Chapter

2

Medical T’ai Chi & QiGong: The Prescription for the Future

In This Chapter

The great American inventor Thomas Alva Edison wrote: “The doctor of the future will prescribe no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame.” This encapsulates the essence of what T’ai Chi and QiGong are all about, as well as the profound shift that these tools are helping to create in modern healthcare.

T’ai Chi and QiGong’s medical benefits have been studied for nearly 2,000 years in China and for only about 30 years in the West. However, Western medical research is now discovering what Chinese medicine has long realized—that T’ai Chi and QiGong provide more medical benefits than any other single exercise. That’s why these ancient Chinese exercises are now not only at the cutting edge of modern medical research, but increasingly are a part of modern healthcare. (See Chapter 2’s T’ai Chi Medical Research Library link: www.idiotsguides.com/taichi.)

We are very lucky to live at a time when these wonderful tools are available to us in the West. We are also lucky to be able to see scientific proof that they work because as practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) understood centuries ago, our faith is the greatest healer. So if we know in our minds that T’ai Chi and QiGong work, our bodies will allow them to do their magic, and we will be the big winners.

The Health Benefits of T’ai Chi and QiGong

We live in a stressful world; only recently has Western medical research come to recognize that stress is at the root of most health problems. Therefore, the health crisis that stress is causing in the West has actually created a great opportunity for us because it is opening us up to the wonders of TCM and tools like T’ai Chi and QiGong. In fact, the following list of T’ai Chi’s measurable health benefits indicates how this opening to T’ai Chi may save us from our healthcare crisis. T’ai Chi and QiGong can …

• Boost the immune system

• Reduce or eliminate chronic pain issues

• Slow the aging process

• Reduce anxiety, depression, and overall mood disturbance

• Lower high blood pressure

• Alleviate stress responses

• Enhance the body’s natural healing powers, such as recovering from injury

• Increase breathing capacity

• Reduce asthma and allergy reactions

• Improve balance and coordination twice as well as the best balance-conditioning exercises in the world

• Help ensure full-range mobility far into old age

• Provide the lowest-impact weight-bearing exercise known

However, before adding T’ai Chi or QiGong to your physical therapy program, consult your physician to see if they might affect your medication levels. For example, many with high blood pressure find that their blood pressure lowers after playing T’ai Chi for a while. Your physician should know if T’ai Chi can alter your current therapy for such conditions and then can lower your medication safely. (See Chapter 18 for other conditions T’ai Chi or QiGong may benefit, and show it to your doctor.)

The Chinese character for “crisis” is a combination of two other characters—one for “danger” and the other for “opportunity.”

Mind Over Matter

The Chinese realized that our mind or consciousness is the root of who we are. Our health and our lives are merely reflections of our state of mind. T’ai Chi’s mindful quality incorporates the mind and body into a powerful healing force. See Chapter 2’s Web Video Support’s QiGong and T’ai Chi bring the mind … inside the body.

Interestingly, Western science now sees that TCM’s ancient insights were right on the money. A new science called psychoneuroimmunology has found that our mind constantly communicates to every cell of our body.

Emotional chemicals, known as neuropeptides, flow throughout our bodies, communicating every feeling to the entire body. So when hitting every red light on the street aggravates us or we become anxious in every line we stand in, we walk around in a state of perpetual panic. This negatively affects our heart, brain, and entire circulatory system. In fact, those effects, in turn, affect other organs, which can cause a breakdown of the entire system over time. The state of perpetual panic ends up causing such extremes as kidney failure, heart enlargement, and hardening of the arteries.

T’ai Chi helps us do just the opposite. We can decide to let issues slide right off us, literally breathing fears out with every sigh and yawn. As we sit in QiGong meditation or move in T’ai Chi’s soothing postures, we let a nourishing, healing flow of Qi, or life energy, fill every cell of our body.

Don’t try too hard to memorize any of these details on TCM or Western medicine. Rather, let the concepts wash over your relaxed mind. The important stuff will stick, and you can always go back and look up details later.

