Saturday 18 July 2009

Laughing Clubs for Baby boomers ?

In the link below, John Cleese visits Dr. Mandan Kataria in India. He is the founder of the World's first 'Laughing Club' who makes the point that if you fake laughter with others in a group, it is just as beneficial to your body as the real thing. His slogan is : " Fake it. Fake it. Until you make it. "

He has set up a Laughing Club in a Bombay prison on the basis that prisoners have stress, depression and anger and laughter can allay those feelings. Cleese says : "I found myself wondering, do we really want villains to be having quite such a good time ? And then I remembered that the people who are supposed to benefit from this are not just the prisoners , but also the prison staff."

I observe that, in a roundabout way, this is an example of Indian taxpayers' money being well spent.

As Britain's 'Baby Boomers' enter their twilight years, they will begin to make greater and greater financial demands on the resources of the National Health Service in particular and the Welfare State in general. State investment in Laughing Clubs today, could save the money of younger tax payers tommorrow. This idea is entirely logical and is guaranteed to find favour with abolutely no one in Government. After all, how could you justify spending tax payers' money financing clubs, designed to make old people laugh ?

John Cleese reports on Laughter Laughing Yoga

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