Reclaiming Wellness with Laughaste

Health care access

Central LA East LA South LA

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

Traditional mental health services often lack cultural relevance and accessibility, leaving individuals without effective tools for healing. This disconnection can suppress joy, numb emotional expression, and hinder resilience. Emerging research highlights that laughter triggers the release of endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin—neurochemicals that alleviate pain, reduce stress, and enhance mood. Laughter stimulates neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections, which is crucial for emotional healing and adaptability. A 2021 study published in Frontiers in Psychology found that group laughter increases vagal tone, heart rate variability, and neural connectivity—key indicators of nervous system regulation. By harnessing these physiological benefits, we aim to provide culturally resonant, joy-centered wellness experiences that reconnect individuals with their inner resilience.

Reclaiming Wellness with Laughaste is a trauma-informed, culturally rooted wellness initiative offering underserved adults access to Laughaste. Laughaste blends laughter yoga, breathwork, somatic movement, and inner child connection to activate the body’s natural healing systems and support nervous system regulation. Laughter releases endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin, which collectively reduce stress, alleviate pain, and promote feelings of connection and well-being. Also, laughter stimulates neuroplasticity, enhancing the brain's capacity to adapt and rewire itself, which is essential for emotional healing and resilience. This grant will support a year of Laughaste activations: monthly workshops, healing pop-ups, and movement-based joy circles in areas with the highest rates of economic hardship and limited wellness access. The program centers BIPOC adults who have been uninsured, underinsured, unhoused, and system-impacted—meeting them with warmth, community, and science-backed methods of healing. Each session incorporates tools to stimulate neuroplasticity—rewiring the brain away from survival-mode patterns toward openness, creativity, and connection. Sessions are intentionally inclusive, non-hierarchical, and often held in unexpected places like community gardens, housing centers, or art spaces. This grant will also fund the creation of a training prototype for future Laughaste facilitators, setting the stage for a scalable model across LA and beyond.

Los Angeles will become a city where healing is accessible, joyful, and culturally resonant. BIPOC adults who once felt anxious, emotionally frozen, or excluded from wellness spaces will have tools to reconnect with their bodies, breath, and laughter. Laughter will be recognized not as a luxury, but as essential public health care. Joy circles will emerge in parks, clinics, and community centers, creating shared rituals of emotional regulation and resilience. Success will mean measurable improvements in mood, stress reduction, and community well-being—and fewer preventable ER visits tied to unmanaged stress and trauma. Over time, Laughaste will train 20+ facilitators to bring this work into shelters, reentry programs, and public institutions. We envision this movement becoming a model for scalable, joy-based preventative care, rooted in cultural fluency and lived experience. This work doesn’t just impact individuals—it ripples through households, neighborhoods, and systems.