To fully appreciate T’ai Chi’s medical benefits, it may be helpful to understand how TCM views the body. TCM has known for centuries what Western science is only now discovering—that the mind and body are two inseparable things. There’s a joke in TCM that “the only place the mind, body, emotions, and spirit are separate is in textbooks.” In real life and T’ai Chi, it just isn’t so. T’ai Chi’s slow, mindful movements are the epitome of this union of mind and body. Now Western medicine is convinced of it as well.”

So when your body’s muscles are rigid, your thinking will likely be more rigid, too. Likewise, if your thinking is harsh and rigid, in time this will be reflected in stiffness in your muscular frame. This stiffness impedes the flow of Qi, which diminishes your health. Therefore, your mind and your thoughts are just as important to your health as the food you eat and the exercise you get.

I have students regularly come into my class with a headache or stiff neck, and discover after we complete the Sitting QiGong technique that their headache or neck-ache has disappeared. Its because cranial or other muscular tension was at the core of their pain, so by letting the energetic fibers of the mind and body relax through a mindful, nonphysical meditation—their physical pain went away. Enjoy the Sitting QiGong meditation daily, or even twice per day. (See Chapter 2’s Web Video Support section Sitting QiGong.)

Energy meridians, or jing luo, link all the organs and the entire physical body to the mind and emotional systems. This explains how T’ai Chi and QiGong’s mind/body exercises integrate all aspects of the self into a powerful self-healing system. See Chapter 2’s Web Video Support T’ai Chi and the Acupuncture Meridians.

KNOW YOUR CHINESE

What are these energy meridians that T’ai Chi and QiGong help unblock? Qi flows through and powers every cell in your body, the way electricity powers your house. Without Qi, the cell would be dead, for Qi is the life force. Qi radiates in your cells via the meridians. You can’t see these meridians; you can only detect the energy that moves through them, just as you cannot see an ocean current in the water, but you can detect its motion. (See Chapter 2’s Web Video Support, The 3 Dan Tiens.)

Ancient maps of these meridians, made thousands of years ago by traditional Chinese doctors, show 14 main energy meridians that carry Qi throughout the body internally and externally. These meridians’ flow of energy is opened and balanced by T’ai Chi and QiGong practice. It is not necessary to mentally memorize or locate them to enjoy the benefits. However, for your intellectual curiosity, their names are listed here, first by the modern acupuncture abbreviation, then by the English name, and a few followed by the Chinese name in italics:

• CV = Conception Vessel, or Ren Mai

• CX = Pericardium Channel

• GB = Gallbladder Channel

• GV = Governing Vessel, or Du Mai

• HE = Heart Channel

• KI = Kidney Channel

• LI = Large Intestine Channel

• LU = Lung Channel

• LV = Liver Channel

• SI = Small Intestine Channel

• SP = Spleen-Pancreas Channel

• ST = Stomach Channel

• TW = Triple Warmer, or San Jiao Channel

• UB = Urinary Bladder Channel

Acupuncture and T’ai Chi

Three aspects make up Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM): acupuncture, herbal medicine, and T’ai Chi/QiGong. All three share a common premise that Qi radiates through the body and our health is diminished when the energy flow gets blocked or squeezed off.

So whether an acupuncturist is treating you with needles, an herbalist is prescribing herbs, or you are practicing T’ai Chi, you are trying to balance the imbalances, or unblock the energy that flows throughout your body. Millions of Americans now use alternative therapies like acupuncture and herbs. If you practice T’ai Chi or QiGong daily, your relaxed state will help herbs or acupuncture work even more effectively.

The energy meridians, which flow throughout the interior of the body, have 361 points that surface at the skin. These are the most common treatment points acupuncturists use. But the whole body and even the mind can be treated with acupuncture because the meridians that surface at the skin also flow inside the body, through the brain and other organs.

T’AI SCI

T’ai Chi and QiGong affect the same energy flow that acupuncture does, although acupuncture can be better for acute problems, whereas T’ai Chi is a daily tune-up. Acupuncturists may recommend T’ai Chi to their patients, and T’ai Chi teachers may recommend acupuncture to their students with chronic or acute conditions as a supplement to the students’ standard medical treatments. T’ai Chi, QiGong, and acupuncture are very complementary.

