terry 05:37

very long. It's hard to say.

Roy Barker 05:41

Yeah, no, it's the other thing I think is interesting. Never thought about it. But it's contagious. And it can spread like you. It's just, it's unbelievable how it is. And they say, you know, it's not that we have any control over that. It's kind of like the guy was mentioned in the in the documentary. It's like yawning. When you see somebody yawn, you just kind of uncontrollably will yawn to it. When you hear people start laughing. It's contagious, and you will follow suit.

Terry 06:12

Isn't that isn't it? Like, an 80 80% of the reason we laugh is because it's contagious? I think that's right. I think that's right, or close to 80% of what why we laugh is because it's contagious. We're laughing with other people and because of other people, not necessarily because the humor, not because of jokes, or comedians and things like that.

Cathy 06:35

Here's an interesting thing about laughter. And I think they might have said it in lithology. Or might have learned it from from Albert. He's a super cool guy. But when we're laughing, I mean, when you're when you're laughing, slow on your knees go weak. And so it's not a great survival mechanism, laughing your head off, right? Imagine like in the caveman days, you're laughing Aha, you're on the ground rolling and then don't hear your your lunch. Right, so we can only laugh when we're safe. And we're safe when we're in a laughter club. And we can laugh and we're just feel so great. So yes, it may be awkward at the beginning, when you come to a laughter club might be like, that's, that's odd. But when you do it, then you're like, Oh, this is so great. And you get connected on a deeper level. It's contagious, then you feel good, you sleep better, right back to the brain. Right? When we there's just those simple things. And I'm really learning that the sooner we get this message, the earlier in life that we get these messages. Yeah, we don't have to suffer all the consequences. We know now, food is important. They've told us all along, but now we know. Maybe plant based is good or less meat or at least organic meat, right? Like good meat. You know, drinking lots of water, sleeping exercise connection. Right, all of those things and, and exercise. So laughter Phil's a few of those deep breathing. It's deep diaphragmatic breathing. It's, you know, it's not jokes or comedy. It's just, it's, it's, every time we say whoa, and ha, we're we're moving the diaphragm. There's so back to the health benefits. We have a heart to pump our blood. We have another fluid called lymph. Lymph only moves when we move, or do and do deep diaphragmatic breathing. So that's kind of like the pump. The diaphragm is the pump for the lips. Oh,

Roy Barker 08:39

yeah. And that's what uh, that was an interesting point they brought up i think is that it? How good it is for our heart. And the other thing I think is it makes us take in deep breaths, which is always good to do that deep breathing as well. It's just there's so many benefits. The other thing that was interesting was that it wasn't just like, one or two people close friends sitting around. I mean, they had they had episodes where they were, I mean instances where there were just these large groups of people indoors outdoors, they had kind of focused at the end, I think on the church congregation oh my gosh, the church was so fun. Yeah. And I think that guy had a good point, the preacher is that, you know, why did we come to be so serious? And like, you know, we open a candy wrapper, and now we're the focal point of everybody around us. And he was like, you know, there's, you know, God likes laughter he likes to see us laughing and I thought that was an interesting twist the way that he went about interacting with his congregation.

Cathy 09:40

Yeah, well, we're laughing we're connected. And we're, you know, we're, we're Freier. I kind of not to be anything conspiracy, but I really think when we're afraid when we're fearful. We can't come up with solution because we're stressed. We're not breathing. We're like, ooh, what about that? What about That thing over there. It's so scary. So laughter does isn't about laughing at any particular situation. Like they said enough in the film that Elbert arrived the day after the Mumbai bombings. Yeah, yeah. And he was like, Oh, I mean, I guess we're not doing it. And my dad was like, No, we must. Yeah, yeah, we have to laugh because of this. Yeah, that's

Roy Barker 10:23

a cool thing is it's a universal language to we don't even have to be able to, you know, I guess, communicate with words. But laughter transcends that. And may actually, it can sometimes be better than words, because I know, like, you know, when we're driving down the road, and one of us is, you know, maybe thinking about something or not in the best space. All the other one really has to do now, since we talked to you is, we just turned and just start laughing. Since we I'm in your class.

