9 Reasons Tai Chi Reduces Pain and Promotes Health

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The ancient Chinese dance-like practice of tai chi is a meditative movement form that provides many health benefits, and there is evidence that it helps people living with chronic pain conditions.

“Tai chi should be called "medication in motion.”

Harvard Health Publishing

BENEFITS OF TAI CHI

Bill Douglas, author of the best-selling tai chi book, “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Tai Chi and Qigong”, developer of the Kansas University “Stress Reduction Program,” and founder of World Tai Chi & Qigong Day is considered a Tai Chi and Qigong expert. In an interview, Bill tells Dr. Andrew Weil—on benefits— “students often comment about feeling a great sense of well-being, a sense of 'being here and now' rather than scattered and anxious. I’ve heard students say after a class that they feel like they just had a day at the spa.” He also tells Dr. Weil, "Many students also talk about relief from chronic pain."

         

Tai Chi:

1.     relieves stress

2.     promotes muscle health

3.     promotes flexibility

4.     gently stretches tender, contracted muscles

5.     promotes strength and improves joint function

6.     circulates lymph fluid important to boosting immune function

7.     improves balance

8.     provides positive feedback to our brain

9.     moves our focus away from pain

A 2016 meta analysis of 18 randomized controlled trials found tai chi is a viable complementary and alternative medicine for chronic pain conditions. And, a recent study (March 21, 2018) suggests tai chi is at least as beneficial for fibromyalgia as aerobic exercise, possibly more. 

TYPES OF TAI CHI

The several styles of tai chi are named after the surname of their founder. The oldest style is Chen. Tai Chi Chen consists of low stances and powerful movements. The Yang family first became involved in the study of Tai Chi Chuan, which is the most common form of tai chi practiced in the west. Other forms include Wu, Hoa, and Sun style, though the Hoa style is seldom practiced today. You may also find combination styles of tai chi, which incorporate movements from more than one approach.  

chi= qi = ki = prana: Traditional Chinese medicine refers to our vital energy force as chi or qi. Japanese call it ki, and it is known as prana in the ayurvedic medical tradition of India.

Each tai chi style has something different to offer based on the teacher’s approach. 

TAI CHI FOR YOU

It's important that we know what type of tai chi is right for us. Our choice should align with our physical abilities and goals and never feel stressful, quite the opposite. 

Each tai chi movement has purpose and a symbolic meaning. For instance, as we sink into our body we are opening our joints and relieving stress while building strength. The slow purposeful and graceful movements of tai chi give us the opportunity to make a mental and spiritual connection with our body and let the healing energy of chi heal our body, mind, and spirit. 

Easy Tai Chi Lesson from Bill Douglas

It’s important to experience movement and meditation for our health and practicing Tai Chi is a great way to do both. It is less likely to trigger a flare and it helps those of us with physical limitations stay as active and healthy as possible. Tai chi is one of my personal tools to combat physical and mental stress.

See what I have to say about tai chi in an interview I did for US News and World Report in "9 Strategies for Coping with Fibromyalgia."

AFTER WORDS

Bill Douglas, wrote the foreword to our book (co-author Jeff Miller, PhD) Broken Body Wounded Spirit: Balancing the See-Saw of Chronic Pain, Winter Devotions and he had this to say  inside the cover of our book Integrative Therapies for Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and Myofascial Pain: The Mind-Body Connection:

“This integrative holistic approach to these conditions is what is needed throughout medicine today. Empowering us to become part of our own health and healing process is such a powerful approach to these conditions or any others. I applaud the authors, and hope they inspire others to follow their lead.

Additional Reading

Can Aerobic Exercise Reduce Fibromyalgia Symptoms?

Pained Ink Slayer Series: Mindfulness and Chronic Pain

In healing,

Celeste Cooper, RN / Author, Freelancer, Advocate

Think adversity?-See opportunity!

http://www.CelesteCooper.com

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Learn more about Celeste’s books here. Subscribe to posts by using the information in the upper right hand corner or use the share buttons to share with others. 

Broken Body, Wounded Spirit: Balancing the See-Saw of Chronic Pain This Winter

There is nothing charismatic about chronic pain regardless of its source. Pain and chronic illness are greedy and demanding. Either or both can consume our time, our relationships, and our function. Chronic pain and illness can rob us of our dignity if we let it. But, there are things we can do, perspectives we can make that prepare us for the untold side effects of living with daily pain and chronic invisible illness.

“Remember, no one can make you feel inferior

without your consent.”

