BANGALORE, Dec 24: Sitalakshmi Dayanand, a former manager of a state-run bank, religiously breaks into peals of laughter for half-an-hour every morning in this southern Indian city and attributes her near perfect health to the routine.

“I am 54 years old and have taken voluntary retirement from Syndicate Bank,” Dayanand said. “I did hasya yoga (laughing combined with meditation and physical exercises) every day for the last four months and found my low blood pressure, a constant headache and palpitations had all gone.”

Most of the more than 900 delegates who attended a three-day All India Laughter Convention, which ended here on Sunday, said laughter was the best tonic for their health.

Debendra Mehra, 62, an ardent laughter advocate, said he was suffering from hypertension a year ago when he decided to laugh his way out of the condition.

“I have been regularly going to a laughter club in Mumbai,” Mehra said. “After about three months I noticed that laughing had a significant impact on my disease. My bleeding from the nose has stopped and now I have decided not to take any medicines.”

The first laughter club in India was formed in Mumbai by a doctor, Madan Kataria, in 1995. Now there are more than 50,000 registered members in more than a thousand clubs spread across India. Bangalore, capital of southern Karnataka state, has 50 of them.

The annual convention provided a forum for laughter buffs to meet, exchange new laughing techniques and even keep tabs of the conditions that it has helped cure. —AFP