Here is an example of an acupuncture meridian map. The lines represent the meridians, or energy channels, flowing through the body. The dots on the lines are the acupuncture points, which are often the places of least electrical resistance on the skin.

A T’AI CHI PUNCH LINE

It is mind-boggling when you consider that many modern acupuncturists find acupuncture points with electronic equipment, not unlike an Ohmmeter, a device used to measure electrical resistance. What’s more amazing is that acupuncture maps were made long before electronics was developed. How did they know where those points were back then? They might have felt them. As you practice T’ai Chi and QiGong, you will eventually begin to feel the Qi flowing from your hands or in your body.

Acupuncture sees the body holistically, meaning that each small part of the body contains connections to the whole body. Therefore, an acupuncturist can treat any problem in the whole body through, for example, the ears. Likewise, any part of the body, or even the mind, can be treated through the hands or the feet.

One of the powerful health benefits T’ai Chi provides is a daily acupuncture tune-up. Because T’ai Chi is so slow and the weight shifts are so deliberate, with the body very relaxed the feet are massaged by the earth during a T’ai Chi exercise. The bottoms of the feet have acupuncture points that affect the entire body as well as the mind. The acupressure foot massage you get during a T’ai Chi session stimulates all the acupuncture points on the foot, treating the whole body. This type of slow, relaxed motion makes T’ai Chi unique in providing you an acupuncture tune-up each time you do your daily exercise.

View Soothing Unhuried Flow of T’ai Chi on Chapter 2’s Web Video Support to visually understand the flow and effortless slowness of the forms that result in stimulating the acupressure points on the feet and throughout the entire body. No other exercise provides this.

Zang Fu: Massaging Internal Organs for Health

Another profound benefit T’ai Chi provides is a gentle massaging of the internal organs. Because T’ai Chi moves the body in about 95 percent of the possible motions it can go through, it not only clears the joints of calcium deposits, but it also gently massages the internal organs. See Chapter 2’s Web Video Support’s Your Rotating Dan Tien Massages Your Organs.

In TCM, this is a powerful therapy for optimum health. TCM recognizes that the body is an integrated whole, whereby all the parts are connected by the flow of Qi. In fact, the Chinese system of medicine is built upon a Zang Fu graph, which shows how organs interact with and depend on one another for good, healthy function.

KNOW YOUR CHINESE

Because T’ai Chi massages all the organs through its gentle, full rotations, it helps balance all the integrating activities of the Zang Fu systems.

The Zang Fu system uses a memory model, applying each organ to one of the five elements of the earth. The Chinese see the world as made of earth, metal, water, wood, and fire. The energy flow affects different organs through the Sheng Cycle and the Ko Cycle. This figure shows how organs are interactive and interdependent on one another for healthful function.

Your Organs Are Related to Your Emotions

Acupuncture, herbal medicine, and T’ai Chi/QiGong use the Zang Fu system to understand how the body, mind, and emotions integrate. A problem with a particular organ may have emotional symptoms. Likewise, a chronic emotional state may have a physical impact on the organs. The following list explains the Zang Fu connection between organs and emotions commonly related to imbalances with those organs or their energy channels:

• Liver = depression, anger

• Heart = excess joy (such as manic behavior), excess mental function

• Spleen = obsession

• Lung = anguish, grief, melancholy

• Kidney = fear, fright

SAGE SIFU SAYS

T’ai Chi benefits the mental and emotional states, not only by encouraging us to let go of the day’s problems by focusing on breath and movement, but in other ways as well. T’ai Chi stimulates the organs with gentle massage, while stimulating the acupressure points on the feet and throughout the body with its gentle, relaxed postures. The breathing in T’ai Chi is full, yet effortless, encouraging internal releases of mental and emotional blocks that also help the internal Zang Fu systems become less restricted, more free-flowing, and more healthful on mental, emotional, and physical levels. (Chapter 3 explains how T’ai Chi and QiGong can provide mental and emotional healing.)