~Eleanor Roosevelt

Day Twenty-three - Whole Heartedness

The winter season metaphorically offers time for our old thoughts and destructive behaviors to die off. The barren land of winter uses the season for rest, to lay sallow in preparation for the birth of spring. The books in the Broken Body, Wounded Spirit series allows us to go of old thoughts by offering  daily thought prompts, exercises, and words of inspiration, such as those in the above quote. Our readers are given tools to fight the ogre of doubt that plays on our fear, agony, loneliness, and resentment in the Winter Devotions edition.

Come with us as we walk the barren winter land, appreciating that it is necessary to rid ourselves of previous conceptions in preparation for the spring season of rebirth.

Read more about Broken Body, Wounded Spirit, Balancing the See-Saw of Chronic Pain: Winter Devotions by Celeste Cooper, RN and Jeff Miller, PhD on my website, Celeste Cooper.com. Follow me on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pintrest, and Linked-In. Other resources include:

About the book

About the author

Connect with Celeste

Available in paperback on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and Kindle. Also available in Canada and the UK.

In healing,,Celeste

"Adversity is only an obstacle if we fail to see opportunity."  

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Celeste Cooper, RN

Author—Patient—Freelance Writer at Health Central & ProHealth —Advocate

Celeste’s Website: http://CelesteCooper.com

Inspiration for Reclaiming Control over Pain and Illness

A Beholding Forest©

A respite in the Rockies is something my husband and I have enjoyed for thirty-five years and since we are in our sixth and seventh decades of life, we are grateful to have done it yet again. It’s a marriage retreat of sorts, a time to appreciate my husband’s hard work, allowing me to use my photography to escape into the bowels of majesty.

I feel an intimacy with nature, wild flowers coloring the landscape, wild animals outside our RV door, rainbows that astound us and pink sunsets that devour our sensibilities. I am touched by my husband’s desire to find joy in something I love. My soul is awakened when I hear these words…

Come quick; grab your camera!

Young Buck Innocence©

Early fall makes itself known in the mountains where summer is short. The aspen’s are beginning to turn and as their  leaves shudder to meet the sun’s rays, I am reminded that the warm days of summer will soon give way to crisp chilly air that awakens the season of harvest and preparation.

Chronic pain and illness dictates that we adapt to change. But, unlike nature’s beings, it isn’t always instinctive. I know I need daily reminders on how to apply the things I learned when writing our first book  (with contributions of my co-author, Jeff Miller, PhD).

Fall is looming and change is upon us. Find out how you can adapt as nature does by using the daily tips in the Fall Devotions edition of the book series. If you already have the book, it's time to get it out and re-explore. I suspect you will see things from a different perspective this year, and you will learn something new to share.

Find detailed information at CelesteCooper.com:  

• About ​Broken Body, Wounded Spirit: Balancing the SeeSaw of Chronic Pain, FALL DEVOTIONS
• Table of Contents
• Endorsements - Inside the Cover

  

September is pain awareness month and a busy one for those of us who advocate for balanced affordable care for everyone. My greatest desire as an RN is for patients to have choices. It’s empowering to reclaim control over the thing we can change, and I hope you find Fall Devotions helps you do that.

Here’s to a colorful and hearty fall season.

Available:

Amazon in paperback 

Kindle version 

Amazon UK Kindle 

Amazon Canada Kindle 

Barnes and Nobel paperback 

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

"Adversity is only an obstacle if we fail to see opportunity."  

Celeste Cooper, RN

Author—Patient—Health Central Chronic Pain Pro —Advocate

Celeste’s Website: http://CelesteCooper.com

Learn more about what you can do to help your body function to its potential in the books you can find here on Celeste's  blog. Subscribe to posts by using the information in the upper right hand corner or use the share buttons to share with others.

All answers and blogs are based on the author's opinions and writing and are not meant to replace medical advice.  

Part II – Proprioception in FM and MPS: Are you a bull in the china cabinet? What can we do? by Celeste Cooper

In “Part I, Proprioception: Are you a bull in the chinacabinet? Is it fibro or myofascial pain syndrome?”  we talked about proprioception, what it is and how it relates to fibromyalgia (FM) and myofascial pain syndrome (MPS). 

PART II

It’s morning and if you are like me, you can see that your feet are attached to your body as you place them on the floor. Unfortunately, for some of us, as we start to walk, our appendages seem completely unaware of where they are. Our feet should go in the direction we believe we are headed, and our arms should not hit door jams that we have lived with for 10+ years. Slam, bang, crunch, there’s that darn wall again.

What can we do to improve balance and minimize 

the bull in the china cabinet effect?

Treating the myofascia

For the myofascial pain syndrome group (considered by many as the most apparent comorbid disorder to FM, usually a pain specialist, physical therapist, or body-worker) treating trigger points  in sternocleidomastoid and its branches is imperative.

