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Effects of Tai Chi on Chronic Conditions

12 Benefits of Tai Chi

Health Stories & Medical Research

This is from a tai chi brother's 2008 website and used with his permission. Thank you John.

Medical Science seems to be catching up with Tai Chi. The mammoth pile of scientific paperwork that has already been generated is growing almost daily. It would require days to wade through. Here I’ve included a small sampling of these studies.

Scientists rarely say anything outright. On the other hand, if you do a Google search for scientific research on tai chi you’ll find two things. One is that the studies are usually hard to read because of the scientific language - it helps to read the conclusions - and the other is that scientists are doing studies on many of the same areas and getting almost the same results.

So what does this mean to us? I think it means the Chinese have gotten this one right. Tai Chi works!

Taiji is recognized as an aerobic exercise. The way of breathing learned during taiji practice naturally promotes full use of your lung capacity. Players of all ages who did not breath in this way before taking up taiji, have found they breathe deeper, giving them more energy simply because they take in more oxygen.

As we age, we tend to experience a natural decline in lung capacity. Many experts believe that endurance training can slow this decline. However, most people do not have the time, are not interested in, or are not physically capable of participating in endurance training. Taiji has been shown to be an excellent way to counteract this natural decline in lung capacity without overstressing the body.

In one study done on older adults at Northeastern University in Boston and reported by the Medical Tribune News Service, 1995: Tai Chi was shown to delay the decline of cardio respiratory function by 57% for men and 60%+ for women. Translated that means if you would normally suffer a decline of 20% over your lifetime, you will likely experience only 8-9% through regular taiji practice.

Another study done by the Physical Education Department at Illinois State University and reported by Research Quarterly for Exercise & Sport, Sept. 1989 concluded: Expert taiji practitioners show significantly different ventilatory responses leading to more efficient use of the ventilatory volume. Translated this means that since taiji promotes more efficient use of oxygen you may feel any decline in lung capacity less, or not at all.

The Chinese have claimed for many years that regular Taiji practice boosts the immune system. I’ve noticed this myself and find I’m sick less often. My teacher, and fellow protege, as well as other students also claim to have stronger immune systems.

A WebMD Medical News article by Daniel DeNoon written in September of 2003 titled “Tai Chi Each Day Keeps Shingles Away” stated that taiji practice seems to boost the overall immune system. In arriving at this conclusion the study noted a positive relationship between the risk of contracting shingles and Tai Chi. If you’ve had chickenpox, the virus never really goes away and you are at risk for shingles if your immune system dips. The study noted a 50% increase in associated immune cells, “enough to actually prevent shingles”.

Michael Irwin, MD of UCLA, conducted this study and states “But what we are really testing is the overall immune memory and function. Since those memory cells are critical in a whole host of viral infections, I would expect these findings to generalize to other infections.  Shingles is a debilitating illness. There are no medical treatments to prevent shingles. No medical treatment has yet been shown to boost shingles immunity. This novel behavioral intervention - tai chi - may have those beneficial effects and it looked to us that the people who practice tai chi had improved ability to carry out day-to-day activities.”

As reported by the National Institutes for Health, a similar 2007 study was done by a team also lead by Dr Irwin. Testing done in conjunction with a vaccine for shingles, now available, found that tai chi alone had a similar increase in participants’ immunity to varicella as much as the vaccine typically produces in 30-40 year old adults, combined with the vaccine tai chi produced a significantly higher level of immunity, about 40 percent … over the vaccine alone.

Suffer from tension headaches? Well it appears taiji can help there too. According to an April 2007 Los Angeles UPI release, Tai chi provided significant health benefits for U.S. adults suffering from tension headaches.

In a 15 week study lead by Ryan B. Abbot and Ka-Kit Hui of the Center for East-West Medicine, UCLA Los Angeles, participants were not only helped with headache pain, but also perceived improvement in other areas such as increase energy, emotional well being, social functioning, and improved mental health.

The researches say tai chi’s emphasis on relaxation, breathing, and coordination may address stress, the underlying cause of the pain associated with tension headaches.

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Ever felt stiff and weak? Well you’re not alone and the Mayo Clinic recommends tai chi as an excellent exercise to promote both increased flexibility, and to improve muscle strength and definition, along with a host of other benefits.

