Click here to watch the video

The way cackles, guffaws and chuckles ricocheted out of yoga instructor Angela Mason’s classroom at the Bowie Senior Center on March 28, visitors to the rear corridors of the building could not help but sneak a peek.

Eight seniors stood in a semi-circle around Mason in hysterics. What was so funny? Nothing. They were practicing laughing yoga, a relatively new twist on ancient Indian yoga practices, which uses a routine of playful exercises to stimulate stress-busting snickers.

‘‘It is childlike playfulness,” explained Mason. ‘‘It may look silly but it’s playful and how often do we get a chance to be playful?”

Madan Kataria, a doctor from Mumbai, India, first incorporated laughter into yoga practice in a laughter club in 1995 while studying the health benefits of laughter. Since then, more than 5,000 laughter clubs have formed in more than 50 countries.

Sessions start with a good stretch and some deep breathing but quickly spiral into contagious giggle fits. Mason said laughs at first are often fake and forced.

‘‘We fake it until we make it,” she said.

But as students watch the expressions on each others’ faces they soon begin to laugh for real.

Students at the Bowie center say taking the weekly class has helped them to release tension and stress.

‘‘I see more humor in life than I did before,” Bowie resident Nancy Phillips said.

At a time in her life when ‘‘senior moments” of forgetfulness can be frustrating, Kathleen Lacey of Bowie said laughter yoga has helped her to get over her mistakes rather than dwell on them.

‘‘I just feel like I have all this energy and electricity running through me,” Lacey said during the session.

‘‘That’s just my phone vibrating,” said Bowie resident Jenny Tringali, triggering another outburst of giggles.

The saying, ‘‘Laughter is the best medicine” could really be a motto for Mason’s own life. About two years ago Mason said she was at a particularly low point.

‘‘Laughter is what changed me,” she said. ‘‘Laughter helps me communicate and it brought me out of that dormant place.”

Upon hearing of laughter yoga from a friend, Mason attended her first session in New York’s Central Park. Mason was hooked and undertook training to become a laughter leader from Kataria’s laughter yoga school in New York. She intends to pursue certification from Kataria as a laughter teacher in several weeks at a retreat in California as well.

Adapting laughter yoga for seniors, Mason leads many of the routines from a seated position, but gets participants standing to interact with each other.

Participant Betty Williams had taken yoga classes before and wasn’t sure what to make of laughter yoga in her first class.

‘‘I came waltzing in with my yoga mat and was wondering where we would have room to lay down,” said Williams, a Bowie resident.

See more

Check out exclusive videocoverage of the laughing yoga class at www.gazette.net.