Other Benefits of Tai Chi

Tai Chi is best known as a way to achieve relaxation and tranquility; the swimming and weaving motions soothe tired and over-stimulated nerves and relax tense muscles. However, the practical applications of Tai Chi are immense. Some of the better known applications follow.

As a physical health system, Tai Chi will in time revolutionize the concept of body fitness exercise. The generally accepted theory of fitness exercise, especially in the Western world, that we should perform hard and vigorous physical exertion. This often results in painful injuries, permanent damage and uneven body development.

Tai Chi, on the other hand, utilizes the principles of non-exertion and internal energy exercises. It teaches the art of flowing movements and gentle relaxing exercises to gradually develop and strengthen the whole body evenly. This rejuvenates the body, and increases your resistance to disease and illness. It also keeps you physically fit, fluid and sensitive.

As a healing art, Tai Chi is widely used by the Chinese to alleviate or, in some cases, cure insomnia, arthritis, rheumatism, anemia, chronic indigestion, listlessness, mental strain, depression, and nervous breakdown.

On an artistic level, Tai Chi movements can be used to enhance a dancer, actor, or masseur’s flow and movements, whilst musicians use it for creativity and inspiration.

In the area of personal growth and development the benefits of Tai Chi are four fold: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.

Physically, Tai Chi exercises develop your body to its natural potential of health and fitness, coordination in movement, sensitivity and balance. Body control and self-discipline on the physical plane is the first step to growth and development.

Mentally, this ‘moving meditation’ art, through physical control and stability, creates a balanced mind capable of making rational decisions and taking responsibility. The mind is active, free and spontaneous. Tai Chi energy meditations stimulate and sharpen the mental faculties, and the mind-directed exercise increases sensitivity and awareness.

Emotionally, Tai Chi is a stabilizing force because of the good breathing, proper balance and positive mental state it demands and creates. The physical and mental exercise gives proper channeling to your emotional energy. Further, Tai Chi stimulates and releases ‘blocked’ energy and facilitates positive expression. Blocked energy results when muscles are tense and do not allow blood and energy to flow freely through them.

Spiritually, the philosophy of Yin-yang balance which is central to Tai Chi is at the core of all growth and development. The Balance of yin and yang, of positive and negative, calms and stabilizes the mind. This calmness will enable you to examine your life from a more positive and realistic viewpoint, and give you the will and the way to improve things.

Tai Chi & Breathing

When performing Tai Chi, correct breathing is vital to gain maximum benefit from the movements. Your aim is to gain control of your body’s functioning to allow it to receive the physical benefits of the rested state. The physical activity of proper breathing has psychological as well as physiological benefits – it reduces your metabolic rate, thus making you feel more relaxed.
 

Correct breathing is abdominal breathing. To breathe abdominal, you need to use your diaphragm, not just your chest, which allows only shallow breathing. This breathing technique is not complicated to learn as Tai Chi naturally enhances or induces it.

The physical benefits of abdominal breathing are many. By tensing and relaxing your abdominal muscles, the pressure is alternately high and then low. This not only makes the blood within your abdominal cavity flow more smoothly but its rise and fall include the heart, the lungs, the kidneys, the stomach, the small and large intestine, the gall bladder, bladder and so on.

The movement of your limbs and body in Tai Chi enhances the massaging effect abdominal breathing has on these, some of the most important organs for life. Breathing is one of the first things affected by stress. In the ‘fight or flight’ response, your breathing rate speeds up, and the nostrils and air passages in your lungs open wider in order to take in more air as quickly as possible. With sustained stress, your breathing becomes shallow and insufficient oxygen circulates through the body, limiting your energy.

Proper breathing, however, can not only undo many of the stress-related problems you may experience but can also act to reduce the level of mental stress as well. Abdominal breathing during your Tai Chi exercises will help to overcome any stress you may be feeling and thus restore calmness, energy and strength.

Tai Chi & Movements

Once you calm and focus your mind, you can begin to relax. When you control your thoughts as well as your actions, making them one of the same thought or image, you bring your mind and body into balance and harmony. There is no longer any conflict and you can relax.
 

