Category: Health

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative disease that affects the joints, resulting in swelling, pain, and stiffness in the knees, hips, hands, and spine. It is the most common type of arthritis affecting 16%-33% of older adults.

Since OA is a progressive disease with no known cure, treatments only aim to relieve the symptoms and improve the mobility and quality of life of patients. Aside from taking pain relief and anti-inflammatory medications, it has been shown that doing Tai Chi can significantly improve the condition of patients with OA.

Tai Chi is a form of Chinese martial art which, aside from providing self-defense training, is also known for its numerous health benefits including busting stress, improving balance, strength, and endurance, and also preventing fall-related injuries.

It combines deep diaphragmatic breathing with a series of slow, flowing, rhythmic, and graceful movements for the purpose of finding that inner peace.

A Brief Background on Osteoarthritis

Because of injury, old age or obesity, your cartilage (a slippery tissue which cushions and covers the ends of bones in your joint) wears down over time. It functions as a shock absorber and ensures frictionless motion in the joints.

The deterioration of joint cartilage makes your bones rub together. This will result in various signs and symptoms that only worsen over time. Pain, tenderness, stiffness, limited range of motion, bone spurs, and a grating sensation are just some of the most common manifestations of OA.

How Tai Chi Can Help With Osteoarthritis

Tai Chi is often recommended as part of a treatment program and this is mostly used during the early stages of osteoarthritis. Researchers have also found out that this method can provide more symptomatic relief and improvement as compared to physical therapy.

If you’re suffering from knee OA and you practice Tai Chi for one hour at least twice a week, you may experience pain relief that allows you to function better and attend to your daily activities with less discomfort.

Aside from these physical benefits, Tai Chi can also boost your self-esteem, improve your mood, and reduce the risk of suffering from depression. Attending 12 weeks of Tai Chi classes can have lasting benefits for up to a year.

One of the main purposes of Tai Chi is to build enough strength in certain muscle groups for patients with knee OA. This is necessary in order to have adequate knee support, leading to lesser knee stress. This can be accomplished by doing low-impact and focused movements.

What Else Can Tai Chi Do?

There are several aspects incorporated into every Tai Chi movement including strength training, meditation, support, breathing, and mindfulness. On top of promoting a sense of well-being, it also helps OA patients through the following means:

• As a non-pharmacologic and non-invasive OA intervention
• Improves muscle strength, support, and flexibility
• Better coordination
• Relaxes tense muscles and joints
• Increases range of motion
• Reduces pain
• Relieves joint stiffness
• Improves joint stability and overall function
• Induces calmness and serenity
• Provides balance training
• Improves heart and lung functions
• Has very little side effects
• Helps with relaxation through visualization and mindfulness
• Sharpens your focus
• Lowers stress and anxiety
• Improves sleep

An important benefit of attending Tai Chi classes is also gaining social support which can boost your self-confidence. Besides, the presence of an instructor can ensure that you will not end up injuring yourself while executing the movements.

Additional Safety Tips

Listen to your body. Do not push yourself too hard especially if you’re only starting out. You must understand that there are movements you cannot yet do as a beginner. You need to rest if you suddenly feel uncomfortable, exhausted or in pain.

• Choose a knowledgeable and experienced instructor. It’s much better if he/she has worked with osteoarthritis patients before.
• Wear a knee brace for osteoarthritis while doing Tai Chi for additional knee stabilization and support. Knee braces are generally suitable for all levels of activity and body movements included in Tai Chi.
• Warm-up and cool-down to prepare your joints and prevent any injury.
• Listen to your body. Do not push yourself too hard especially if you’re only starting out. You must understand that there are movements you cannot yet do as a beginner. You need to rest if you suddenly feel uncomfortable, exhausted or in pain.
• Don’t take your classes on an empty or full stomach

Tai Chi has some similarity with yoga in terms of the fluidity of movements and the health benefits. Remember that the goal of every treatment for osteoarthritis is to alleviate the symptoms and improve joint function. Tai Chi has been proven to be effective in both. Though more and more people are turning to Tai Chi instead of physical therapy, always make it a practice to consult with your doctor before starting any activity.