The first treatment suggestion is to identify and correct perpetuating factors and adapt trigger point therapies that calm the hypersensitive areas in the myofascia.

Perpetuating factors include poor spinal alignment, repetitive motion, static positioning, carrying a purse or backpack that is too heavy, head forward posture, extended computer time, ill fitted chair, out of control comorbid conditions, etc.

Releasing trigger points by manual techniques can reduce or alleviate pain. However, it is important to remember that if you also have FM or CFID, the release of cellular byproduct from muscle manipulation can instigate a flare of FM or CFID symptoms. Stay hydrated, even after self-treatment. 

“Trigger points do not respond to positive thinking, biofeedback, meditation, or progressive relaxation. They respond only to physical intervention. However, positive thinking, biofeedback, meditation, and progressive relaxation can help prevent the stress that is thought to aggravate chronic myofascial pain.” (Cooper and Miller, 2010)

Therapies to improve balance

Therapies that are thought to improve balance and proprioception are T’ai Chi, gentle chair Yoga, gentle stretches, whole body vibration, and myofascial release. Also helpful is to balance on a therapeutic ball to improve your kinesthetic awareness (in this case, knowing where your legs and feet, and arms and hands are located). Neuroscience validates that we can train our brain. People with traumatic brain injury are learning to live life again. 

“The only way we could remember would be by constant re-reading, 

for knowledge unused tends to drop out of mind. 

Knowledge used does not need to be remembered; 

practice forms habits and habits make memory unnecessary. 

The rule is nothing; the application is everything.” 

― Henry Hazlitt, Thinking as a Science

Also see:

Five Safety Tips for the Holidays for Persons Living with Fibromyalgia and Myofascial Pain Syndrome by Celeste Cooper

http://fmcfstriggerpoints.blogspot.com/2014/11/five-safety-tips-for-holidays-for.html#.VHjBzjHF86w

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Update 2015

"Adversity is only an obstacle if we fail to see opportunity."  

Celeste Cooper, RN

Author—Patient—Health Central Chronic Pain Pro —Advocate

New Website

Celeste’s Website: http://CelesteCooper.com

Learn more about what you can do to help your body function to its potential in the books you can find here on Celeste's  blog. Subscribe to posts by using the information in the upper right hand corner or use the share buttons to share with others.

All answers and blogs are based on the author's opinions and writing and are not meant to replace medical advice.  

Resources:

Carson JW1, Carson KM, Jones KD, Bennett RM, Wright CL, Mist SD. A pilot randomized controlled trial of the Yoga of Awareness program in the management of fibromyalgia.

Pain. 2010 Nov;151(2):530-9. doi: 10.1016/j.pain.2010.08.020.

Castro-Sánchez AM1, Matarán-Peñarrocha GA, Arroyo-Morales M, Saavedra-Hernández M, Fernández-Sola C, Moreno-Lorenzo C. Effects of myofascial release techniques on pain, physical function, and postural stability in patients with fibromyalgia: a randomized controlled trial. Clin Rehabil. 2011 Sep;25(9):800-13. doi: 10.1177/0269215511399476. Epub 2011 Jun 14.

Cooper, C and Miller, J. Integrative Therapies for Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and Myofascial Pain: The Mind-body Connection. Healing Arts Press: Vermont. 2010.

Prado ET1, Raso V2, Scharlach RC1, Kasse CA1.Hatha yoga on body balance.Int J Yoga. 2014 Jul;7(2):133-7. doi: 10.4103/0973-6131.133893.

Sañudo B1, Carrasco L, de Hoyo M, Oliva-Pascual-Vaca Á, Rodríguez-Blanco C. Changes in body balance and functional performance following whole-body vibration training in patients withfibromyalgia syndrome: a randomized controlled trial. J Rehabil Med. 2013 Jul;45(7):678-84. doi: 10.2340/16501977-1174.

Jones KD1, Sherman CA, Mist SD, Carson JW, Bennett RM, Li F. A randomized controlled trial of 8-form Tai chi improves symptoms and functional mobility in fibromyalgia patients.Clin Rheumatol. 2012 Aug;31(8):1205-14. doi: 10.1007/s10067-012-1996-2. Epub 2012 May 13.

Part I – Proprioception: Are you a bull in the china cabinet? Is it fibro or myofascial pain syndrome? By Celeste Cooper

Are you a bull in the china cabinet? I know I sure feel like one. We run into things at an extraordinary pace, and we have the bruises to prove it. We feel like our legs are tied together or we are walking a 90 degree angle plank. A disturbance in proprioception is thought to occur in both fibromyalgia (FM) and myofascial pain syndrome (MPS), but for different reasons. Myofascial pain syndrome  can co-exist or be confused with FM.

