What is the significance of Tai Chi?

Practice has proved that taijiquan is a fitness exercise that conforms to physiological laws and is a good health care method. Our scholars have applied the methods of natural science and social science research to derive the wide range of health care values that Taijiquan has from the effects of Taijiquan exercise on the human body.

Benefits of practicing taijiquanTaijiquan is a traditional sport with a wide mass base in China, and practicing taijiquan is beneficial to strengthening the body, prolonging life and improving the quality of life.

Modern psychological research shows that human emotional activity is closely related to health. An optimistic state of mind is good for health, while excessive joy, anger, sorrow, happiness, sadness, fear, and shock will bring danger to health. Taijiquan believes that "those who are good at nourishing health should nourish the inside, and those who are not good at nourishing health should nourish the outside." One of them is to nourish the mind, which requires a self-sufficient state of mind that is clean and free from self-criticism, and that is calm and easy to deal with. Through self-control, the body and spirit can be relaxed to the greatest extent. When Taijiquan is practiced to a certain level, every exercise is aimed at the self-realization of life, the self-purification of human nature, the self-improvement of personality and the self-renewal of the heart. "Fist without fist, meaning without meaning, without meaning is the true meaning," this is to achieve the highest level of taijiquan on the psychological regulation.

In the traditional concept, people only pay attention to the function of taijiquan to strengthen the body, in fact, taijiquan can effectively hone the human spirit, discover the psychological quality of people, it is the human psychology to calm down, taijiquan exercise itself is also a process of behavior of the will, day after day, year after year, in the continuous improvement of the level of the level of the level of the will of the level of their own continuous development. In terms of personality, it makes people become rigid, cheerful and optimistic, learn to control their needs and motives; learn to solve the contradictions of motivational struggles; and make their personality tendencies more mature. Taijiquan activities also increase the forms of mutual contact between people, through which one can forget troubles and pains and eliminate loneliness. Human psychology is not isolated, the mind and the body are harmonized and influenced by each other. In modern society, people live at a faster pace, have more tense interpersonal relationships, are impatient, and their feelings are easily impulsive. Taijiquan activities are long-lasting and enduring, thus increasing self-control and making emotions more stable. With the growth of age, people's physical function state and mental state will occur natural decline, which is a natural law that no one can resist. Taijiquan not only slows down the aging of the body, but also makes the spiritual world youthful.

Conclusion of natural science research

In the use of natural science research methods on the health care of taijiquan, the Beijing Institute of Sports Medicine researcher Qu Mianwu equal to 1955, in the same age group of the elderly randomly selected 32 often practicing taijiquan and 56 do not practice taijiquan normal elderly, a more detailed medical testing and comparative observation. The results found that practicing taijiquan has a favorable effect on the nervous system, cardiovascular system, respiratory system, motor system and digestive system. Elderly people who regularly practiced taijiquan were in better condition than the average elderly in all aspects of physiological indicators and overall health. Their research results spread along with the book Simplified Taijiquan, created and promoted by the National Sports Commission in 1956, and the book Taijiquan Exercise, published by the People's Sports Press in 1962.

In recent years, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has made quite a remarkable achievement in researching the exercise value of taijiquan by applying natural science research methods. They have conducted a series of studies on the fitness value of taijiquan by utilizing the advanced testing instruments of the Academy and their own academic expertise (physiologists, psychologists, computer experts, mechanics experts, etc.). Since 1988, when Mr. Cao Yimin, Chairman of the Association, and others published "Discussing the Health Care Effect and Mechanism of Taijiquan Exercise from the Indicators of Cerebral Electricity, Cardiac Electricity, and Blood Lipid", 19 research papers on Taijiquan have been published so far. Their research results concluded that adherence to taijiquan practice can obtain exercise effects in the following eight aspects: 1. It can improve the functional state of the heart (including those with a history of coronary heart disease); 2. It can promote the improvement of cardiopulmonary function and energy metabolism; 3. It can significantly reduce the incidence of hyperlipidemia; 4. It can effectively improve the microcirculation state of the human body's endpoints and increase the human body's adaptive ability to the outside world's climatic changes; and 5, It can significantly increase the energy of ɑ frequency band of brain wave (ɑ wave is awakening wave), and significantly enhance the balance and coordination of left and right brain functions, which will make the body and mind more harmonious, and increase the ability to resist diseases and maintain good health; 6. It can effectively relieve the excessive mental tension of the human body, and fundamentally eliminate the causative causes of "civilization diseases" in modern society. It can prevent the occurrence of physiological diseases; 7. It can improve the mood, anxiety, character, memory and movement stability of the elderly, and improve the sleep quality of the elderly; 8. They also used the ZJX-1 Chinese medicine meridian information analyzer developed by the Institute of Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to carry out human meridian test on 31 taijiquan practitioners. The results found that taijiquan exercise can play an obvious role in regulating the smoothness of human meridians.

