Portland's 7th Annual World Laughter Day Celebration

This year myself and Gail Hand from The Power of Laughter will be holding Portland's 7th World Laughter Day Celebration at the Portland Saturday Market in downtown Waterfront Park. We will be on the main stage from 2 to 3:30 Sunday May 1st.Andrea & Gail @ the 2010 WLD event at Whole Foods in Portland

• When? May 1, 2011 at 2 pm to 3:30 pm (rain or shine)
• Where? the Portland Saturday Market main stage - Next to the food carts on the waterfront near Ankeny Square and the Burnside Bridge
• Why? For the pure joy of it! We set aside this day to send a message of joy & hope. We want to get more people laughing & urge the world to lighten up! The ultimate vision is world peace through laughter!
• Who? All ages; Anyone ready to laugh or who is interested in learning the tools of Laughter Yoga
• What? Laughter Yoga. Prizes. Fun and fellowship! We will be holding various laughter contests (longest, funniest & best laugh, even a contest for dogs!) and mini Laughter Yoga sessions from 2-3:30

We hope to spread the joy of laughter to more people during World Laughter Day. Any donations will go to the Oregon Humane Society and the Portland Women's Crisis Line. We will also be joined by Laura Lou Pape-McCarthy with 1 Laugh at a Time and other leaders from the Awakenings and Hawthorne Laughter Clubs (Michelle Wirta and Matt Deegan).

Will you help us by forwarding this information to someone you know who might be interested? Thank you for your support!

Laughter & Auto-immune Disease

Check out my guest blog posting on "Laughter & Auto-immune Disease" at the local Portland blog "My Life Works Today" (MLWT). MLWT is a local non-profit who's mission is to inspire individuals who are living with all forms of lupus and lupus-related illnesses by being a strong resource of opportunities reflecting the potential and well-being of Oregon and SW Washington communities. This is my second guest appearance on the MLWT Blog.

I was so please when Maria contacted me to be a guest blogger earlier in the year. My late husband, Jeff, suffered from Lupus and died from Lupus related complications at the beginning of 2005, so sharing my knowledge with this target group has extra special meaning.

Laughter, Hypnosis and NLP

I have been invited to demonstrate Laughter Yoga at the Knightsbridge Institute of Hypnotherapy and NLP, here in Portland, OR on November 16th. I am very excited as I almost attended the Knightsbridge Institute myself, last year. My local therapist, Michael Nagel, is a graduate (and I believe now a visiting teacher). I was very impressed with hypnosis and particularly NeuroLinguistic Programming during my work with him. This again is confirmation that laughter can be a great healing tool if the students and instructors are interested! But I already know that it is, it is just nice that others are recognizing it too. I'll report back after my session.

Update on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 at 12:13PM by Andrea Crisp

Sunday was my visit to the Knightsbridge Institute of Hypnotherapy & NLP. As expected, I had a wonderful time and hear that my demonstration was well received. To my surprise, the teacher Geoffrey Knight, records every class in case a student is unable to attend, so my entire presentation and demonstration was recorded. Geoffrey will be mailing me a copy of the presentation, so if I can figure it out I may eventually post it on this web site!

Overall, what a great opportunity to share the healing possibilities of laughter and the tool Laughter Yoga with a group already on the path to helping others. I enjoyed myself and was impressed with the questions and participation of this group! It seemed like everyone naturally understood how laughter can be used to help improve physical and emotional health, which is nice! Not everyone buys into it immediately, but it was clear to me that this group of student was on board. This created amazing energy right from the beginning  that continued throughout the session despite the small space we were working in. Very good, very good, Yay! Stay tuned and hopefully I can figure out how to get the video on here soon.

Andrea's Laughter Yoga Interview on BlogTalk Radio

Yesterday I was interviewed regarding Laughter Yoga on the semimonthly BlogTalk Radio program Qi to Wellness, hosted by health counselor and Reiki practitioner Aqiylah Collins.

During this interview I cover the most common questions regarding Laughter Yoga, such as:

• The history of this global movement
• Health benefits of laughter
• Why Laughter Yoga is consider Yoga
• The 3 Myths of Laughter
• The difference between laughter and humor
• A typical Laughter Yoga session
• Laughter Yoga and world peace

Follow this link to listen to the program titled Laughter is the Best Medicine.