What is Tai Chi?

While suffering from any chronic pains, one always think about yoga or some exercises related to the pain they are experiencing, but they never think about martial arts. Martial arts is mainly associated with self-defense, kicking, boxing and the likes.

But Tai Chi is a form of slow, rhythmic and meditative moves of martial arts originated in China. It is believed to form a journey of life which an individual lead after learning Tai Chi. It builds your inner body strength and reaps many benefits out of it apart from self-defense as it is an all-rounder form of martial art.

When people practice it consistently, they generate more internal energy which ultimately leads them to better health, balanced mental state, agility and improved balance.

Tai Chi is originated in China and dates back as far as 2500 years. Also known as shadow boxing, this traditional form of Chinese martial arts works on the philosophy of yin and yang, i.e., working on the perpetual balance effortlessly.

Yin and Yang are the two extremes, the opposites. For, eg. Yin being soft and feminine, and Yang is the rough and masculine. According to the legends, a perfectly harmonized person will show this balance with his or her tranquillity and peacefulness of mind.

It is first said to be originated by Chen Wangting, known as Chen style, around 1670. Later, Yang Lu-chan modified it with higher stances, gentle and slow movements to make it accessible for most people. He learned it from Chen village before modifying it, giving it his style. Many authors have also called it a form of aerobics.

 How Can Tai Chi Be Useful In Daily Life?

Tai Chi is a form of slow exercises which requires its own pace and energy for the one to get used to it. It needs the practice to allow it to be a part of your routine. And it needs the dedication to master it for the most effective results. There are various benefits of Tai Chi:

• It delays aging.
• It helps maintain balance in the body and mind.
• It strengthens muscles and tendons, providing flexibility.
• It cures arthritis, heart diseases, high blood pressures, various types of cancer, and many other serious ailments.
• It helps get rid of stress and depression.
• It has a low risk of injury as the movements are slow and gentle.
• It helps regulate the breathing and blood circulation in the body.

One of the various health problems in today’s generation is that of chronic pains. Tai Chi helps cure it through its multiple exercises.

1. Salutation

This is supposed to be done at the beginning and end of every Tai Chi routine. For salutation, stand on the mat with your feet wide open. Open turn towards one side with your knees slightly bent.

Keep your arms on your side and relax your spine. Now slowly elevate your arms upwards inhaling and exhale while getting back to normal position. Repeat this for 5 times.

2. Circle The Globe

Hold your arms in front of you like you are cradling a basketball. Move your right foot slightly towards the right, now bring your torso along with it.

Moving the hands across your body, breathe out. Breathe in as you rotate your hands towards the left side of your body, shifting your weight towards the left entirely.

3. Back Twist

Stand with your feet pointing forward, generally as you would stand. Now move your body towards one side, as much as you can bend. Get up to the usual position and lean towards the other side. Give rest your arms and heel that lower back pain.

4. Horse Stance

Stand with your feet wide apart. Keeping your spine and neck straight, start bending from your knees to 90 degrees. Bring your arms in front of you aligned with your chest. Hold the position for as long as you can and then repeat the whole exercise. Stop if you feel any pain during bending.

5. Hands Waving Clouds

To get relief from the arthritis joint pain, people didn’t even know that they can do Tai Chi. It is such a bliss to know this form of martial art and that it can help you from recover so many joint pains.

To do this position, stand with your feet a few feet wider. Now hold your arms in front of you with your left hand over your right hand. Put all your weight towards the left and vice versa. But make sure to move your body instead of your shoulders. These little details can be most useful while practicing this form.

6. Tai Chi Bowing

For this, stand straight with your feet wider. Align your backbone and neck in a single line. Move your hands in front of you with the palms facing towards you. Now inhale as you bend vertebrae by vertebrae. Exhale as you go up.

7. Tai Chi Awakening

Stand in the basic Tai Chi position with your feet wider and spine straight. Now bring your hands in front of you, palms facing towards you, flexible at wrists and the height till your hips.

Interlocking the fingers, with the full force of your hands, bring your arms up to the level of your chest, inhaling. Exhale as you take your arms to the height of your hips.

