At many of the Laughter Yoga sessions I deliver, I ask participants to complete a before and after questionnaire about how they feel using scores between 1 to 10 (1 being worst and 10 being best) to describe the level that they feel. The results invariably move towards the higher numbers for the ‘after’ questionnaire.

The topics covered are as follows:

Enthusiasm
Energy level
Mood
Optimism
Stress level (how ‘stress free’ do you feel)
Level of friendship with group members
Level of awareness about your breathing
Level of muscle relaxation
Level of mental relaxation
Ability to laugh without a reason

Over the past 4 years I have collected quite a lot of data that is demonstrating the positive effects of Laughter Yoga.  I changed the wording of the ‘stress’ question in 2016 as I felt the wording was giving opposite ratings to what was evident through the other questions. Here in the UK, if we put a high number against the stress questions, people associate it as a high level of stress, i.e. feeling at their worst.  Hence my change in the wording.

Below are the annual charts over a period of 3 years, showing very similar trends for ‘Before’ and ‘After’ the sessions:

2019

These graphs clearly show that in most cases there is a significant ‘push’ towards the higher number scores ‘after’ the Laughter Yoga session.  There are always a few anomalies but then everybody is different and Laughter Yoga doesn’t suit everybody.

Here are the graphs for are graphs of the ‘before’ and ‘after’ breakdown for 2019 – from January to December, evidence has been taken from 6 sessions with a total of 49 participants:

Before:

After

These two graphs for 2019 can be seen in more details here

To see the breakdown for each of the 10 data areas, please click here

2018

Here are graphs of the graphs of the ‘before’ and ‘after’ breakdown for 2018 – from January to December, evidence has been taken from 6 evaluation sessions with a total of 66 participants.

Before:

After:

(These two graphs for 2018 can be seen in more detail here)

To see the breakdown for each of the 10 data areas, please click here

2017

Here are graphs of the ‘before’ and ‘after’ evaluations from January to December 2017 from a total of 152 participants:

Before:

After:

(These two graphs for 2017 can be seen in more detail here)

To see the breakdown for each of the overall data areas, please click here