Terry 10:55

Yeah.

Roy Barker 10:57

We turn and start laughing and then it makes the other instead like, what's wrong with you one? Nothing. Why are you asking, you know, instead of having that dialogue, we can just laugh, and then it just really lightens everything.

Terry 11:09

I love it. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you. That's amazing. Yeah, it's so amazing if things get I mean, gosh, if things get too serious, I'm the first one. I have nervous laughter I do. And it's inappropriate all the time. Right, right. I mean, I just, I can just feel just the pressure in my chest and my stomach and everything. And it's just, Oh, my gosh, I got to do this. I get to do this. I get to do that. And then I'm like, no reason why. But if I start doing that, and then somebody else jumps in and starts laughing with me, then I'm good. But if nobody's laughing with me, and they're sitting there chastising me, like if I were in church, I'm the worst. I was the worst in church. It was just such a serious place. Just nuts.

Roy Barker 12:03

Well, you know, you mentioned that in the caveman days, laughing wouldn't be that hot, because you know, the animal doesn't understand what he does. But the funny thing was that there was the guy in the documentary that he was the one that had that really distinct laugh that he went to a show. He just lost his job at 30 years. First one fired. And Emma contagious laugh. Yeah, he went to the show. And I mean, it stole the show for like, 20 minutes. But the point of that whole story was that he started laughing when he was a child, because he said that he was very small and bullied. But he said, when the big kids would chase him, eventually, he would just lay down and he had this crazy laugh. And finally, he said, sometimes the other kids would lay down and laugh with him. It was so contagious.

Terry 12:59

There are so many funny and laughing Do you know how many laughs We have?

Cathy 13:04

I imagine it's like fingerprints. Yeah, I imagine our laugh is unique. It's like singers. We're, it's our it's our it's our signature.

Roy Barker 13:12

Yeah. So let's talk about the aging and how can this help us as we go through the aging process. And not only that, but you know, I just have this picture in my mind of maybe a person that has lost their friends. And maybe their support system is not close, and they feel very alone and isolated, either at home or in a senior living community. And it just really, I don't know, it kind of excites me to think about this laughter yoga, and how it could bring so much joy and help to to a lot of people.

Cathy 13:51

It really does. Yeah, so um, oh, but you know, when we're, the beautiful part about laughter yoga is it's not about jokes or comedy, so you don't need to if you do have a little bit of, you know, dementia, or, you know, even a different language, who knows? Whatever reason, comprehension of jokes or their cultural to write they make to just not be funny. Like, so. Yeah. Why? Why aren't you laughing? Because it's not funny. Then you get into that nervous laughter Yeah, so so it's a beautiful thing. It really does connect us. So when we when I was going into long term care before the kuku time that we're in right now, and and people would come in, and, you know, ask the laughter It's just about connecting. It's not about doing the poses, it's just like gentle movements clapping and looking around making eye contact. As the leader you do bigger movements, and you it can be done seated. So everybody's seated, that's, that's certainly fine. You don't want anyone to fall. And so it's just clapping you clap palm to palm, so you're activating the meridians. And, and then the gentle movement, you're getting oxygen into your body. And then you're touching your body, you know, I'm just learning about the vagus nerve. So now the the vagus nerve is one of the oldest nerves goes right down, all the way down into our belly. And now they're finding out that it actually goes up into our brain and into our face. So I have people now on zoom, I'll have them just sit cut their face. And this feels really comfortable because now we're embracing our vagus nerve, we're stimulating our vagus nerve, when we do this, you know, and so just have people smile. And then breathing. So it's about the deep breathing, I'll have them maybe put their hands out, breathe in, curl your hands up, hold it, hold it, hold it smiling and then release ha just with a sigh because then when we say it sends a net message to our brain, I'm content I'm happy, as again, as soon as we smile as well, we start sending those, then the message to our brain, hey, I must be happy, I'm smiling. So even if it's not real, you can put on a smile, and start to feel it shifts, it shifts something. So the more we practice smiling, and then we add a Hahaha, you don't it doesn't have to be a big belly laugh, it can just be a little giggle. Haha. You know, move here, your shoulders, breathe in, bring up your shoulders. And then release Ha. Right, just the simple exercises that I have people do on zoom. So hold up your hand and then we're trace our hands. So this is like, does a couple of things right? It allows people to do the the little fine motor skill so Breathe in. And then Haha, we just gently Haha, and then breathe in. Haha. Breathe in. Haha. Right? you chase all trace all of your fingers all the way off. Haha. And then we do the other hand. Haha. Right. So it's kind of keeping them engaged in person. That's much better, of course. But also possible, you know, and great for the people that are caring for other people, the workers, the family, it connects people on another level if you've if somebody has some form of Alzheimer's or dementia, you know, it's a progressive thing we can kind of slow it down with with lifestyle changes, and it's never too late. As I said, the sooner we can get this message. It's cumulative, right? If we can start eating better and exercising and getting some vitamin D, and you know, all of these beautiful thing laughing. The earlier we are, the better. I know it's hard. It's hard to get that message because when you're young you're you're infallible. And maybe that's what a pandemic brings us. Right? It's like, Oh, well, maybe I'm not. Yeah,