Conclusion

According to one NCBI study, Tai Chi has positive results on lower back pains and other chronic pains if done right. Apart from these exercises, Tai Chi is so vast that it would require years of learning and practice. Mostly it is seen that only aged people perform it but it is popular with all age groups as a best practice for self-defense.

Tai Chi is simple and can serve you for many purposes. You just have to pick out your purpose and start practicing accordingly, of course by an expert teacher. By the end of 2007, over a million people had learned and enjoyed it. The growing popularity is the proof of giving answers to people’s curiosities towards this art form.

 

The ancient martial art Tai Chi, long a means of gentle, meditative exercise, is riding a recent wave of popularity by physical therapists and other individuals interested in using it to rehabilitate injuries and promote health. Tai Chi, which has roots dating back to 13th century China, has been the most popular health regimen to keep an aging population healthy in China, as it requires no special equipment and can be done almost anywhere. Roughly 200 million people practice Tai Chi today, and that number is growing as more people discover the effectiveness of its low-impact, low stress movement. There are five different types of Tai Chi, Chen-style, Yang-style, Wu- or Wu (Hao)-style, Wu-style and Sun-style. It is usually thought of in conjunction with Qi Gong, which has been called the “grammar” of Tai Chi due to its focus on tiny movements.

Tai Chi is being used to help heal sports injuries, such as shoulder separation, knee strains and is among other low-impact exercises for ball of foot pain. There isn’t much clinical research being done to quantify its effectiveness, but most physical therapists, personal trainers and sports physicians have collected anecdotal evidence of its success in helping injuries heal. Approximately three million people in the US are now practicing Tai Chi, giving rise to a new interest in researching its benefits. The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health is currently supporting research on Tai Chi’s effectiveness on bone health, osteoarthritis of the knee, cancer survivors, chronic heart disease, and depression. At Harvard Medical School, Catherine Kerr, an instructor who studies the effects of exercise on the brain and body and has practiced Tai Chi for fifteen years, is careful to note that the research is still in its infancy. The outlook is promising. Noting that Tai Chi is especially interesting because it combines a complex memorized sequence of movements with low-impact aerobic exercise, Kerr points to other studies of related elements such as meditation, motor skills, and focus that have been shown to actually change the structure of the brain as well as being associated with training-related changes in specific areas of the brain.

There has been some significant research around the effectiveness of Tai Chi in helping older individuals prevent falls and maintain balance, which is especially important considering that fall-related injuries are the leading cause of injury-related death among the elderly. Tai Chi movements focus on shifting balance from one leg to another while coordinating with movements of the upper body. The continual shifting of body weight appears to give practitioners increased proprioception –the unconscious ability to recognize where their bodies are in space– and to react in the event of a disturbance or impending fall by “catching” themselves.

In one study comparing men over the age of 65 with at least ten years experience doing Tai Chi (and no other form of exercise) against a group of sedentary men, it was found that the Tai Chi practitioners scored better on tests of flexibility, cardiovascular function and balance. Another study, which focused on individuals with mild balance disorders, found that after eight weeks of Tai Chi training, significant improvement in performance on a standard balance test was noted. Researchers also found that Tai Chi decreases fear of falling and increases self-confidence in those who practice who are over the age of 70; fully 54% of those studied cited improved balance as the reason for their increased self-confidence. This self-confidence appears to be correlated with motivation to continue exercising, long viewed as a key factor in maintaining health among the elderly.

It’s clear that the ancient Eastern practice of Tai Chi has a lot to offer our Western world in terms of health, longevity and addressing injuries. Even if individuals only perform the physical movements, there is research that points to evidence of increased blood flow, balance, and strength –but the benefits go beyond the physical and include decreased stress levels and better sleep. There are studies that show that Tai Chi has a profound positive effect on levels of depression among practitioners, including a six-week trial conducted at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior that examined the effects of Tai Chi on depression when combined with an antidepressant.

The next time you are sidelined by an injury, be sure to mention Tai Chi to your physician and physical therapist and see if there are ways of incorporating the practice into your healing regimen. Or, if you’d like to increase the odds of not being injured at all, make Tai Chi a regular part of your exercise program.