People are easily stressed out nowadays. They turn to psychologists and look for every possible means to relax. Somehow, they forget to simply "laugh," which can be very effective therapy. A man in Shenzhen is calling on people to do "laugh exercises" everyday. Let's follow Wang Jing to take a look.
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Don't be mistaken, they are not crazy. They are just exercising by laughing in a park in Shenzhen.
Zhang Lixin is the founder of what he called the "Laugh Pals Association." The idea came from 10 years of working in Shenzhen, China's southern manufacturing hub.
"This city is a good place for young people to start their career, but it is full of pressure. People feel stressed out in their everyday lives and many are in a state of poor health. This may be detrimental to them."
The laugh exercises Zhang Lixin practices were not invented by him. He says he has merely improved on them.
"I happened to find exercises in yoga mainly focussed on laughing. I took them and have elaborated on them a little with Chinese shadowboxing and other exercises. There you have it: laughing out loud."
The exercises take 40 minutes to finish. The warmup exercise involves simply clapping one's hands and stomping feet. Each laugh segment is followed by inhaling and exhaling exercises.
There are over 20 different laughs. Zhang Lixin calls some of them "draw a bow laugh," "lion laugh" and "win the lottery laugh" to describe the movements.
Here's a dilemma: what does one do even after knowing about the benefits of laughing more, but not being able to find a good reason to laugh? Zhang Lixin says fake laughs are fine as long as you are laughing.
"What the exercises emphasize is laughing for no reason. We don't need to be amused to laugh. We laugh first, then the happy elements are produced from within."
His theory has yet to be confirmed, but people who've joined in and have laughed with him give the exercises a thumbs up.
"I'm almost 70 years old. I feel refreshed after doing the laugh exercises."
"I used to turn to the Internet and reading, but they are not physical activities to relax my mood. I feel completely relaxed after laughing this way."
Zhang Lixin and his laughing pals get together every evening in Shenzhen's Lianhuashan Park. It's become quite a phenomenon to see hundreds of people laugh together.
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Director: Liu Chi