Roy Barker 18:06

yeah. And you had a great story. I think that you were saying that. One of the communities that you went into, you had a fairly non responsive person that couldn't move or can have a lot of facial. Well, couldn't do the laughing but what i think you know what I'm talking about don't mean. Yeah, I'll let you relate that story.

Cathy 18:29

Yeah, thank you. So one of my, one of my laughter yoga sessions at at a facility. I was wheeled in. And her worker stayed with her. She was like, slumped over, she was sleeping. It looked like she was just sleeping the whole time. And all of a sudden, her worker said, Oh my gosh, look at is smiling. So you know, it's vibration. laughter is vibration, and it's high vibration, by the way, you can't be sad and happy at the same time. Not at the exact same time. Right, so it's a vibration. So it was vibrating out just like music. When we're in this the presence of music. We're affected by the vibration, maybe it's heavy metal. Ooh, and we're like, oh, sometimes maybe it used to be fun. Right. And, and, and classical music or jazz, like it just affects us differently. So does laughter So that was thank you for reminding me of that story.

Roy Barker 19:25

Yeah, I think that's so powerful. Because, you know, we don't sometimes even though people can't respond, we are still getting through, they can still hear what's going on around them. And so I think that's, you know, the importance about this is it can kind of take you back transport you to your childhood to or to a happier time. I don't know it just it's a very odd effect. I will say that about something so simple. That has such a dramatic effect on our mood, our thinking and and going forward because it's hard. Okay. I'm all mad about something I'm kind of soak in. And then Terry laughs and Haha, but I don't ever go back to that spot where I was just then it's like it brings you out of it. And you can kind of continue on in more of a happy mindset.

Cathy 20:18

Yes, absolutely. So imagine the radio dial. So laughter is just a frequency, right? It's a vibration so so when you're like feeling grumpy or having those grumpy thoughts, it's you're down here on 87 point something. And then Terry laughs and then you get raised up to 95 so you're right, you're not at the same place. You might not be where Terry is yet, right? It's still haha some or

Terry 20:47

do you have no idea?

Cathy 20:50

Yeah, it's a beautiful thank you for saying that. It changes us when we laugh. Really? The more I laugh the more like Wow, this is so powerful. Because I just love more and if I get stressed because my I'm living life of course. I'm not invaluable. I don't have a shield.