The role of taijiquan in health care by using natural science research method is summarized as follows:

(1) Influence on the nervous system

The nervous system is the "commanding officer" of the human body, and all human activities are carried out under its domination. Nervous system is the organism can feel the stimulus, produce and conduct excitement, control and regulate a variety of life activities and play a leading role in the human body components. Nervous system in the control and regulation of the body's activities, first of all, with the help of a variety of receptors, to receive a variety of stimulus information inside and outside the human environment. Through the peripheral nerves to the brain and spinal cord, through the brain and spinal cord centers at all levels of integration and role, and then through the peripheral nerves to the effectors, control and regulate the activities of the human body systems. The function of the nervous system can be seen: one is to make the human body system to form a unity of the whole; the second is to make the human body system and the outside world to maintain a relative balance, otherwise the human body function decline or disease, and even life-threatening.

Taijiquan requires loose body, quiet mind and dominant consciousness, which can regulate the conversion of excitation and inhibition mechanism of cerebral cortex. When practicing taijiquan, it can make the activity of the cerebral cortex motor area in the state of excitement, and make other areas of the cerebral cortex in the state of inhibition due to the negative inducing effect. Therefore, people practicing taijiquan after stressful study and work can change the excitatory area of the cerebral cortex, so as to make the brain get a better conditioning and rest. At the same time, it can also reduce the pathological excitement caused by diseases in the cerebral cortex, which can help the function inhibited or declined by pathological excitement of diseases to be excited, so that the symptoms of diseases can be gradually reduced or disappeared, and thus achieve the efficacy of fitness and elimination of diseases.

(2) The effect on the motor system

The motor system is composed of bone, bone connection and skeletal muscle. Bone is the lever of movement, bone connection plays a pivotal role, skeletal muscle is the power part of the movement, the three are closely linked. Its main function is to make the human body move in space, so that the interrelationship between the various parts of the human body changes, to maintain the position of the various parts of the body as well as the overall position and posture, in addition, but also to support the weight of the human body constitutes the basic shape, to protect the medulla oblongata and the internal organs, and to coordinate the internal organs to carry out activities, and so on. If a person does not have a locomotor system, he or she cannot survive.

Taijiquan puts special emphasis on the inner center axis to lead the waist and spine (outer center axis), and in turn drives the joints, so that the human body inside and outside the easy, slow, rounded holistic martial arts movement. This will inevitably be on the human body systems, especially on the waist and limbs are getting and its good stimulation, enhance its flexibility, coordination and strength, the human body sinews and muscles and even elasticity and strength, strengthen the joints and bones of the fixity and smoothness, so as to ensure that the normal activities of the joints and bones. In addition, the human skin will also be practiced and loose and soft and tender, and smooth and red and tender, and elastic and tough, and coordinated and natural, so as to enhance the skin to protect the organism, feel sensitive, regulate body temperature and water-salt balance, capillaries and pores smooth, secretion, excretion, moist skin and other capabilities.

Taijiquan winding spiral movement produces reasonable physiological load, so that the bones, joints, muscles get systematic and comprehensive exercise, such as bone density thickening, bone diameter becomes thicker, bone trabeculae are arranged more neatly and regularly. These changes will enhance the metabolism of the bone and produce a good effect on the morphology and structure. Despite the changes in morphology and structure, the bone becomes stronger, thus improving the resistance to fracture, compression and torsion. In taijiquan practice should be combined with pile work, static work practice, will play a multiplier effect.