Balance and harmony are reflected in Tai Chi movements. There is the shifting of the body weight from one foot to the other and the series of continuous, light, subtle transitions between forward and backward movements, emptiness and fullness and so on. 

Each limb movement is accompanied by movements of the whole body, and muscles and bones are brought into an orderly action of withdrawals and extensions. The continuous, soft and circular movements of Tai Chi bring about continuity and then calmness and relaxation.

The slowness of Tai Chi teaches balance through muscle control and coordination. It also allows you more time to be aware of each action and, with conscious control of the movement, prevents damage to muscle tissue from sudden exertion.

Visually, Tai Chi resembles an effortless dance, but in reality every movement is performed with a great deal of internal strength and control. Tai Chi movements tone, stretch and exercise every muscle of your body. You will gain physical, mental and spiritual benefits, and an overall feeling of vitality.

Tai Chi & Meditation

Meditation is one of the most ancient and most common of human activities. Just think of times when you feel relaxed; when your mind drifts far away, contemplating pleasant images or thoughts, and when a good feeling rests within you. You could be lying on the grass, looking at the sky, making pictures in the clouds and then watching them drift by. You could be sitting on the beach, watching the movement of ocean and listening to the sound of the waves as they flow in and out. When you feel the sun shining on you, its warmth mirroring the warm, comfortable feeling inside you… All these simple examples reveal the meditative norm.

Experiencing such moments of inner stillness is vital to your mental and therefore your physical well being. In its normal state the mind is a constant source of mental activity, a never ending network of thought associations. Just stop for a moment and try to think of nothing. Impossible, isn’t it?

In the endless sea of thoughts, the mind gets no rest. Even in sleep, unfinished business from the day is played out in dream fantasies. In stressful situations, such as the break-up of relationships or financial difficulties, the turmoil is increased. We have natural safety valves such as sleep, leisure, sports, hobbies and to ascertain extent, daily chores, but these are not enough, so residual pressure continues to build up inside. 

Meditation has proved to be one of the most effective ways of relieving this pressure.

In essence, meditation consists of concentration and relaxation: your mind focuses on an object while your body relaxes in comfortable position. This is made easiest by having a passive attitude and a quiet environment. The basic aim is to silence the thinking mind (the inner chatter) and shift the awareness from rational to the intuitive mode of consciousness.

In many forms of meditation, this silencing of the rational mind is achieved by concentrating one’s attention on a single item, like one’s breathing, the sound of a mantra (a repeated word of phrase), or the visual image of a mandala (a circle which is a symbolic depiction of the psyche or self). Yet these can be difficult techniques to learn.

Tai Chi, however, is one of the most pleasurable forms of meditation. Its flowing movements and mental visualizations of each exercise give it an extra dimension which is not present in static forms of meditation.

Tai Chi & Stress Management

As we have seen, there are many ways to become stressed, but when most of us talk about stress today, we usually talk about being mentally stressed, and these mental worries, fears and frustrations of each day spilling over into our physical system. While non-mental forms of stress can be simply attended to by removing the stressor, such as the heat or cold or noise, mental stress is another matter. Yet just as in a condition of excess heat we create behaviors and systems that can reduce the heat we create behaviors and systems that can reduce the mental stress that is affecting us.

Tai Chi enables you to do just this. The technique it uses to dissipate mental stress consists of two processes: first it relaxes the mind and allows the flowing movements to reduce the stress put into the physical system and removes the physical effects of the stress itself.

Tai Chi’s flowing movements and energy meditations have the therapeutic effect of slowing down the pace and refreshing the body with peaceful relaxation and renewed energy. Tai Chi relaxes the mind and body circulation, cures indigestion, loosens stiff joints, tones up muscles and refreshes the skin. It re-establishes balance, both physically and mentally, encouraging your body and mind to return to their rested states.

The Three main aspect of Tai Chi are – Meditation, Movement & Breathing.