Terry 21:07

laughter and that's your is your shield that

Cathy 21:10

laughter is my shield that Yes, thank you. I love that laughter is my shield. So if something's happening, I just laugh and and I love when people say it's not funny, I go, well, Have we met? Here's my card.

Terry 21:24

Let's take care of that right now. It is funny. And that adds years to your life doesn't it? Can't if you laughter adds how many years? like eight years or something to your life? If you do it, you know, on a on a constant basis.

Cathy 21:44

I don't know how many years? I don't know. I don't even know how they do those studies. But no,

Terry 21:49

I think it was in the laugh ology film. I don't know why I remembered that. I think it said that. It was like eight, eight years. It can add years to your life more

Roy Barker 22:00

to add eight years, and they may as well be happy years, right?

Cathy 22:05

Absolutely. Oh, my gosh. You know, since we chatted last time, I don't know if I was doing the project or not. But I'm working with a group called the fan club. It's full, full access network. And it's a young adults with varying developmental disabilities. And we're in our third month, every week we made because I don't again, I don't know what I shared last time, but at my, one of my branches will be to teach folks with special needs to be laughter leaders so they can lead laughter for their demographic, and really be part of community. I just really, I'm just feeling really drawn there. And so now people are showing up in my life. Someone contacted me about funding, if anyone's listening and has funding. Right. Right, or contacts because this is big. I contacted the founder of laughter yoga, and I said, Is anybody in the world doing this? Because I don't want to reinvent the wheel as they say, I'd like to do what they're doing. But nobody is apparently. So I guess it's up to me.

Terry 23:12

That is an awesome. Love that. Yeah. And do you also do you offer private laughter classes or for businesses and individuals, everybody? All of the above?

Cathy 23:26

All of the above? Absolutely. Corporate for team building and, you know, increased productivity, less absenteeism. I know everyone's working from home, but they'll be back in office soon. Or factory or wherever. Right? Yeah. So it's great for that. It's great. Private, I don't really do private but yeah, groups for sure.

Roy Barker 23:48

Yeah, is something that needs to be done in the group. I think it just I think the because by yourself, it's like, it's a little different. But I think the more people that we add into the mix, the better that it probably makes it for everybody.

Cathy 24:03

Yeah. And as Terry was saying that, you know, people have different laughs and so I don't know if it said in the movie, but people that have big laughs are called laughter blasters. And as the laugh laughter teacher, you, you figure out who they are in your club. And when you do your meditation, you kind of place them around so they trigger the others. You know, you don't put all the quiet ones together. So they're like, you know, they're like too shy to laugh. You put them beside the big laugh or so then they're like, they can't help but laugh.

Terry 24:34

Well, and they talked they talked about the show the nanny Roy, you missed this part. They talked about the show the nanny and how one of the producers was asked to find 25 laughters I guess the laughter blasters and they did the laugh track with that. And that's what made people laugh. So I mean, Roy dies laughing He, he really he watches that and I watch it now too. I didn't watch it when it was On but because of the right thing, I mean, she's just funny. That's true. I just never even I didn't think about that. I forgot about the laugh club. I should watch that movie again. I haven't watched it for a while. What a cool gay guy. Imagine being the lifers.

Roy Barker 25:20

Yeah, that's what I was thinking about the guy that did the lifeology. I guess he was a guy that track I can't think of his name. He traveled around and

Terry 25:30

oh, that's album, isn't it? Elbert? nurnberg.

Roy Barker 25:33

Kiss? Yeah, any web app? What a cool gig that would be to go around and just laugh with all different cultures. And,

Terry 25:39

and he did it because you needed to find his laughter as his laugh, right?

Roy Barker 25:44

Is that why? Exactly? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I wasn't sure if that was a. I don't know, kind of one of those, like a ploy to get you going. Because, you know, in the beginning, he was just so solitude and nothing wouldn't really make him laugh. You know, it wasn't there wasn't a lot of it going on. But you know, he was always just very straight solitude. And then, you know, by the end, I think they actually show him laughing on the ground, you know, with a bunch of kids. He's actually in a suit and tie rolling around laughing with him.

