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| Researcher Catherine Kerr practices outside to “feel the sensations of the sun and wind and the ground beneath my feet.” (Photograph by Jim Harrison) |
Here are just a few highlights from a 2010
article in the Harvard Magazine:
For
anyone who practices tai chi regularly, “brain plasticity arising from
repeated training may be relevant, since we know that brain connections
are ‘sculpted’ by daily experience and practice,” explains Kerr, who is
investigating brain dynamics related to tai chi and mindfulness
meditation at HMS. “Tai chi is a very interesting form of training
because it combines a low-intensity aerobic exercise with a complex,
learned, motor sequence. Meditation, motor learning, and attentional
focus have all been shown in numerous studies to be associated with
training-related changes—including, in some cases, changes in actual
brain structure—in specific cortical regions.”
Scholars say tai chi grew out of
Chinese martial arts, although its exact history is not fully
understood, according to one of Kerr’s colleagues, assistant professor
of medicine Peter M. Wayne, who directs the tai chi and mind-body
research program at the Osher Center. “Tai chi’s roots are also
intertwined with traditional Chinese medicine and philosophy, especially
Taoism, and with another healing mind-body exercise called
qigong,” he explains. “Though these roots are thousands of years old, the formal name
tai chi chuan
was coined as recently as the seventeenth century as a new form of kung
fu, which integrates mind-body principles into a martial art and
exercise for health.”
Tai chi chuan is often translated as “supreme (grand)
ultimate fist”: the first part (“tai chi”) refers to the ubiquitous
dialectical interaction of complementary, creative forces in the
universe (yin and yang); the second, the fist, is what Wayne describes
as the “manifestation or integration of these philosophical concepts
into the body.”
...
Tai chi, considered a soft or internal form of martial art, has
multiple long and short forms associated with the most popular styles
taught: Wu, Yang, and Chen (named for their originators). Plenty of
people practice the faster, more combative forms that appear to resemble
kung fu, but the slower, meditative movements are what many in the
United States—where the practice has gained ground during the last 25
years—commonly think of as tai chi.
...
Surveys, including one by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (
http://nccam.nih.gov/health/taichi),
have shown that between 2.3 million and 3 million people use tai chi in
the United States, where a fledgling body of scientific research now
exists: the center has supported studies on the effect of tai chi on
cardiovascular disease, fall prevention, bone health, osteoporosis,
osteoarthritis of the knee, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic heart failure,
cancer survivors, depression in older people, and symptoms of
fibromyalgia. One study on the immune response to varicella-zoster virus
(which causes shingles) suggested in 2007 that tai chi may enhance the
immune system and improve overall well-being in older adults. However,
“in general, studies of tai chi have been small, or they have had design
limitations that may limit their conclusions,” notes the center’s
website. “The cumulative evidence suggests that additional research is
warranted and needed before tai chi can be widely recommended as an
effective therapy.”
Most recently, Wayne and his fellow researchers have focused on
balance issues and on cardiovascular and bone health—areas where tai
chi’s benefits have begun to be evaluated most rigorously. “We’ve
conducted systematic reviews of the literature, and in older people
there is sound evidence that suggests tai chi can improve balance and
reduce risks for falls, which have significant consequences on public
health, particularly given our aging population,” he reports.
Wayne points to a study by Fuzhong Li at the Oregon Research
Institute (which carries out assessments of tai chi’s impact on health
conditions, including a current project with Parkinson’s patients): it
looked at 256 elderly people, from 70 to 92 years old, and compared how
they benefited from tai chi and seated exercise, respectively. “They
reported greater than a 40 percent reduction in the number of falls in
the group that received tai chi,” Wayne reports. “This is a very
significant finding. Older people with thinning bones are at very high
risk for fractures; a fall related to hip fracture, for example, is
associated with a 20 percent increase in mortality within one year and
very high medical costs.”
...
Yet from a Western scientific standpoint, it’s difficult to pinpoint
why and how tai chi affects us. In typical drug trials, a well-defined
chemical compound targets physiological systems, and outcomes can be
measured against placebo controls. But tai chi is a multicomponent
intervention, Wayne notes, with many active ingredients—movement,
breathing, attention, visualization, and rich psychosocial interactions
with teachers and other students. All of these can affect many
physiological systems simultaneously. Moreover, many of the older study
subjects also have complex chronic conditions, so identifying a logical
control is challenging: it’s just not possible to have a placebo in a
tai chi study. “For these reasons,” he says, “we need to be creative in
designing tai chi trials, and cautious in interpreting the results.”
Read the entire article here:
http://harvardmagazine.com/2010/01/researchers-study-tai-chi-benefits
