The Effect of Laughter Yoga Practice in Hypertension Patients

Hypertension (HT), which is defined as an arterial blood pressure higher than 140/90 mmHg, is an important health problem because it causes serious complications and is commonly seen in the community.

Laughter as an expression of humour has been accepted as a good medicine for centuries. It is also one of the practices used in nursing care according to the Nursing Interventions Classification (NIC). Laughter yoga developed by Dr. Madan Kataria, an Indian medical doctor, in 1995 includes deep breathing exercises, meditation, childish games and laughter without humour. In practice, individual sessions as well as group sessions can be held. It is important to form groups of at least 5 people in terms of the dynamics of the group. The first stage in laughter yoga is warm-up exercises. Hands are clapped parallel to each other, acupuncture points are stimulated by stimulating the fingertips and palms as clapping is performed, and a vocal rhythm in the form of ho, ho, ha-ha-ha is added to the last clapping movement. In the second stage, breathing exercises, the participants raise their arms to the sky as if praying, inhale and hold their breath for 4-5 seconds after deep inspiration and exhale rhythmically and slowly. The third stage includes childish games. The last stage is the stage of laughter exercises in which unreasonable laughter is thrown by imagining situations as if they did not exist. These exercises include milkshake laughter exercises, lion laughter, hot soup laughter, hugging laughter, bird laughter, etc. It is recommended that each session should be at least 20 minutes and should be applied for at least 8 weeks. At the end of the session, individuals are provided to relax by meditation.

The aim of this thesis study;

* Developing the Laughter Yoga Satisfaction Scale and * To investigate the effect of laughter yoga practice on anxiety, sleep quality, treatment compliance and satisfaction in hypertension patients.

Hypotheses of the study H1-1: Laughter Yoga Satisfaction Scale is a valid scale. H2-1: Laughter Yoga Satisfaction Scale is a reliable scale. H3-1: Laughter yoga reduces the anxiety level of hypertension patients. H4-1: Laughter yoga improves the sleep quality of hypertension patients. H5-1: Laughter yoga increases the level of compliance with treatment in hypertension patients.

H6-1: Hypertension patients have a high level of satisfaction with laughter yoga.

H7-1: Laughter yoga has positive effects on vital signs of hypertension patients.