Cathy 26:22

He is a filmmaker. So yeah, I'm not sure how, like, if it's whatever, it's it's a story, but it's really great. His next movie is one that you should check out too. It's called you are what you act. Oh, and it's kind of it's got a bit of laughter yoga in there as well. And I think I'm actually in that movie. I was he came to the conference. But he talks about, you know, actors, how they, you know, like Tom Cruise, how he, in real life, he would save somebody from a burning building or whatever, because he did his own stunts, right? Same if you're depressed, if you're depressed, doing a depress part for six months, now you're depressed at the end. And then he talks about, like, I don't have a cell phone, but he talks about cell phone, like, how are we looking today, down at our cell phone. So when we're looking down, we have that candy cane neck. And it says it sends a note to our brain that I'm sad. So back to Alzheimers again. And people that are in homes, you know, they're sitting in chairs often just slumped forward. And that is bad physiology, because that's sending a note to our brain. I'm sad. So we just get sad, or the longer we sit. Because when we move around, right, we're moving, we're getting oxygen into our beautiful body. But we're all our head is up there all these small little things anyway, check out that film.

Terry 27:55

When does that come out?

Cathy 27:56

All right, it's on it was one of the hot dogs films. I think it came out in 2018. Okay.

Roy Barker 28:03

Well, and Mitch, you know, kind of tying those two together, you think about, you know, people that are confined to wheelchairs, or that aren't that mobile, I never really thought about that part of it about being able to, you know, take in the oxygen and the movement kind of not moving, you know, kind of putting us in a little bit of a solid state where, again, I think this laughter You know, bringing laughter into people's lives. It's just such a benefit. In so many ways.

Cathy 28:32

It's the movement, it really is the movement, because when we're sad, we're we don't take up much space, right? We're sitting small, like, or like we're sad or depressed or, or we're tired. So I work with with these special needs, folks, and often they're like, I'm tired. I'm like, here, get up then let's get some energy India, because it's that emotion thing. That motion thing, things in motion, create more emotion, like it doesn't go anywhere. So if you're tired, you just need to stand up, do some jumping jacks or just like, you know, just like Haha, like, whoo, just and then you'll automatically feel different. Again, you're turning up the dial, the vibration. Simple,

Terry 29:15

that is still true. I mean, I'm just thinking about that so true, because I have found myself very tired lately. And I'm like, I gotta get to Kathy's class on Tuesday mornings at 930, Eastern 9:30am. Eastern, online free.

Cathy 29:33

Yeah, if you're ever tired, really just like you're like, I don't want to go for a walk, go for a walk, just around the block.

Roy Barker 29:39

Just do it. You know, life is too short. We've got to laugh. Things are gonna come at us. And you know, the other thing I try to use the sound is when you have anticipation of something that's going to be stressful or may not go the way that you want it to go. You know, you can kind of laugh through The lead up to that. So you're not just sitting here all concentrated in worry about what may or may not happen. He might as well laugh through it and wait till it actually does happen.

Terry 30:12

Right? Yeah, cuz it might not even be waiting, waiting for a while. No, no, you're fine. Go ahead.

Roy Barker 30:20

No, I was just gonna say one. I can't remember who said this if it was the, but on the thing it said that life is stressful and death is stressful. We should laugh as much as we can in between or something like that. Y'all remember that?

Cathy 30:36

Nothing like that. I don't know. Well, what about this one? You only live once? No, you actually live every day you only die once.

Terry 30:49

is

Roy Barker 30:49

true.

Terry 30:52

Oh my gosh. Yeah, so don't so laughter yoga don't even if you're hesitating on whether or not to go to Catholic Checkout, Kathy, I'm like, Don't even think about the yoga aspect of it's just like, you know, small yoga, small movements in yoga, but you also provide you talk about tapping as well. And what other things Kathy, the other thing was,

Roy Barker 31:17

What didn't you show us the Oh, yeah. I would love to.

