Tai Chi Journal

What Is Tai Chi? (Part 2)

In "What Is Tai Chi? (Part 1)," I indicated that Tai Chi is, as an "internal" martial art, a way of exercising to stay fit and healthy and a spiritual discipline that can bring your life into harmony.

In between the body and the spirit is the mind. Tai Chi is a martial art that turns itself into a mindful meditation.

Tai Chi encourages "moving with intent." Intent is "a mind thing," a matter of prior visualization. You cannot do Tai Chi with the body alone. You must engage your mind to do the visualizing.

Let's talk about the physical benefits of Tai Chi, but in so doing, let's keep in mind that some of the physical benefits may really come from the mind.

For example, here is a list of some of the physical benefits that, studies say, Tai Chi may offer. The list comes from T'ai Chi for Dummies:

• Better cholesterol levels
• Decreased depression
• Decreased risk of cardiovascular disease
• Increased immunity (less sickness)
• Increased muscle strength and flexibility
• Less lower back pain
• Less asthma

The problem with medical claims like these it that it's hard to test them scientifically. Why? Because of the placebo effect.

A placebo is a fake pill, or a fake treatment, that is given to test subjects when they think they're getting the real pill or treatment. Their health is apt to improve anyway. That's because their mind, convinced that the treatment is for real and that it really, really works, in some way heals the body all by itself.

The way around the placebo effect is to tell the subject that he or she may be getting a fake treatment, and that who actually gets the real treatment and who the fake is being determined at random. Not only do the subjects not know which treatments are for real, neither do the experimenters, until after the experiment has been performed.

When the "treatment" is Tai Chi, though, there's no way to administer, at random, a "fake" treatment whose distinct possibility of being fake will neutralize any preconceptions of the subject concerning the treatment. The subject knows that he or she is doing a celebrated physical exercise regimen called Tai Chi, and that it supposedly does wonders. So their presuppostions are triggered, and the placebo effect can never be ruled out.

And, accordingly, science cannot be sure whether (say) those improved cholesterol levels came from the Tai Chi itself or from the mental biases of the subject.

This is of more than academic interest. To see why, suppose there is an element of the placebo effect in Tai Chi's health benefits. Does that fact in any way devalue Tai Chi as a source of those benefits?

Not really! Tai Chi is advertised as a mind/body booster. It works on the body through the mind, and on the mind through the body. If some of its bodily benefits weren't mind-induced, that would indeed be odd!

So Tai Chi is a mind/body booster whose "mind effects" cannot be decoupled from its bodily effects for the convenience of scientists who want to study the latter alone.

Not only that, but Tai Chi, acting through the mind/body, is an elixir for the spirit. More on that in the next "What Is Tai Chi?" installment. Meanwhile, here's more on why Tai Chi is good for us physically.

T'ai Chi for Dummies says Tai Chi can have moderate benefits as a form of aerobic exercise — particularly when done vigorously. Even when done at the usual, more moderate pace, Tai Chi can lower the resting heart rate (or pulse rate) and thereby strengthen the heart, bringing down the risk of heart problems.

It also strengthens all the major muscle groups — maybe not as much as weight training, admittedly, but quite a lot nonetheless.

Further, Tai Chi beyond any doubt improves your balance, and that prevents injuries particularly in senior citizens at risk of breaking a hip in a fall. Why? It sharpens your proprioception: the "body awarness" of your muscles and their nerve endings (see the earlier post, "It's Not Just Me: Proprioception and Tai Chi").

That improves balance, and so does the strengthening of the abdominal and leg muscles so crucial to being able to balance on one leg.

Tai Chi not only helps avoid injuries from just living life or from other forms of physical activity, it also helps rehabilitate injuries you do sustain.

On top of all the above, Tai Chi measurably reduces stress and anxiety, lowers depression, confusion, and tension. It improves mood, and it gives us a sense of well-being.

Tai Chi can help control high cholesterol and high blood pressure, combat asthma and breathing woes, and relieve arthritis and other chronic pain.

Finally, not only does Tai Chi improve muscle strength, it also increases both muscles' endurance and their flexibility.

Not bad at all for a "medicine" that's basically free and is fun to "take"!

posted by eric @ 1:55 PM