Few people would deny that laughter is a good medicine, but not many people realise what a powerful tool for transformation it is.

Not only has research on the physical health benefits astounded the medical community, but also we are demonstrating the mental/emotional benefits of laughter in both business innovation and teambuilding.

Perhaps even more surprisingly, we are seeing profound healing taking place through laughter.

It seems that laughter releases blocks in the energetic field, freeing us to expand and become more of ourselves.

Laughter can also be used to change our experience of all sorts of very real (and "serious") suffering.

Once a person can laugh at their situation, their experience becomes different. they become different. Of course, helping someone to come to the point where they laugh at their pain requires both skill and sensitivity.

One reason why it can be difficult to believe that laughter is so powerful is that there are common misconceptions about laughter.

A common misconception is that we laugh because we think something's funny.

Research has estimated that only 1 in 5 laughing occasions involves any humour.

Babies laugh, yet don't have to watch comedy first! In fact, toddlers laugh 300-400 times a day, whereas by the time we're adults we've learned to laugh only around 15 times a day.

Some would say we become more discriminating about what we laugh about as we grow up, but maybe we have forgotten how to use a truly natural and very effective healing method.