My Story
My Happiness Journey
My happiness journey of living a truly fulfilled, joyful life did not start in the happiest way.
About a decade ago, I suddenly came across a bump in the road of my life. After that, I realized I needed to find a way to navigate through stress and create my own happiness.
When I heard the words, “You have breast cancer,” I realized my life would never be the same.
Soon my life was filled with chemo treatments and surgeries. Even though my family and I felt fortunate and extremely grateful that we had a wonderful supportive community who helped us out, I wondered “How am I going to make it? How am I really going to get through this extremely painful and emotionally draining experience?”
I searched for help and discovered a tremendous amount of research and anecdotes about laughter. I read about Norman Cousin’s book, Anatomy of an Illness, that he noticed reduced pain when he laughed at funny movies.
I read research studies by Dr. Lee Berk, of Loma Linda University, showing even if you are faking your laughter, as in Laughter Yoga and Laughter exercises, you can reduce your pain, feel happier, reduce your anxiety and . . . wait for it . . . laughter has been shown to boost your immune system and produce “NK“ cancer fighting cells!
I decided to try this laughter. I started by faking the laughter for a minute at a time. I noticed that the more I laughed, the better I felt overall even though I wasn’t laughing at anything funny. I decided to make it my daily practice to laugh and since then, I incorporate laughter into my everyday life.
I traveled to Switzerland to get certified as a Laughter Yoga Leader by the founder of Laugh Yoga, a medical doctor, Dr. Madan Kataria, and have taught and led laughter programs for over 15 years. During this time, I went to graduate school to get my Health and Wellness Coaching graduate degree and have become a Certified Life Coach and Certified Health and Wellness Coach.
Through my experiences and learning, I discovered how to lighten up and have a positive, optimistic attitude. I thought, “I’ve got to let others know about this happiness and pain reducing vitamin – called laughter!” This is why I founded the Laughter Wellness movement and created my unique and uplifting, LaughingRx Laughter Wellness programs.
This was, and is, my mission to ignite your spark, to help you discover your laughter and joy! I now specialize in helping others find their life’s passion, success and happiness through my inspirational and motivational keynote speaking at conferences and meetings; my wellness seminars and laughter team building programs; my LaughingRx Laughter classes and workshops and my Life, Happiness and Success Coaching. I offer these in-person and virtually.
I look forward to helping you on your journey.
Nira Jumping for Joy!
