Can 6-Week Practice of Hasya Yoga Reduce the Cardiovascular Hyper- Reactivity and other Cardiac Parameters?

Laughter has been used as a therapeutic tool for many years because it is a natural form 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.