Laughter yoga, acupressure, mindfulness program help relieve menopause symptoms

Postmenopausal women may benefit from laughter yoga, acupressure, and a mindfulness-based stress reduction program, all of which have been shown to alleviated menopause symptoms and improve quality of life in a study.

A total of 146 postmenopausal women were randomly assigned to undergo one of the following interventions for menopause symptoms: acupressure (n=41), laughter yoga (n=31), mindfulness-based stress reduction (n=37), or control (n=37).

Acupressure was administered twice a week, for a total of 16 sessions. Meanwhile, laughter yoga and mindfulness-based stress reduction were conducted once a week, for a total of eight sessions each.

Researchers collected data using a participant information form, the Menopause Rating Scale (MRS), and the Menopause-Specific Quality of Life Scale (MENQOL). Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, paired-samples t-test, χ2 test, analysis of variance test, and intention-to-treat analysis. The multiple imputation method was applied to deal with missing data.

At the end of the intervention, the MRS total score significantly decreased in all three intervention groups relative to the control group (p<0.05). Specifically, total MRS scores decreased by 3.16 points in the laughter yoga group, by 5.46 points in the acupressure group, and by 4.65 points in the mindfulness-based stress reduction group.

The mean scores for all subscales of the MENQOL were also reduced in both the laughter yoga and acupressure groups vs the control group (p<0.05). In the mindfulness-based stress reduction group, only the mean score for the psychosocial domain subdimension of the MENQOL decreased significantly (p<0.05).