Increase Flexibility

T’ai Chi increases flexibility not only by regularly stretching the muscles very gently, but through the Zang Fu system as well. As we age—especially but not exclusively men—we often find a depletion in our kidney energy. The kidney energy is responsible for the function of the liquid systems of the body. Therefore, the decrease in kidney energy that accompanies aging causes our connective tissue, such as tendons, to become brittle. We are then much more likely to tear or otherwise injure our bones or joints when we stumble or fall.

The tremendous balance improvements T’ai Chi offers are only part of why T’ai Chi practitioners are much less likely than other people to suffer falling injuries. The improved performance of all organ functions enhances the entire physical body’s health. In fact, in this way, Sitting QiGong may also increase flexibility, even though it is a nonphysical exercise.

Western Medicine’s Research on T’ai Chi and QiGong

After reading this section, you should be satisfied beyond a doubt that T’ai Chi works. When you get to the QiGong and T’ai Chi exercises in Parts 3, 4, and 5, you won’t have to think about their benefits. The mind is the greatest healer; if you believe in the value of your therapy, it will be much more effective for you.

Stress Is the Root of Your Health Issues

By now you know that stress is the chief cause of illness in the modern world. As Western medicine discovered that T’ai Chi and QiGong were highly effective stress-reducing exercises, these powerful mind/body health tools were used in more and more hospitals and prescribed by more and more doctors.

Studies show that reaction to stress can damage the entire body. It causes chronic hypertension (high blood pressure), which can cause the arteries to harden, and causes kidney damage and enlargement of the heart. Stress also has been shown to impair our ability to think and actually shrinks the hypothalamus and the hippocampus parts of the brain. Yikes!

A T’AI CHI PUNCH LINE

T’ai Chi and QiGong are proven stress busters. An article in Occupational Therapy Week explains that T’ai Chi’s emphasis on posture (see Sinking Your Qi and Locating Your Dan Tien and Vertical Axis in Chapter 2’s Web Video Support for proper posture examples) and diaphragmatic breathing (breathing from your diaphragm, see QiGong Breathing Tutorial) accounts for a practitioner’s reduction in muscular tension and the stress it causes. Patients using T’ai Chi report a greater ability to cope with fear and anxiety, as that physical relaxation is reflected in their mental attitude.

Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital in New York City provided T’ai Chi to both staff and patients. Its activity therapy supervisor said, “T’ai Chi is a natural and safe vehicle to neutralize rather than resist the stress in our personal lives, an ability which we greatly need to nurture in our modern, fast-paced society.” View Chapter 2’s T’ai Chi Slows and Calms on the Web Video Support to see the resistance-free model of motion and the slowing down of mind and body T’ai Chi promotes. Research has revealed that just watching the forms being performed can leave you feeling calmer!

T’ai Chi Is Your Heart, Head, and Body’s Best Friend

Harvard Medical School’s Women’s Health Watch Journal reported that “T’ai Chi has salubrious effects” and that “practicing T’ai Chi regularly may delay the decline of cardiopulmonary function in older adults … T’ai Chi was found to be as effective as meditation in reducing stress hormones.”

A Duke University study revealed that managing stress controls heart disease even more effectively than exercise. Because T’ai Chi provides both powerful stress management and gentle exercise, T’ai Chi is your heart’s very best friend.

Studies on mental benefits of these practices include one cited in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research reporting that their T’ai Chi study subjects reported less tension, depression, anger, fatigue, confusion, and anxiety. They felt more vigorous and in general had less total mood disturbance.

The Journal of Black Psychology states that many African Americans suffer from chronic high blood pressure. The article explains that hypertension is a physical result of psychological stress and proposes T’ai Chi as a holistic way of treating psychosomatic illnesses, or those illnesses caused by stress.

T’ai Chi may also help us think better. Research has shown that stress can limit the development of the hippocampus, the part of the brain that deals with learning and memory. T’ai Chi’s ability to reduce stress responses may actually enhance our ability to learn and remember. Sitting QiGong meditation is designed to actually teach you how to un-clench and relax the tissue of the mind, taking pressure off the pineal and pituitary glands as well.

