The NCSU Laughing Club, a club that two students founded last week and are working to complete the appropriate paperwork for, will hold its first official event on “National Laughing Day,” May 7, according to cofounder Seneca Toms, a senior in biological sciences.
“The NCSU Laughing Club will have a great impact on campus and in the community through greatly improving the culture of our campus, providing an outlet for stress, and an avenue for life’s simplest pleasures, which is laughing,” Toms said.
Toms said he researched the effects of laughter on individual’s health and found studies that claim “just 10-15 minutes a day of laughing can reduce stress, increase the immune system and blood flow, and can burn up to fifty calories a day.”
“I’m hoping this will reach people and grab their interests to eventually lead to a laughing session in the Brickyard,”Toms said.
Toms said Madan Kataria, a doctor in India, began laughing clubs after realizing their health benefits.
“There was one case where a Danish computer company reported a 40 percent increase of sales following a year-long program of using Dr. Kataria’s program,”Toms said.
Harsh Upadhyay, a master student in computer science and cofounder of the laughing club, said he was a member of two laughing clubs while he lived in India.
According to Upadhyay, the group of students would take breaks from studying to crack jokes together and laugh.
“It would re-charge our batteries,”Upadhyay said.
Upadhyay said he feels laughter is contagious, and everyone has something amusing about themselves to make other people laugh.
Students also suffer from stressful situations, according to April Chester, a master of social work and counselor at the Counseling Center.
“There are a lot of demands on students,”Chester said. “Relationships and connecting with other are ways we cope with stress.”
Some of the members of the laughing club said they enjoy the idea of the chance to laugh with different people.
Ashley Winfree, a senior in biomedical engineering, said she did not know about the medical benefits of laughing when she first heard about the club through the Facebook group.
“I joined because I like the title,” she said. “It was fun, refreshing and made me smile.”
Winfree said she feels the laughing club is a “good idea,” and it is already making her laugh by just talking about it.
Toms said it is “not a laughing matter” when it helps other students deal with strong feelings of depression or anxiety.