(3) Effects on the respiratory system and digestive system

Taijiquan moves softly and slowly, and as it moves, it guides the internal qi through the five organs and six bowels. Deep, long, fine and even abdominal breathing is a deep and long breathing movement mainly based on the activity of septum muscle, because the diaphragm moves up and down in a larger range, resulting in the increase of thoracic cavity volume, the increase of negative pressure in the chest, the elastic fiber network of alveolar wall is elongated and contracted to increase, so as to enhance the strength of septum muscle and auxiliary respiratory muscles and the elasticity of elastic fibers of the alveolar wall, to improve the elasticity of the lung tissues, and to improve the lungs' full potential ventilation capacity. . Taijiquan movements should be coordinated with breathing, and when movements and breathing are coordinated, they should be natural and not be forced, and over time, natural gas will pass through the four endings, breathing will become slower, and the diaphragm's contraction and diastolic ability will be improved, so as to increase the lung capacity and prevent and control all kinds of chronic lung diseases.

Taijiquan abdominal breathing can increase the contraction and diastole of diaphragm and abdominal muscles, which can play the role of self-massage on liver and stomach, improve the peristalsis of stomach and intestines, digestive and absorptive capacity, improve the metabolism of substances in the human body, and improve the level of human health.

(D) the cardiovascular system and the immune system

The human circulatory system makes the human body a set of closed system, including the blood system and the meridian system, the main function of the body's circulatory system is to continuously deliver nutrients, oxygen and hormones to the various systems and parts of the body, tissues and cells, as well as a variety of energy, in order to replenish the nutrients and energy, and its metabolites, such as carbon dioxide and urea. It also sends its metabolic products, such as carbon dioxide and urea, and other wastes to the lungs, kidneys, intestines, stomach and skin and other organs to be eliminated from the body, so as to ensure the normal life activities of the body. As Taijiquan makes the body inside and outside the slow spiral or circular martial arts movement, all systems and parts of the human body are bound to be gently squeezed, kneaded and massaged for exercise, enhancing the elasticity, stretching, flexibility and strength of the human circulatory system. When the skeletal muscle relaxation, the peripheral pressure of venous learning tube decreases so that the capacity of the venous blood vessels increase, reduce the burden on the heart, capillary passive expansion, increased capacity, with the blood transported to the organization of oxygen, nutrients, etc. also increase accordingly, promote the exchange of substances in the internal environment, the cellular metabolism and its promotional effect. As the intensity of taijiquan exercise reduces the anaerobic metabolic components are less, the product that causes fatigue of the body - lactic acid is also reduced. Research has proved that prolonged, low-intensity exercise can increase the coefficient of vascular elasticity expansion, accelerate the aortic emptying, but also improve the role of microcirculation, the practice of taijiquan can effectively reduce the platelet adhesion, plasma viscosity and fibrinogen content, promote the relative stability of the body's internal environment, and play a role in activating blood stasis; at the same time, it can significantly improve the ability of acid-base balance of the blood. Experiments have proved that taijiquan has a significant improvement effect on human heart function. It can make the heart machine fiber thickening, heart wall thickening, contraction force enhancement, coronary artery caliber thickening, heart capacity and per-boat output increase.

Taijiquan exercise, as a gentle aerobic exercise, can promote the activity of parasympathetic nerves and decrease the activity of sympathetic nerves, thus making the body less sensitive to stress and improving the immune function.

(E) Balance yin and yang, harmonize the role of qi and blood

Taijiquan is in accordance with the theory of taiji and the basic theory of traditional Chinese medicine, in accordance with the human body's yin and yang and the five elements of the movement of the law, through the meridians and channels to communicate with the surface of the upper and lower, connecting the viscera and organs, the passage of qi and blood, moistening and nourishing the viscera and internal tissues, sensing and conduction, regulating the viscera and internal organs of the function of the activities, so as to achieve the role of health care and maintain the human body a normal healthy State. Meridian is the human body qi and blood running channel, and human physiology and pathology have a close relationship. If the meridians are smooth, the body will be healthy, and if the meridians are not smooth, diseases will be born. Taijiquan practice methods, pathways are not the same, but the fundamental purpose is to practice sufficient internal gas, and run the internal gas through the twelve meridians, the eight channels, through the large and small circumference, so as to achieve the prevention of disease, cure disease, and strengthen the purpose of the health of the body.