SAGE SIFU SAYS

The lowering of “body stress” T’ai Chi and QiGong workouts promote are a huge reason these arts are the fastest-growing fitness endeavors in America (Fitness Manufacturers Association report). In an article on T’ai Chi, Working Woman magazine noted that “increasingly mind/body workouts are replacing high-impact aerobics, and other body punishing exercises … These mind/body workouts are kinder to the joints and muscles and can reduce the tension that often contributes to the development of disease, which makes them especially appropriate for high-powered, stressed-out baby boomers.”

T’ai Chi is an exercise few doctors will ever tell patients to stop practicing. It provides perhaps the lowest-impact weight-bearing exercise there is. We all need weight-bearing exercise to help build bone mass and connective tissue, but for those with rheumatoid arthritis or some other conditions, weight-bearing exercise is a problem. For these people, weight-bearing exercise can aggravate joints, causing tenderness or swelling.

However, a study cited in the American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation wanted to see if T’ai Chi would harm rheumatoid arthritis patients. To the researchers’ pleasant surprise, T’ai Chi did no damage whatsoever and provided the study participants with the safe weight-bearing exercise they seriously needed. The forms were modified for these patients, and everyone with arthritis or knee problems should be sure they do only forms that feel good to them, but this T’ai Chi discovery is good news for all of us because it gives us all a weight-bearing exercise that is safe even into old age.

A Boost to Your Immune System

Prevention Magazine reported a study on T’ai Chi’s effects on the immune system, supporting an idea the Chinese call bu qi, bu xue. It found that regular T’ai Chi practice may increase the body’s production of T-cells. These T-cells are T-lymphocytes. “Lympho-whats?” you might ask. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that these little T-cells help the immune system destroy bacteria and possibly even tumor cells. If T’ai Chi can make more of these little buggers, what are we waiting for? Let’s T’ai Chi one on!

KNOW YOUR CHINESE

In China, QiGong is commonly prescribed as an adjunct to chemotherapy and radiation. Studies indicate that when QiGong is combined with standard cancer treatments, favorable results are obtained, treating virtually all forms and stages of cancer. Part of the reason for this success is that QiGong helps patients feel less helpless. Studies show that feelings of self-empowerment can have powerful healing benefits on the course of almost any disease, including cancer.

A T’AI CHI PUNCH LINE

How Does T’ai Chi Fight for the Immune System?

American QiGong master Kenneth S. Cohen has dubbed a hormone called DHEA the Health Hormone. In his brilliant book The Way of QiGong: The Art and Science of Chinese Energy Healing, Mr. Cohen explains that this hormone is believed to be linked to Qi.

DHEA is short for dehydroepiandrosterone. Yeah, I know, forget about it. But don’t forget that DHEA is related to youthfulness, less disease, and a more functional immune system. According to Cohen, low DHEA levels have been directly linked to cancer, diabetes, obesity, hypertension, allergies, heart disease, and most autoimmune diseases.

When we are under a lot of stress, our body exhausts itself of this important hormone. Therefore, by practicing T’ai Chi, we can increase DHEA levels, thereby increasing our immune system’s ability to fight whatever steps in the ring with it. Let’s rumble!

T’ai Chi does two wonderful things to help us age healthfully: it maximizes the body’s full potential to regenerate healthy cells, which actually slows the aging process. And it promotes a deep self-acceptance and self-awareness so that as our body goes through the challenges of aging, we are much better able to handle and adjust to those changes, both physically and emotionally.

DHEA and T’ai Chi

T’ai Chi helps us increase DHEA levels and slow aging (fan lao huan tong, as the Chinese say). DHEA is also involved in the aging process. Levels of DHEA tend to decline with age, but the decline is much worse when you’re under chronic stress. Add natural aging and chronic stress, and you have an express train to an old body. Once again our old friend T’ai Chi comes to the rescue. T’ai Chi’s gentle movements and breathing techniques promote the serenity that can keep DHEA from being depleted.

KNOW YOUR CHINESE

Of course, the increased circulation of blood and Qi also fully oxygenates the skin, which provides nourishment to your outer beauty. The Zang Fu system’s being balanced by T’ai Chi’s stimulation of acupressure points and massage of the internal organs also moves the liquids and oils of the body to the tissues that need them, further adding to your external beauty and internal health.

