Many of us have heard the phrase “laughter is the best medicine.” Some psychologists and doctors take this idea very seriously and have begun to study whether laughter can help improve our health. Over the past few decades, a treatment called laughter therapy, or laughter yoga, has been developed and studied. Sure enough, laughter therapy has been found to reduce people’s levels of anxiety and stress in several small studies (1). In an era where many people have become more anxious and stressed, laughter therapy could be a powerful tool to improve mental health. The researchers in today’s study (2) looked to test laughter therapy on nursing students – students who above all were finishing up their senior year in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study had two main goals, the first was to test whether laughter therapy would work to lower anxiety and stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The researchers figured nursing students would be a good target because nursing students experienced many difficulties during the pandemic. For example, clinical training was disrupted and students could not connect with friends. The second goal was to test whether laughter therapy would work in an online format through Zoom. Laughter therapy is usually done in person in small groups of people. Because the pandemic made in person meetings difficult, a remote version of the therapy could be crucial for its delivery.

The researchers recruited 79 senior-year nursing students who completed the study. Half of the students were assigned to receive the laughter therapy while the other half were in the control group that did not receive the therapy. The laughter therapy treatment was given through zoom twice a week for five weeks. In each laughter therapy session participants did a mix of deep breathing exercises and games designed to make you laugh. Not only do these exercises give participants a fun experience, but they are also designed to soothe the brain and nervous system (3). After the students completed five weeks of laughter therapy, the researchers compared their levels of anxiety to those of the students who did not receive laughter therapy.

The researchers found that the students who received laughter therapy saw a significant reduction in anxiety. After the 5-week period, the students who received laughter therapy were less anxious than the students who did not receive laughter therapy. This suggests that online laughter therapy can work to reduce anxiety and stress. The fact that the therapy was still effective when done through Zoom is good news for people who are unable to meet up in person due to COVID-19. In the big picture, while laughter therapy is still somewhat new, this study provides more evidence that it can help those who are struggling with anxiety or stress.

Control group – a control group is a group of people in a study that do not receive a treatment. A control group allows researchers to compare people who got the treatment to people who did not get the treatment. This allows the researchers to see how effective a treatment is.

1. Dogan, M. D. (2020). The effect of laughter therapy on anxiety: a meta-analysis. Holistic nursing practice, 34(1), 35-39.
2. Eraydin, C., & Alpar, S. E. (2022). The effect of laughter therapy on nursing students' anxiety, satisfaction with life, and psychological well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic: Randomized controlled study. Advances in Integrative Medicine, 9(3), 173-179.
3. Kin Ö.K., Yildirim Y. (2017). Laughter therapy and examples of use in health. J. Anatolia Nursing Health Science, 20(1), 63–66.