Paging Doctor Bozo!
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Send in the clowns – seriously! Hospitals often use them to cheer up kids before scary procedures. Less fear, less pain, faster recovery! But what about sleep?
Hospitalized children often feel anxious… could clowns help these kids SLEEP better? Sounds counterintuitive, right?
Enter Maya Shimshi-Barash and team from the Carmel Medical Center. Hospitalized children there played with a clown before bed. Parents and hospital staff rated their sleep through questionnaires.
Results? Kids with clown visits slept nearly AN HOUR longer and woke up less. Plus, they got twenty-seven more minutes of solid nighttime sleep. The GOLDEN TICKET? They went home ONE DAY EARLIER!
Turns out laughter is the best medicine!
Reference: Shimshi-Barash, M., Orlin, I., Jacob, T., Kushnir, G., Rawashdeh, L., Rothem Nachmias, E., Meiri, N., & Pillar, G. (2024). Medical clowns improve sleep and shorten hospitalization duration in hospitalized children. Scientific reports, 14(1), 2357. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-52943-2