Laughter Yoga as a Social Work Intervention

ABSTRACT

Using simulated laughter, clients follow laughing patterns without using memory recalls or associating with any thinking or feeling. This practice update describes laughter yoga as a social work intervention. It demonstrates the functions, principles, and procedures of laughter yoga to help clients alleviate stress and at the same time enable social workers to practice with the clients as a self-care exercise during an emotionally intensive session. A composite case is used to demonstrate how the social worker used laughter yoga as an exercise with Mrs. X, a patient with cancer. The outcomes, in this case, are used to show the method and its procedures rather than evaluating efficacy. It suggests that social workers may benefit from utilizing laughter yoga as an intervention. Future research should address its effectiveness by measuring beta-endorphin increases for relaxation and improvement in social bonding.

KEYWORDS:

• Simulated laughter
• health benefits
• laughter
• mental health treatment
• beta-endorphin
• positive social work intervention

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Monit Cheung

Monit Cheung, PhD, LCSW, is Mary R. Lewis Endowed Professor in Children and Youth at the Graduate College of Social Work, University of Houston, Houston, Texas. She is Director of the Child & Family Center for Innovative Research and Principal Investigator of the Child Welfare Education Project. She has been a social worker for 44 years specializing in play and creative therapy, family counseling, geriatric counseling, child/adolescent counseling, child protection, sexual and domestic violence, and incest survivor treatment.

Carol A. Leung

Carol A. Leung, PhD, LCSW, is Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Work, Azusa Pacific University, Azusa, California. She received her PhD in Social Work at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research area includes gun violence and suicide prevention. Prior to UCLA, she worked as a bilingual psychotherapist at Flushing Hospital Outpatient Mental Health Clinic in New York City serving immigrant and refugee populations in the substance abuse treatment unit.