Sentido da vida de estudantes universitários: mudanças após intervenção com Yoga do Riso

Abstract

The meaning of life changes every moment and is part of the search for every human being. In the experience of university students, the meaning of life is the object of this research. The objective of this study is to understand the changes produced in the meaning of life of university students with the intervention of Laughter Yoga. The philosophical theoretical framework used was Logotherapy/Existential Analysis by Viktor Frankl. This is a health intervention study with a qualitative design, whose instruments were implemented in three moments: 1 - before the intervention (online questionnaire), 2 - the intervention (with 9 Yoga sessions and use of the logo diary) and 3 - after the intervention (remote interviews). The research site was the UFBA Agroecological Fair, located in Praça das Artes, on the Ondina Campus, during the second semester of 2023. The study participants were 16 (sixteen) university students enrolled in the Curricular Activity in the Community called dadosteca, who attended to the following inclusion criteria: be regularly enrolled in the 2023.2 semester, in the aforementioned optional component, offered to undergraduate courses: Interdisciplinary Bachelor's Degree in Health, Nursing, Pharmacy, Physiotherapy, Speech Therapy, Medicine, Nutrition, Psychology and Occupational Therapy. The analysis process was guided by the Triadic- Humanist- Existential- Personalist configuration. The results present the changes that emerged in the perceptions about sensations after the Laughter Yoga sessions and 3 (three) empirical categories and respective subcategories, namely: 1 - the practice of laughter yoga provided changes in the desire for meaning in life, bringing feeling of happiness and happy memories; 2 - the practice of laughter yoga helped university students to change the meaning of their lives; 3 - the practice of laughter yoga provided the exercise of freedom of will. The intervention provided students with insight into issues related to the meaning of life, in line with Viktor Frankl's principles. They began to value the present, seek self-development and find joy in the little things. The changes include a greater awareness of the present moment and an appreciation of the small joys in life, revealing a significant transformation in the desire for meaning in life and the exercise of personal freedom.