Tai Chi Moves

Category: Health

  • Breathe from Belly, not Chest

    Breathe from Belly, not Chest

    When doing tai chi, how you breathe is very important. An excellent article on breathing was published in March 2024 on a Mayo Clinic website and written by a medical doctor. Titled “How belly breathing benefits your body, mind,” the article begins with this paragraph:

    “From the day you’re born, you know how to breathe correctly. That means letting the diaphragm — the large, thin muscle just below the rib cage — do the work of drawing air into the lungs and letting it out. It’s known as diaphragmatic or belly breathing, and it’s the most efficient and effective way to breathe.”

    Belly breathing has also been called “deep breathing,” which the NIH defines this way:

    “A relaxation technique in which a person focuses on taking slow, deep breaths. Deep breathing involves breathing in slowly through the nose and then out through the mouth using the diaphragm (the thin muscle that separates the chest from the abdomen) and abdominal muscles.”

    Though in tai chi you are advised to breathe through your nose, to my surprise, the Mayo Clinic asserts, “When it comes to the correct way to breathe, it doesn’t matter whether you breathe through your nose or your mouth. Where you breathe from matters: your belly and not your chest.”

    As every tai chi teacher I’ve learned from advised me to breathe through my nose, I will suggest that here — if you can.

    One of the reasons given in the Mayo Clinic article for belly breathing is that “Belly breathing promotes a sense of calm relaxation. That’s why it’s typically part of mindfulness practices and yoga.”

    After sharing benefits of belly breathing, the article reveals how you can check if you are a chest breather. The check is easy to do and shouldn’t take more than a minute or two. It is important to do because, according to the article, “over time, almost everyone needs to remember how. Rather than belly breathing, people begin chest breathing.”

    That has negative effects, one being that it “requires a lot of effort and moves less air.”

    The short, well-written article, which is easy to read, ends with this conclusion:

    “Not only is diaphragmatic or belly breathing efficient and powerful, it’s also free and has no side effects. Embrace belly breathing, and your body and mind will thank you.”

  • Tai Chi Won’t Prevent Falls

    Tai Chi Won’t Prevent Falls

    But neither will golf, tennis, pickleball, or any sport that people play or engage in. What tai chi has been shown it can do is to lessen the chances of falling, a problem that becomes more common as people age.

    In an article on heart.org titled “Balance Exercise,” it’s stated that there are four types of exercises that people should do. One of the four are balance exercises.

    According to the Mayo Clinic,

    • “Balance exercises can help you keep your balance at any age. They can make you feel more secure. Older adults especially need balance exercises to help prevent falls. The risk of falling goes up after age 65. It’s good to include balance training with physical activity and strength training in your daily activity.”

    Here’s a quote from the article:

    “Having good balance is important for many activities we do every day, such as walking and going up and down the stairs. Exercises that improve balance can help prevent falls, a common problem in older adults and stroke survivors. They can also benefit those who are obese since weight is not always carried or distributed evenly throughout the body. A loss of balance can occur when standing or moving suddenly. Often, we are not fully aware that we may have weak balance until we try balance exercises.”

    One frequently mentioned balance exercise on health-related websites is tai chi. It can help someone wishing to improve their balance, especially seniors, given that the Center of Disease Control and Prevention reported that “Falls are the leading cause of injury for adults ages 65 years and older. Over 14 million, or 1 in 4 older adults report falling every year.” 

    The report adds that “Falls among adults aged 65 and older are common, costly, and preventable.”

    Preventable!

    Another article that details benefits of doing tai chi was published in 2023 and is available from the NIH (National Institutes of Health). It’s titled “Tai Chi for fall prevention and balance improvement in older adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.” 

    That study shared these results:

    • “Tai chi can effectively reduce the risk of falls in older adults.”
    • Tai chi can “decrease the number of falls.”
    • “Tai Chi can also improve the balance ability of older adults.”
    • “Tai Chi is effective for both healthy older adults and those at high risk of falls.”

    The NIH article’s authors drew this conclusion:

    “Tai Chi is an effective exercise for preventing falls and improving balance ability in older adults, whether they are healthy or at risk of falling. The effectiveness of Tai Chi increases with exercise time and frequency. Yang-style tai chi is more effective than Sun-style tai chi.”

    When I browsed the article, this surprised me: “Annually, between 28 and 35% of individuals aged 65  years and older experience falls worldwide, with rates reaching 32–42% among those over 70  years of age.”

    Tai chi’s benefits extend beyond improving balance.

    An article on the Harvard Health website says this about tai chi: “This gentle form of exercise can help maintain strength, flexibility, and balance, and could be the perfect activity for the rest of your life.” How many other exercises have had that said about them by a highly credible medical source?