Cathy 31:19

I would love to demonstrate those. Let me just see. Oh, have a sip? Yes. So our hands are the conductors. We are energy. We know because we've walked into a room and somebody is in a bad mood, or they're in a great mood, right? We feel that we're like, oh, who's happier? Who? Who? Sad? We know, right? So we just rub our hands together, and then just shake them off. So when we're stressed, sometimes people do this automatically. They're like, Oh, I'm so overwhelmed. So this when we're stressed, blood, lymph, oxygen, not all of it, but it leaves our brain. So this brings that back this, these we've got neurovascular is right here. So this covers them and that and you can put another hand on the back. And then you just take a couple of nice slow deep breaths in. And then release. You don't have to say but you can. It's nice. And then hard. So that brings the blood back up to your beautiful brain. Oxygen, boop, boop, boop. And then yeah, and then you can come up. And you can also like put your thumbs on your temple, and then just curl your fingers in where they meet on your forehead. And then you just push in and drag across. Same kind of idea that will just bring oxygen back up to your brain. Yep. So beautiful. I like that. And one more if you don't mind. Haha, now you got me started. These are really good. So So yes, come to my class, because I offer these things as I learn about these wonderful simple techniques for healing. It's not laughter yoga, but laughter yoga is the best medicine, why not add in a few extra medicine medicine tips. Okay, so a couple of fingers, you just draw a figure eight around your eyes if you can't sleep, or if you wake up and you can't get back to sleep. So just gently around either direction either hand. And you do that until you yawn. And you don't need to do that now. But as soon as you be like, oh, Am I boring. So what that does, again, back to stress, or if you ever feeling stressed, you can do that. And that will help to calm you down. Like same with this one. Because when we're stressed again, we're not healing. And we're can't sleep right, our brains racing. It's just like, ah, and so we can't sleep when we're, when we're stressed. Right, we got that monkey mind going on. So that just helps to calm us down. And even just doing like raindrops on your on your face this again where the vagus nerve, and, you know, the lymph is just right under the skin. So just gently tapping on your face, even though they say don't touch your face. Just wash your hands first,

Terry 34:18

where I'm at.

Cathy 34:23

Yeah, you know, and then just the gentle hug. This one is really good one, actually, with people are sitting your right hand over your left ribs and your right hand just on top of your elbow on right. So this is your spleen, your right hand would be cupping your spleen and your left hand over triple warmer you don't need to know what this does. But when you're sitting watching TV, you can just set and you can gently rock and it's just like, it's just like tells your body I'm safe and it just again calms you down. If anyone's feeling anxious, it's just like a wonderful hug that we're not getting today.

Terry 35:06

Cathy, do you have any learning workshops available?

Roy Barker 35:09

do you teach?

Cathy 35:11

I do teach people to lead laughter classes I have like weekend classes for people to learn how to do this. I will be incorporating thank you for for saying that I will be creating some some learnings because I do feel like I have a way of explaining it. You know, I say to people, I watch all those. All those health and wellness summits, all the energy stuff, all the stuff, so you don't have to, and then I capsulated down into a little nugget. So you're like, oh, oh, that's what that three day summit was about?

Terry 35:43

You have to do this, Cathy, because you're still you explain it so well. I mean, I hate to say you dumb it down for me, because I just don't, you know, I, I get so overwhelmed trying to find out every aspect. Why, why, why? Why? And just keep going, going? Going? I do want to go back to you said you don't have a cell phone. It's not right. I know. Now everyone knows. Oh, my gosh, I'm so impressed.

Cathy 36:15

Well, you know, again, it goes back to my kind of my worm business. It's part of my brand. Now. You know, it's, it's a it's a little bit of shock value for the young folks. It's so fun when I meet them. And if I meet them in person, and they're like, Oh, you know what? If I say I don't have a cell phone? I know they stopped breathing for a moment. Yeah, I'm thinking like, how does she fight? And then their next question is like, how do you function? And I'm like, What do you mean, I don't understand the question. Like I eat I sleep I poop.