Warning Signs of Stress

Each person tends to have his or her own pattern of stress response, so that warning signs of stress vary from person to person. There are many signs that a person is under stress. One of the most obvious and early signs of stress to look out for is intensifying of personality traits. The suspicious person becomes defensive; the careful becomes over-meticulous; the pessimistic, lugubrious; the anxious, panic -stricken; the inadequate falls to pieces together. The irritable person becomes explosive; the extrovert becomes slapdash; and the introspective loses contact with everyday reality.

However, perhaps the earliest and most apparent warning sign is exaggeration of eating habits. Some people lose their appetite when they become stressed, anxious or depressed; others eat more or over-eat, perhaps to comfort themselves.

To know the pattern of your own stress response is a step forward, for you can then gauge the depth of problems by the nature and severity of your own symptoms or changes in behaviour. Stress warning signals include -

• Feeling unable to slow down or relax
• Explosive anger in response to minor irritation
• Anxiety or tension lasting more than a few days
• Inability to focus your attention
• Fatigue
• Sleep Disturbances
• Tension Headaches
• Cold Hand or feet
• Aching neck and shoulder muscles
• Indigestion
• Loss or increase of appetite
• Diarrhea or constipation
• Ulcers
• Heart palpitations
• Allergy or asthma attacks

Although we all experience some of these symptoms at various times for various Reasons other than stress, be alert if the symptoms occur frequently. There is no need to panic as this in itself will cause stress.

Life's Stressful Events and Stress Response

Life’s Stressful Events

Various events in everyone’s lives commonly cause stress. The following list includes some of the most stressful events.

Death of a spouse or partner, Divorce, Separation from spouse or partner, Death of close family member, friend or relative, Personal injury or illness, Marriage, Fired from employment, Marital reconciliation, Retirement.

The Stress Response

From our primitive ancestors we have inherited a remarkable capacity to arouse and energize the brain and the body in the service of superb performance. We can focus our physical and mental resources to respond quickly to a challenge or threat.

The ‘fight or flight’ response produces a chemical compound to activate your system when you are under stress. The adrenal glands produce the hormone adrenalin to stimulate your system, and the pituitary, thyroid and pancreas glands also secrete their own hormones. These chemical reactions can be a source of great strength given the right situation – that is short term defense – encouraging athletes to excel and ordinary people to perform amazing feats. Yet if the stress is long term, the body does not get a chance to detoxify from these chemicals. At the end of stressful situation your body, because of rejuvenating nature, should return to its normal, relaxed or healing state.

The physical characteristics of the ‘fight or flight’ response may not be appropriate in many modern-day situations, for example, in an argument with the boss or in middle of a traffic jam. The increase in adrenalin level, heart rate or blood pressure, have nowhere to go, and we are left flaming. Over time, these reactions build up, and one day there may come the straw that breaks the camel’s back. With frequent excitation and thwarting of natural instinct, blood pressure and heart rate do not return to normal and one is left with hypertension or high blood pressure or some other disease.

Also, the production of cortisone hormone becomes a threat. Cortisone lessens the immune system’s response so that the body can receive more energy. Medical experts estimate that 50-70 percent of all diseases are at least partially caused by stress. It would therefore seem a matter of survival that you learn how to control and manage your stress.

The Stress of Life - contd...

During your life time you will face a range of totally different problems, but medical research has shown that in many respects the body responds in the stereotyped manner outlined above, undergoing identical biochemical changes which are essentially designed to cope with any type of increased demand upon the human machinery. In other words, although stress-producing factors (technically called stressors) are different, they all elicit essentially the same biological stress response.

Short term arousal due to stress can be life saving, but long term arousal can be damaging to health as the body’s strength is continually drained at a higher rate than normal and no time to recoup energy is given. Long term depression and feelings of being unable to cope, which may result from prolonged stress, produce slightly different changes and it is thought that they may have even greater potential to be damaging.

