The idea may seem a little crazy: what if we treated dry eyes with a therapy based on laughter? This is what British and Chinese researchers tested on 283 people aged 18 to 45, as shown in a study published in The BMJ. As previous studies have highlighted the usefulness of these therapies for depression, stress and chronic pain, they decided to follow this lead for eye problems.
During 5-minute sessions, people suffering from dry eye watched a video and then had to repeat onomatopoeias, such as “hee, hah, cheese, cheek…” 30 times in a row. During this time, they were filmed by a facial recognition application. Opposite, another group received a different treatment: drops based on 0.1% sodium hyaluronic acid. The treatments lasted eight weeks and the patients were examined at weeks 10 and 12 of the experiment.
Laughter hydrates the eye as well as drops
It turned out that the discomfort was relatively the same for both groups, and that The drops would therefore not be much more effective in combating dry eyes. than laughter. And this is explained by the fact that Laughter helps the meibomian glandswhich have the role of spreading a protective oil on the eye, helped them function better. In addition, laughter helps reduce the break-up time of non-invasive tears, whose role is to hydrate the cornea. When they break, dryness sets in. In other words, laughter hydrates the eyes.
They concluded that laughter could be a first-line treatment for dry eyes, as they found it to be as effective as the drops tested in the study!