According to a Dec. 2005 release by the Mayo Foundation “If you’re trying to improve your health, you may find tai chi helpful as a part of your program. Tai chi is generally safe for people of all ages and levels of fitness.” More benefits from this release can be found in the Lesson 8 Health Note.

Think Americans are alone in needing to learn taiji? Well according to a July 1994 article in Health Promotion and Education Format U.S. Immigrants from Thailand found learning taiji helpful too.

According to the article, researchers investigated the effects of a tai chi chuan fitness program on older adults who emigrated to the United States from refugee camps in Thailand. Participants were divided into two groups: both were given health education, one continued their normal physical activity, and the other took tai chi lessons once a week for 12 weeks and was given exercises to practice for the next meeting.

While there were no significant differences between the groups when the study began, the group practicing tai chi exhibited more exercise behavior, decreased their resting blood pressure, improved their stress management skills, felt more relaxed, and improved their flexibility.

How’s your balance? We’ve all heard the expression ‘use it or loose it’. Balance is no exception and good balance is definitely helpful to younger, active people as well as older adults. While talking to adult students, I’ve found everyone feels they now have an advantage due to their improved level of balance, although few thought they had poor balance before studying taiji.

The elderly are particularly at risk due to poor balance. According to David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D. in his 1997 Congressional appearance regarding the CDC budget, falls are the leading cause of death for adults over 75 and the second leading cause for those over age 65.

According to a study titled Frailty and Injuries: Cooperative Studies or Intervention, compiled by the FICSIS Group and reported in a 1995 issue of JAMA, tai chi was found to reduce the risk of multiple falls by 47.5% in the adults studied (between the ages of 60 and 75). Participants also reported a reduced fear of falling. Even if you have good balance now, tai chi will help you maintain that advantage into old age.

Many people are drawn to aerobic exercise, including taiji, because it can give a feeling of well being during exercise, build muscle tone, help in gaining additional energy, etc. Often however, traditional fitness aerobics are practiced in an anaerobic state that does not truly achieve the intended goals. Tai chi is always done in an aerobic manner.

According to Wikipedia, the free on-line encyclopedia, “Aerobic exercise refers to exercise that is of moderate intensity undertaken for a long duration. Aerobic means “with oxygen”, and refers to the use of oxygen in a muscle’s energy-generating process. Many types of exercise are aerobic, and by definition are performed at moderate levels of intensity for extended periods of time. Anaerobic exercise is typically used by athletes in non-endurance sports to build power and by body builders to build muscle mass. Muscles that are trained under anaerobic conditions develop biologically differently giving them greater performance in short duration-high intensity activities.”

According to a 1984 article in the Canadian Journal of Applied Sports Sciences titled “Cardio Respiratory and Metabolic Responses during Tai Chi Chuan Exercise”, long form tai chi may be classed as moderate exercise. In this analysis eleven healthy males with an average aged of 28.4 years were studied for oxygen cost and related metabolic variables, heart rate and blood pressure during the performance of the Yang Style Tai Chi Long Form. The mean peak heart rate was 134 beats per minute.

In other words tai chi is an excellent, low impact, aerobic exercise. Also as seen in the previous Health Notes, tai chi has a number of side benefits.

Judging from the number of TV commercials for sleep aid medication these days, people everywhere are having a lot of trouble sleeping. Too much stress is considered one of the primary causes of sleep problems.

According to a Dec. 2005 release by the Mayo Foundation mentioned in Lesson 5 “If you’re trying to improve your health, you may find tai chi helpful as a part of your program.” According to www.mayoclinic.com, tai chi hasn’t been studied scientifically until recently. Preliminary research shows that for older adults, in particular, practicing tai chi regularly may (among other things):

• Reduce anxiety and depression
• Improve sleep quality, such as staying asleep longer at night and feeling more alert during the day

   

Taiji helps you feel better overall. According to a study done at La Trobe University in Australia and reported in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research 1989, participants raised their heart rates, increased noradrenaline-excretion in urine, and salivary cortisol concentration. In short they felt better.

This 1989 study of 33 beginners and 33 practitioners reported: “Relative to baseline levels, subjects reported less tension, depression, anger, fatigue, confusion, and state-anxiety. They felt more vigorous, and in-general they had less total mood disturbance.”