The distinction between stressor and stress was perhaps the first important step in the scientific analysis of this most common biological phenomenon that we all know only too well from personal experience. Dr.Hans Selye, an internationally acknowledged authority on understanding stress, defines stress as a ‘non-specific response of the body to any demand made on it.

In his book, 'Stress without Distress' he explains that each demand made upon your body is, in a sense, unique – that is, specific. When cold, you shiver to produce more heat and when you sweat because the evaporation of perspiration has a cooling effect. When you eat too much sugar and your blood sugar level rises above normal, you excrete some of it and burn up the rest so that the blood sugar returns to normal. Similarly, any drugs or hormones you take have their own specific effects and side effects on your system.

No matter what kind of derangement is produced, all these stress all these stressors have one thing in common they increase the demand for readjustment. Therefore, although the cause and consequent reaction may be specific, the demand itself is a non-specific, requiring adaption to a problem, irrespective of what that problem may be. The non-specific demand for activity is the essence of stress.

Studies show that many maladies have no specific single cause but are the result of constellation of factors, such as inherited or environmental factors, among which non-specific stress often plays a decisive role. We have to consider that such ailments as peptic ulcers, high blood pressure, nervous breakdown, and so on, may not be primarily due to such causes as diet, genetics, occupational hazards. They may simply be the products of ongoing non-specific stress that results from attempting to endure more than we can.

It now seems that ‘working hard’ or ‘getting the job done’ are not the prime cause of heart attacks. The culprit is, in fact the negative thoughts we carry: anger, frustration, tiredness, depression and so on.

Thus, instead of undergoing complicated drug therapies or surgical operations, we can often help ourselves better by establishing whether or not the decisive cause of our illness is stress, which may stem from our relationship with a member of our family or non-employer, or it may merely be due to our own over-emphasis on being right every time.

Anything which upsets the balance of mind or body can cause stress. For the purpose of definition, let us say that ‘stress’ is ‘imbalance’ as the stress response forces the body’s functioning into an excited, imbalanced state.

The Stress of Life - contd...

We hardly take any time to find out what stress really is, in spite we feel it and talk about it day in and day out.

We imagine that the human race had no stress. But in fact human beings have always been experiencing stress of one kind or other with ongoing addition from generation to generation due complexity of life. The technological advances of last 100+ years, particularly last 50 are supposed to have made life easier, but ironically they have intensified the stress in our daily existence, mainly by increasing expectations and standards of performance.

No longer is it enough for example to keep the house clean, the clothes washed and food on the table. We feel compelled to keep the house looking like a magazine advertisement, the clothes whiter than white and completely wrinkle free and to cook food of gourmet standard.

Washing machines, microwave ovens, computers, may have taken the drudgery out of work but they have also moved expectations and goals even further out of reach.

Stress is a part of our lives, which though can be overcome, can’t be avoided. Indeed it is very often a topic of conversation such as: the stress of living in a recession, executive life, unemployment, retirement, inflation, unstable government, lack of exercise, family problems, pollution, the death of relative or friend yield stress. Even school children are placed under enormous stress, caused by host of factors such as parental expectations, fear of unemployment in the future and peer pressure, to name but a few.

It is hard to define exactly what stress is as the word ‘stress’ like ‘success’, ‘failure’ or ‘happiness’, means different things to different people. Is ‘stress’ really a synonym for ‘distress’? , is it effort, fatigue, pain, fear, the need for concentration, the humiliation of censure or even an unexpected great success which requires complete reformulation of one’s entire life? The answer to all the questions is yes & no. That is what makes the definition so difficult. Every one of those conditions produces stress, but none can be singled out as being it, since the world applies equally to all the others.

The word itself comes from Latin ‘strictus’ meaning to draw tight. The word ‘stress’ then became absorbed into the old French word ‘estrecier’, meaning to straighten or narrow. These meaning accurately describe what actually happens to our body when we experience excess stress. Our muscles and connective tissues tighten, we tend to hold our limbs and torso straighter and our blood vessels narrow. These are all the characteristics of our natural ‘Fight or Flight’ response, the condition that enabled primitive humans either to stand and confront danger or to flee it.