Just by making this expression... dry eye syndrome alleviates

A study has shown that laughter therapy is as effective as eye drops in alleviating symptoms of dry eye syndrome.

The research team at Sun Yat-sen University Zhongshan Ophthalmology Center in China conducted a study to investigate the effects of laughter therapy on dry eye syndrome. Laughter therapy is a treatment method that reduces physical and mental suffering through laughter. It has long been used as an alternative therapy to alleviate pain, and it has been scientifically proven that it can influence the secretion of various hormones, thereby alleviating pain.

The research team first recruited 283 patients with dry eye syndrome (average age 29 years, 74% female) and evaluated their dry eye condition using the Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI). Then, 137 participants were assigned to the laughter therapy group, and 146 to the eye drop group (0.1% sodium hyaluronate eye drops), and a clinical trial was conducted over 8 weeks.

Laughter therapy involved watching an educational video followed by using a facial recognition mobile app to laugh out loud 30 times over a period of 5 minutes. The eye drop group applied eye drops to both eyes four times a day.

After 8 weeks, the results of the ocular surface disease index tests for all participants in the research team showed that the laughter therapy group had an average score reduction of 10.5 points. In contrast, the eye drop group showed a decrease of 8.3 points. The ocular surface disease index indicates that higher scores correspond to more severe symptoms.

Laughter therapy also showed effectiveness in improving the time it takes for the cornea to dry after blinking, the function of the meibomian glands that help keep the eyes moist, and mental health indices. No side effects were observed in either group.

Professor Liang Ling, the author of the study, said, "The results of this study show that laughter is not inferior to 0.1% sodium hyaluronate in improving dry eye syndrome," and "Laughter therapy, which is safe, environmentally friendly, and inexpensive, can be used as a primary treatment for dry eye syndrome at home."

This research result was recently published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

Reporter Osang Hoon