Proprioception = a sense of where our body and its appendages are located in relationship to the space around us.

Proprioception in Myofascial Pain Syndrome

Myofascialtrigger points (MTrPs) are knotted up pieces of muscle fiber that shorten the muscle, cause pain locally and in a pain referral pattern. They also cause muscle weakness, and joint dysfunction. A temporary problem experienced by those with an athletic or other muscle injury becomes myofascial pain syndrome in others. (Learn more here.) Most people have experienced the pain and stiffness of “sleeping on their neck wrong,” as an example, and they respond well to usual treatments, i.e. massage or in more severe injury, trigger point injections. But in those of us with chronic myofascial pain a simple injury, or a slight breeze can activate trigger points and trigger points develop in other compensating and opposing muscle fibers. 

So How is Proprioception Affected by Myofascial Pain Syndrome? 

A very important muscle in the neck, the sternocleidomastoid (SCM), functions to keep our head where it belongs and provide range of motion. Among other things, it also keeps an eye on where our head is located in space (proprioception) and provides feedback to the brain to help us maintain balance and interpret visual information. When trigger points develop in the sternocleidomastoid, they shorten the muscle placing its job in jeopardy. When this happens we walk into things, drop things without warning, become dizzy, have visual disturbances, experience headaches, and more.

Trigger points in the legs can also affect gait and cause imbalance—another blog for another day.

Proprioception in Fibromyalgia

Proprioception and balance problems have been studied in relationship to fibromyalgia and sleep, posture problems, and neuro regulation. This suggests that fibromyalgia does affects our brain’s ability to orchestrate important information correctly. A Great deal of research suggests this “neuro dysregulation,” is at play, but it is still unclear as to which came first, the cart or the horse. Does the dysregulation that affects proprioception also affect the brains ability to lead the band for immune regulation? Some think yes it does, but that is another story for another day. You can read more about this and the role of myofascial trigger points in Integrative Therapies for Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome,and Myofascial Pain: The Mind-body Connection. 

What is the Difference between FM and MPS, What Sets Them Apart and Links Them Together?

Fibromyalgia is accompanied by certain specific symptoms and particular conditions, such as:  gastrointestinal disorders, TMJ, Raynaud’s, migraine, restless leg syndrome, hypothyroidism, SICCA, bladder and pelvic difficulties  and sexual dysfunction (male and female), chronic fatigue syndrome, hypothyroidism, ankylosing spondylitis, Sjögren’s,  systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple chemical sensitivities,  and autonomic dysfunction. Many of these conditions also share a myofascial component and is why some believe myofascial pain syndrome is a common comorbid disorder to fibromyalgia that explains many symptoms we experience. There are however, some who believe the symptoms we experience are nothing more than random complaints. The later is unfortunate because it impedes important research that might lend better information for why we have such difficulty with our proprioception.

Watch for Part II – Proprioception in FM and MPS: Are you a bull in the china cabinet? What can we do?

Five Safety Tips for the Holidays for Persons Living with Fibromyalgia and Myofascial Pain Syndrome by Celeste Cooper

http://fmcfstriggerpoints.blogspot.com/2014/11/five-safety-tips-for-holidays-for.html#.VHjBzjHF86w

Resources:

Alonso-Blanco C1, Fernández-de-las-Peñas C, Morales-Cabezas M, Zarco-Moreno P, Ge HY, Florez-García M. Multiple active myofascial trigger points reproduce the overall spontaneous pain pattern in women with fibromyalgia and are related to widespread mechanical hypersensitivity. Clin J Pain. 2011 Jun;27(5):405-13. doi: 10.1097/AJP.0b013e318210110a.

Cooper, C and Miller, J. Integrative Therapies for Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and Myofascial Pain: The Mind-body Connection. Healing Arts Press: Vermont. 2010.

Cooper, C. Questioning the Preliminary Proposed Diagnostic Criteria for Fibromyalgia. The Pain Practitioner. 21(2):24-25.

Starlanyl, DJ and Sharkey, J Healing through Trigger Point Therapy: A Guide to Fibromyalgia, Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction. North Atlantic Books (September 11, 2013).

Wolfe F, Brähler E, Hinz A, Häuser W.Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken).Fibromyalgia prevalence, somatic symptom reporting, and the dimensionality of polysymptomatic distress: Results from a survey of the general population. 2013 Feb 19. doi: 10.1002/acr.21931. [Epub ahead of print]

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

"Adversity is only an obstacle if we fail to see opportunity."  

Celeste Cooper, RN

Author, patient/ advocate

http://CelesteCooper.com

All answers and blogs are based on the author's opinions and writing and are not meant to replace medical advice.