Terry 36:49

I mean, just the same way, you're just not missing all the junk.

Cathy 36:54

Well, it's a lot. It's really a less stressed life. I mean, I save a wacka dough. Like imagine I don't have the cell phone thing. I don't have to battle with them about contracts or whatever the thing broke or whatever. I don't know, whatever happens. And when I go out, I lock my door. So my house is safe. Right? Who know, I don't know if it's safe. And then I get on with my day. I don't think oh, did they send me an email? Did somebody phone me I'm waiting for stuff. I can't do anything to like at home. So. So I get to just go and be except it's hard. If I'm on my own, I get to be by myself because people are on their thing. Yeah.

Terry 37:35

Well, and everybody else has a cell phone. So really, if you have an emergency situation, just use their that's what I used to tell the girls they would be Oh, Mom, I need a cell phone. So and so has one so and so I said, Okay, here's there's I'm not getting you one here. 11. Right, all now have them. Yeah,

Roy Barker 37:55

I was just gonna say I had a, it's a little bit off topic, but the, I think the power of our brain and the things that we can do to help us in certain situations. I actually was interviewing a guy yesterday for my business show. That is an he helps companies marketing, he's like a neuroscientist, and you know, talking about the way that things make people feel. And so one of the concepts we were talking about is the difference between our seen our response and our reaction. And you know, we can have a feed somebody makes you mad, you can have that reaction internally. But we count to five before we respond, because if you go 12345 it's supposed to drive the blood, I guess out of your brain to get you out of that fight or flight mentality. And, you know, we're talking about doing that I do that at the end of the day. take that time to sit down to clear my head before I go to bed. But I had another guy this last week saying he does that between tasks as he goes from one task to the other. He just takes a minute counts to five and it really clears that one task out gets them ready start the other. Anyway, Felix ago I was talking to you last night he said that we can also do that. counting backwards for tats, that we may be procrastinating. He said because if we count 54321 that actually drives the blood back up into our brain to make us you know, want to jump in and get started in something. So anyway, I just think it's it's interesting. All of these things, you know, sometimes we really just we wait, well, we go through the day looking at our cell phones, instead of thinking about what can we do to help ourselves just by changing our way of thinking or changing, you know, some small actions that we take during the day. It's, it's very interesting.

Cathy 39:55

And not only that, when we're always looking at our thing, I Anything that sends a message to our ourself that we're not comfortable by ourself. Yeah, right. So we got to be engaged. Like, what if we're walking down the street, we're not on our thing people think we don't have any friends. Right? And the connection to you know, when you're walking and like I, because I don't have a thing, and I don't wear earbuds when I'm writing to listen to music or anything I want to hear if I'm going to be hit by a car. But I'm always looking, if I'm walking or riding, I'm looking to see other people I want to wave at them. I want to say, Hey, hello, are you know when I do my laughter yoga too. So it's, which is kind of odd. But you know, so when people are on their thing, they're just not even connecting. So it's that human connection again, like that, that that momentary. Hey, I see. You may smile. There you are You made my day.

Terry 40:54

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Because if I think about that, too, you know, I'll, there will be times when I want to, I used to always want to make eye contact with everybody. And now it's like, not so much. I don't know why. Because everybody, cuz everybody's on. It's like, you know, what gets their attention and brings them back to reality is when they trip over something and take a flying leap. Something jumped up, and they're looking for something that jumped up when it's just them tripping over their feet. Ready to get in a fleet, I get that.

