I recently received an e-mail from "Behavioral Tech, LLC" containing a suggestion worth sharing with nursing faculty and students: start a "laugh club." A laugh club is made up of a group of people who simply get together and laugh. This is not a comedy club or any other sort of entertainment or performance. People just get together in a specified place at a specified time and fully engage in laughter. Other members of the club know if participants are involved, because they either are laughing or are not laughing. We have evidence that supports that laughter, happiness, and joy have a positive impact on our immune systems. We also know "laughter is contagious." Fifteen minutes of laughter even 1 day a week seems to be a very worthwhile endeavor.

The idea for the laugh club was proposed Marsha Linehan, PhD, ABBP (http://marieinstitute.org/), as a way to illustrate mindfulness and full participation. Meditation and mindfulness involve being fully and completely aware of the moment. Laughing requires that awareness. Linehan notes that, if the laughter is genuine, then self-consciousness disappears. All too often, we are in a place or an activity, and our minds are doing a million other things. The laugh club is a way to help us and our nursing students to learn to be fully present in a pleasant situation.

Source: Behavioral Tech LLC. DBT resources: mindfulness exercise: participate in a laugh club. Available at http://www.behavioraltech.org/resources/mindfulness_exercises.cfm?utm_source=Mov. Accessed October 1, 2012.

Submitted by: Robin E. Pattillo, PhD, RN, CNL, News Editor at [email protected].