Reducing Free Radical Damage to Age More Slowly

There’s a pesky little free radical atom in your body called superoxide that causes the body to age. Not only does it cause wrinkles and age spots, but it can also weaken cartilage and joints. In fact, this superoxide may even induce cancer or other immune system disorders. Obnoxious little thing, isn’t it?

T’AI SCI

Regular T’ai Chi and QiGong practice can protect your body from these pesky free radicals by activating an enzyme called superoxide dismutase (or SOD). SOD is our cellular superman and defends our cells from the ornery superoxides that break down our health systems.

A study of those who practiced QiGong for a half-hour a day for one year showed that their levels of SOD increased dramatically compared to people not doing QiGong. Another study showed a large increase in SOD after only two months of QiGong practice.

Maximizing Bone Health

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) released a study showing that women under chronic stress with depression had weaker bones than those in normal emotional states. In fact, the stressed/depressed women had the bones of 70-year-old women, even though they were only 40 years old.

T’ai Chi lessens the incidence of depression and the body’s stress responses and is a gentle, weight-bearing exercise. These qualities might make T’ai Chi the best thing you can do to keep your bones healthy, even into old age, as indicated by Harvard Medical School’s health publication that reported, “A review of six controlled studies by … Harvard research indicates that T’ai Chi may be a safe and effective way to maintain bone density in postmenopausal women.”

You Can Dramatically Improve Your Balance!

For aging Americans, the simple act of stumbling and falling can often be fatal. The sixth-largest cause of death for older Americans is complications from falling injuries. This costs our country about $10 billion a year and causes tremendous suffering for older people as well as their families. We are all paying for our nation’s poor balance in human suffering and in higher healthcare and health insurance costs.

T’ai Chi was part of a balance study by Harvard, Yale, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Washington University School of Medicine, and Emory University. T’ai Chi practitioners fell and injured themselves only half as much as those practicing other balance training. This is an amazing finding that can change the lives of older Americans.

Although you may not be in the age group likely to suffer serious injury from falling, we can all benefit greatly by having better balance. Better balance puts much less stress on the body throughout the workday, and as T’ai Chi practice improves your balance, you will find that you have much more energy.

Compared to the best balance training in the world, T’ai Chi is about twice as effective. Some of the other balance exercises studied in an Ivy League study on balance were very expensive computer models that required participants to go into a lab and practice. The simple exercises of T’ai Chi are not only much more effective than the other exercises, but they are very cheap!

T’ai Chi & QiGong: Healthcare of the Future

Most Chinese hospitals have long integrated Western crisis medicine with TCM. This is now happening in the United States as well. The American Medical Association recently recognized acupuncture as a valid treatment, which is also causing medical universities to incorporate T’ai Chi and QiGong into their educational curriculums.

Growing numbers of neurologists, cardiologists, general practitioners, physical therapists, hypertension specialists, and psychologists are already prescribing T’ai Chi and/or QiGong as treatment or supplemental treatment for many conditions. (See Part 6 for examples of T’ai Chi prescribed for specific conditions.)

As more Western scientific research is completed on the benefits of T’ai Chi and QiGong, this trend will expand. The result will be lower healthcare costs for all of us.

Access the Healing Power of the Mind

When you first hear of the benefits of T’ai Chi and QiGong, effective for helping treat all things on all levels, it may sound like snake oil. “How can it do that?” you might ask. It’s simple: it does this by connecting us to the most powerful healing tool there is—the healing power of the mind. The power of the mind is at the heart of our healing.

It is estimated that placebos can positively treat about 60 percent of our health problems. Placebos are sugar pills (or fake treatments) doctors sometimes give to fool patients into curing themselves. This gets the mind/body to trigger the electrical signals and chemical releases that comprise its internal healing processes, by the mind simply telling itself it’s okay for the body to heal. This indicates that the body has a tremendous potential to self-heal, if we believe in the cure.

T’ai Chi and QiGong are not placebos. They are powerful health tools that can help to unclog the tremendous natural healing power of the body, the power behind the placebo. Their healing benefits are extensive and well documented, and new research is emerging all the time. Again, it’s important for you to understand just how powerful these tools are so your mind will relax into allowing them to do their magic.

A T’AI CHI PUNCH LINE