A systematic review of the effect of laughter yoga on physical function and psychosocial outcomes in older adults

Çopur, Ebru Öztürk; Dönmez, Ayşe Arıkan

doi:10.1016/j.ctcp.2020.101252

Cited by 19 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…As data from various studies have accumulated, meta-analysis studies on the effects of yoga practice have been steadily progressing. Various yoga studies focusing on the exercise effect of yoga, pain relief for rheumatoid osteoporosis [ 2 , 3 ], cardiovascular function improvement [ 4 , 5 ], positive effect on cognitive function and mental health [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ], diabetes improvement [ 10 , 11 ], blood pressure lowering [ 12 , 13 ], side effect improvement of breast cancer [ 14 ], and the effect of Thai yoga and laughter yoga on physical fitness [ 15 , 16 ] have been reported.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Yoga Practice on Physical Fitness in the Elderly

Shin

2021

IJERPH

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The purpose of this study was to meta-analyze the effects of yoga intervention on physical fitness in the elderly. The following databases were systematically searched in 25 March 2021: Cochrane, PubMed and Embase. A total of 656 papers was identified through key word combinations, finally, 12 studies were included in the meta-analysis. The main conclusions are as follows. First, yoga practice showed moderately positive effects on muscle strength, balance, mobility, and lower body flexibility, but had no significant effect on cardiorespiratory endurance and upper body flexibility. Second, sub-group analysis showed that subjects in their 60s and 70s and yoga practice for 9–12 weeks had a large positive effect on physical fitness. Yoga is a multimodal activity that improves muscle strength, balance, and flexibility in the elderly, and physical activity policies should continue to promote yoga as an activity that enhances physical and mental wellbeing in this population.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Yoga Practice on Physical Fitness in the Elderly

Shin

2021

IJERPH

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“…The health benefits of self-induced or simulated laughter have also been reported previously [ 47 ] with the most common modality consisting of a combination of yoga breathing techniques with induced laughter exercises, the laughter yoga . We focused this meta-analyses on genuine laughter as (i) the majority of the human humor occurs spontaneously in everyday life [ 13 ], (ii) the combination of laughter with physical activity could impact the interpretation of the cortisol response as physical activity itself can impact the secretion of adrenal hormones [ 22 ], and (iii) previous imaging studies suggest the involvement of different neural pathways in stimulated as compared to spontaneous laughter [ 3 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 55%

Laughter as medicine: A systematic review and meta-analysis of interventional studies evaluating the impact of spontaneous laughter on cortisol levels

Kramer

Leitão

2023

PLoS ONE

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Objectives Laughter as an expression of humor has been recognized as good medicine for centuries. The health benefits of humor-induced well-being remain unclear and thus we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of interventional studies to evaluate the impact of spontaneous laughter on stress response as measured by cortisol levels. Design Systematic review and meta-analysis. Data sources MEDLINE/PubMed, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Scopus, and Clinicaltrials.gov. Eligibility criteria Interventional studies, which could be either randomized placebo-controlled trials (RCTs) or quasi-experimental studies, conducted in adults that compared any spontaneous laughter intervention to a controlled setting and reported changes in cortisol levels were selected. Data extraction and synthesis We examined the impact of laughter on percentage change in cortisol levels by calculating pooled estimates of the absolute differences between arithmetic means before and after interventions as compared to control using random-effects model. Results Eight studies (315 participants; mean age 38.6) met our inclusion criteria; four were RCTs and four were quasi-experiment studies. Five studies evaluated the impact of watching a humor/comedy video, two studies evaluating laughter sessions administered by a trained laughter therapist, and one study evaluating a self-administered laughter program. Pooling these data showed a significant reduction in cortisol levels by 31.9% (95%CI -47.7% to -16.3%) induced by laughter intervention compared to control group with no evidence of publication bias (P = 0.66). Sensitivity analyses demonstrated that even a single laughter session induced a significant reduction of 36.7% in cortisol (95%CI -52.5% to -20.8%). In addition, analyses including the four RCTs reinforced these results by demonstrating a significant reduction in cortisol levels promoted by laughter as compared to the placebo arm [-37.2% (95%CI -56.3% to -18.1%)]. Conclusions Current evidence demonstrates that spontaneous laughter is associated with greater reduction in cortisol levels as compared with usual activities, suggesting laughter as a potential adjunctive medical therapy to improve well-being. Trial registration Registration number: CRD42021267972.

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“…These effect in turn enhances positive mood and sleep, modulates inflammation, and increases pain tolerance. The real or fake laughter is described to exert similar effect in the body [ 47 , 48 ]. The positive effect on health of laughter yoga could also be partly due to effect of other components of laughter yoga such as movements, breathing, social connection, and affirmations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of laughter yoga on health-related quality of life in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy: a randomized clinical trial

Namazinia

Mazlum

Mohajer

et al. 2023

BMC Complement Med Ther

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Background Chemotherapy is associated with a wide range of physical and psychological side effects, so complementary and alternative therapies may be practiced as an independent treatment or combined with the standard ones to improve health-related quality of life of cancer patients. Laughter yoga has predominantly been used as a complementary therapy to enhance health and wellbeing of ordinary people and patients with chronic diseases. However, to date, few studies have evaluated the effects of this modern exercise on cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy in clinical settings, to the best of the authors’ knowledge. the present study aimed to investigate the effects of Laughter Yoga on the health-related quality of life of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Methods This study was a two-group randomized clinical trial on 69 cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy at Reza Radiotherapy and Oncology Center, Iran in 2018. Patients were randomly divided into intervention and control groups. The intervention group received laughter yoga for four sessions at one-week intervals. Each session consists of one part and lasts for 20–30 min. Patients’ health-related quality of life was assessed before and after the laughter yoga sessions using Quality of Life Questionnaire European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC QLQ-C30) version 3.0. SPSS Statistics (v.20 software was used to conduct Chi-square, independent t-test, Mann-Whitney, Wilcoxon and paired t-tests analyses of the data. Results The number of participants in intervention and control groups were 34 and 35, there was no significant difference of demographic and disease related characteristics and pre-intervention HRQOL between two groups. In the intervention group, there is significant difference between pre- and post-intervention scores (Mean ± Standard Deviation) of emotional functioning (12.99 ± 10.49), physical functioning (0.78 ± 6.08), role functioning (3.43 ± 7.97), fatigue (-8.82 ± 22.01), pain (-8.33 ± 11.78), sleep disturbance (-15.68 ± 18.77), and global health and quality of life (6.37 ± 5.04) (p < 0.05). There was no significant change in the control group. Participants reported no adverse events. Conclusions A structured laughter yoga intervention in a hospital setting effectively improved health-related quality of life for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Benefits to many patients could be expected if this would become a part of routine care. Trial Registration This study was registered in the Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials (no. IRCT20180429039463N1) on 21/08/2018.

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A systematic review of the effect of laughter yoga on physical function and psychosocial outcomes in older adults

Cited by 19 publications

References 19 publications

Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Yoga Practice on Physical Fitness in the Elderly

Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Yoga Practice on Physical Fitness in the Elderly

Laughter as medicine: A systematic review and meta-analysis of interventional studies evaluating the impact of spontaneous laughter on cortisol levels

Effects of laughter yoga on health-related quality of life in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy: a randomized clinical trial

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