Health Benefits of Practicing Tai Chi

What is Tai Chi?

Tai Chi is a form of martial arts used to practice the fluid motions that represent Yin and Yang. This powerful form of training is known for its benefits in defense training, meditation, and its prominent health benefits. Initially, from China, it involves old traditional movements and meditations. Tai Chi is also not for the faint-hearted as one could get very easily discouraged by the level of technicality. It can involve in this practice, but pushing through and pushing yourself further to that point will be more than worth it when you get there.

As with most things that involve any form of meditation, Tai Chi also has substantial beneficial effects on your mental well-being as well as your physical health, making it a sage decision for keeping your body and mind in a healthy and clean condition.

10 Benefits of Practicing Tai Chi

1. Improves Your Strength, Balance, and Flexibility

Like many other exercises that require isometric training, Tai Chi has been proven dramatically to increase your physical strength. It works with your core muscles and uses your own body as resistance to make this progress. It aids in your overall balance as a lot of the poses you hold are usually in mid-air, requiring a massive amount of centered balance. The flexibility training comes from the nature of the poses, sometimes requiring one to be or become limber enough to even accomplish the pose itself before having to hold it.

2. Tai Chi Can Promote Good Fitness

Due purely to the nature of the training and what it takes from your body, it can be very beneficial to more non-physical parts of your body like your heart. Tai Chi massively effects things like your cardiovascular health as well as the good health of your respiratory system, promoted by doing exercises that involve deep breathing and long stretches. Improving your cardiovascular and respiratory health is what most people call, “getting fit.” This expansion is because it has more benefits for your body than you might have thought.

3. Boosts and Improves Cognitive Function

Practicing Tai Chi, especially in your later years, can prove to be very beneficial for protection against the risk of developing cognitive dysfunctions. Dysfunctions like Alzheimer’s Disease or Dementia. Besides the fact that staying fit helps your brain stay more awake, in general, purely the act of having to remember all the moves and poses when you do Tai Chi can boost memory and cognitive function. Not only is this protecting you from threats like Alzheimer’s Disease but also keeping your brain in a better and healthier state of mind. Keeping your mind busy is the best way to train it to stay appropriately functional.

4. Promotes Better Sleep

When we do any exercise, our bodies use up energy that we wouldn’t have even known was there. That stored energy is what could contribute massively to why our minds don’t shut off at night before bed, causing insomnia or sleep deprivation. The most common cause of insomnia is stress, anxiety or depression – Tai Chi, being meditative practice targets these mental factors on a subconscious level while the physical part of the exercises, works out all excess amounts of energy but not enough to fully exhaust you. The benefit of this is that you will feel nice and sleepy by the time you get to bed as your body is no longer storing any extra energy or stress in your brain or your muscle tissue.

5. Tai Chi Can Be Used To Treat Symptoms of Fibromyalgia

Usually, patients with fibromyalgia benefit significantly from doing simple exercises like aerobics. However, recent studies have found that Tai Chi has even better effects on the symptoms of fibromyalgia. Not at all surprising as Tai Chi involves more of your muscle groups at a time. Whereas aerobic training only targets some parts of your body and is significantly more mild than Tai Chi. Calming and clearing the mind has also shown enormous benefits for patients who suffer from the pain that comes with fibromyalgia.

6. Reduces The Risk of Falling

The risk of falling might not seem so important in your youth, but in your later years, you will thank Tai Chi for helping you with this. Many injuries sustained by older adults and elderly citizens come from losing balance or tripping and falling over. When you get older, your body can no longer take the massive impact of a fall. You tend to end up injuring more parts of your body. Parts that weren’t even a part of the fundamental reason for the fall. Practicing Tai Chi through the course of your life can dramatically lower your risk of this happening to you in your later years.

7. Improves Mental Health

One of the most important things to remember is that Tai Chi is exercise. Exercise will always cause the brain to release surges of dopamine and serotonin. These are hormones that are imperative for good, stable mental well-being. The release of such hormones lowers your risk of developing psychological problems like depression, stress, insomnia, and anxiety. The usual suspects for poor mental health. The reflective element may also have a powerful effect on your mental well being.

8. Aids With Most Chronic Pain

Very often, what ails you doesn’t matter as practicing Tai Chi has been proven to relieve chronic pain caused by almost anything. With its wide range of motions and movements, it targets every part of your body to fix any problem that may occur. When practicing this powerhouse martial art, you will use large groups of muscle and most of your joints. Keeping everything well oiled at all times and keeping your joints and muscles from getting stiff and sore from everyday life.

9. The Meditation Can Calm and Center You

When you do a form of exercise like Tai Chi, your mind has to be calm and collected for your body to enjoy the full benefits of the art. This type of meditation can be difficult for some people. Sometimes not being able to center and silence your mind can be due to the lack of inner peace. Whether it is due to stress or personal problems, Tai Chi will allow you to calm your mind, and find your harmony. The exercise will also help you better cope with obstacles that come your way with a clear and rational mindset.

10. Accessible To Anyone

If your body is in drastic need of a decent Tai Chi session to relieve some pain or stress, but you’ve never done it before, you’re in luck. This unique martial art is for anyone of any age, shape, or size. You don’t need any previous experiences, merely a little bit of guidance if it is your very first time. It is comforting to know that anyone can take part in Tai Chi. We can all keep our bodies in the best condition they can be with Tai Chi.