Abstract
of medicine. Decades of scientific research had already proven that laughter has a documented
positive impact as a form of complementary preventive and therapeutic medicine.
The basic concept with Laughter Yoga is that our body cannot differentiate between real
or artificial laughter, hence accords all the benefits of real laughter. The aim of the present
study was to investigate whether regular practice of Hasya Yoga for 6 weeks can reduce
the cardiovascular hyper-reactivity and other cardiac parameters in healthy young medical
students. The study group comprises 40 healthy young medical students of 18–23 years
age group. At the start of the study, there were 18 hyper-reactors to cold pressor test. The
hyper-reactivity of 13 volunteer (72.22%) converted to hypo reactivity after the Hasya Yoga
therapy (combination of laughter and Bhastrika Pranayam) of 6 weeks. Other parameters
like basal blood pressure, a rise in blood pressure after cold pressor test, pulse rate, Rate
Pressure Product (RPP) and Mean Arterial Pressure (MAP) were also statistically significantly
reduced. Regular practice of Hasya Yoga significantly reduces the values of basal blood
pressure, cardiovascular hyper-reactivity to blood pressure after one minute of cold stress,
heart rate, rate pressure product & MAP after 6 weeks of yoga practice. Laughter is one of
our best defenses against stress, and it is important that we find ways to laugh more to cope
with stress and remain healthy in the modern world. Laughter Yoga is a perfect way to laugh
and get exercise at the same time. Other non-pharmacological methods like meditation,
diet, weight reduction and life style modification should also be encouraged to control the
modifiable risk factors.
Keywords
References
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