Roy Barker 41:35

Well, Cathy, we appreciate you being on the show. Are there any other any other tips, tricks, things that you want to leave the audience with? Before we wrap this up,

Cathy 41:44

I really just want to tell people about stress again, right? When we're stressed, we can't heal, we're not sleeping properly, when we're stressed. If we can reduce our stress as one thing to be good for our brain, that it would be good for our whole body, all of our organs will be so grateful if we're not stressed. Because it's really, our, our, our environment is toxic when we're stressed. Because we're just creating venom, you know, and we can't run on on all that toxic cortisol that's secreted. And, you know, a lot of our topical creams and everything our steroid base, which is cortisol, you know, so and that's, I mean, that's another whole show. I don't want to open up another topic right now. But you know, we really need to reduce the cortisol that are that we're exposed to. So laughter is one simple way. You know,

Roy Barker 42:40

I think we're finding out that so much of our, a lot of our emotions, a lot of our chemical releases all happen in our stomach as well. And so you know, it's like taking, like you said, taking care of our whole body. And then again, just taking those deep breaths. A lot of us are shallow breathers, and that's not good for see that we need to get the big deep breaths in to, you know, bring in as much oxygen as we possibly can. Alright, well, Cathy, thank you so much. It's always a pleasure. We find no not to make upon but we always get a lot of laughs when we talk to you.

Terry 43:24

love so much information.

Roy Barker 43:26

Yeah, thank you.

Terry 43:28

You really do I mean, about the environment? Everything. It's It's amazing. We really appreciate you sharing that with us. And and hope that everybody comes to your class. Yeah, online.

Roy Barker 43:41

We'll let her tell us yeah. First off, before we do that, what is the habit? That besides laughing I guess we'll cut that. Since we know you laugh every day. But what is another habit that you use that you feel like, adds a lot of value to your life?

Cathy 43:56

Ah, starting my day with sprouts. I eat sprouts in 19 years. Now, sprouts are a huge part of my health plan. Yeah, yeah. It's I don't take a multivitamin. I eat sprouts. And I grow them myself. And I would say, you know, if people want to live a better life, eat sprouts every day, drink water, laugh for a certain amount every every day and talk to at least one person.

Roy Barker 44:23

Good advice. Oh, that's great. All right. So I'll go ahead and let us know what time Well, number one, the website tells everybody how they can find you on your website where they can reach out, but also tell us about your class on Tuesday morning. And oh, I know one thing I want. I had all my notes I wanted to mention is that again, this is just the awesome power of laughing because when Terry first met you She attended a class and she was over across the room I was working and in trance and while I was doing and really wasn't paying attention and then all of a sudden I could just hear all of this laughter. And I'm telling you, I actually got up from my chair to walk over to her and stood there with her. laughing and kind of enjoying this. I'm like, What is going on? And it was very again, it's that contagious part that I just had to go investigate what was going on anyway, sorry to interrupt, but I just, I can't stress the power of this. It's incredible. Anyway, how can we find you on your website and tell us about the class?

Cathy 45:29

Thank you for sharing that story. Because it is the power of like the laughter we are attracted to laughter we're just like, Oh, what's that? What am I missing out on? Thank you. So yeah, my website is Cathysclub.com Cathy with a C and an S. And it's Tuesday morning. 930. Eastern 9:30am. Eastern on zoom.

Roy Barker 45:54

Okay. Yeah. And we'll be sure to put all that up on the in the show notes as well. All right, Cathy, thanks so much. We hope to have you back for a lot more laughter. It's just good. It's awesome. So we appreciate you taking time out of your day. And that's gonna do it for another episode of the educational. Of course, I am your host, Roy. I'm Terry. You can find us at www.ageucation.com. We're on all the major podcast platforms, iTunes, Stitcher, Google Spotify, not on one that you listened to please reach out we'd be glad to add it. Also, we hang out on we are on all the major podcasts. But excuse me, the major social media platforms we probably hang out a little bit more on Instagram. So we encourage you to reach out have some interaction with us and all of our connections a lot of great people that you can find they're also a video of this interview will go up on our YouTube page, go over there and take a look if you want to see some of our videos from our all of our interviews that we have done. So until next time, take care of yourself and take care of your health.

www.cathysclub.com

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