Laughing yoga better than relaxation breathing for stress reduction: Study

Germany: Laughter yoga (LY) can attenuate cortisol stress response compared to relaxation breathing, finds a recent study in the International Journal on the Biology of Stress.

The findings indicate that LY can be used as an easy to implement and cheap add-on to more traditional stress interventions. 

Stress can lead to the development of a number of psychiatric diseases. There is a need for affordable and effective treatment alternatives in lieu of increasing stress-related complaints. Laughter yoga is a popular method that encourages participants to stimulate laughter and participate in yogic breathing exercise and is hypothesized to reduce the negative effects of stress. LY, although practiced widely, the evidence for its beneficial effects are scarce. 

Against the above background, Maria Meiera, Department of Psychology, University of Constance, Constance, Germany, and colleagues aimed to investigate the acute effects of a single 30-min LY session on the autonomic, endocrine and psychological response to a standardized psychosocial stressor.

The study included 35 healthy (51% females). They were randomly assigned to receive either a relaxation breathing (n = 12) or a (non-intervention) control (n = 12) session. They were then exposed to the Trier Social Stress Test for Groups (TSST-G).