Just One Thing - Try Tai Chi Facts By Dr Michael Mosley

[Music] we would all like some quick and simple ways to improve our health but we're inundated with often conflicting advice so if you were going to try just one thing to improve your mental and physical well-being what should it be perhaps the martial art of ta Chi to improve your immune system maybe a few nuts to slow aging or how about cleaning your teeth to give your brain AB boost I'm Dr Michael Mosley and this is just one thing where each episode we'll explore one thing you can start doing today to improve your health or life in ways you might not expect I'm in my garden and I'm doing some gentle slow exercise that should not only improve my balance but may also benefit my immune system and my heart health I am doing Tai Chi an ancient Chinese martial art it's sometimes called Shadow Boxing or perhaps more aptly meditation in motion and it's a series of different postures that are supposed to gently flow into each other in slow movements in the last few years there has been some fascinating Research into its Whole Body Benefits although the movements are slow they do require effort I can tell by measuring my pulse that my heart rate has risen I'll be speaking to a scientist who surprisingly enough found taiichi as effective for weight loss as conventional exercise and because ta Chi is a mix of exercise and meditation your brain gets a workout as well as your body so how about going with the flow and trying out some taiichi I'm speaking to Sabina from Harrow to find out if this is just one thing she'd like to try Sabina what sort of exercise do you like doing I actually like walking I like Zumba I have a gym just near here I do like the weightlifting classes but it's the motivation just to get there but once you're there you're thinking why didn't I come earlier so it's just the going there I think sometimes is the hardest thing absolutely I think that's very common and what are you hoping to get out of exercise why are you doing it I'm going through the menopause I'm pre-diabetic so I need to get fitter healthier and lose the weight Tai Chi seems to be a good way of Shifting the visceral fat the stuff around your tummy and that is to a large extent what is driving your pre-diabetes so here's your challenge for the next week I'd like you to practice taiichi now you can find a lot of videos online some for beginners some more advanced or you can join a local class I want you to do 15 minutes a day every day do you think you can fit that in over the next week definitely so I've asked Sabina to have a go at tight Chi this week this ancient practice is immensely popular in China but is particularly beloved in Hong Kong where residents have one of the highest life expectancies in the world is this connected well possibly there certainly a surprising amount of science amassing into the health benefits of Tai Chi a study published in 2022 for example which followed 60,000 men in Shanghai for 5 years found that those who practiced taii lived significantly longer than those who didn't which could just mean that people who practice Tai Chi are more careful about their health or that there really is something else going on but what well taichi is said to be good for heart health and in a recent study where they compared to bris walking they found that taiichi was significantly better at reducing not only blood pressure but also other risk factors for heart disease such as blood sugar levels and cholesterol not only that Tai Chi could also benefit your immune system in a fascinating study from the University of California a 100 volunteers were randomly allocated into two groups half took taii classes for 16 weeks while the other half took health education classes including advice on stress diet and sleep both groups received a vaccine against shingles a painful skin rash caused by the same virus as chickenpox 9 weeks later certain measures of immunity in the Tai Chi group were twice as high as that in the control group the taichi group also showed greater improvements in physical functioning Vitality mental health and reductions in bodily pain and though it looks gentle taichi can help you lose weight just as effectively as conventional exercise I'll talk to an expert about the latest research on that in a moment first though let's check in with Sabina to see how she's getting on with her challenge so I um on my third day I have found an online video and I did it on Friday and Saturday and today I've done it I actually was able to keep up with the flow my positions and I felt like I had a bit of a rhythm today the positions the movements are really good physically the arms are a bit more tired because you're using the arms a lot more and you feel like you've done something positive my mood is also very good after I do it and I feel like I've achieved something we'll catch up with Sabina again at the end of the week and see if she's enjoying this moving meditation enough to make it just one thing she'll keep up now let's speak to Dr PCO from the University of Hong Kong who has been studying the health benefits of taiichi for over a decade hello Dr F hello Michael can you tell me about the benefits of taii Tai Chi has been shown to have various health benefit in including for osteitis management cardiorespiratory and muscular skeletal Fitness cardiio metabolic health and psychological Health now I'm really interested in the impact of taii on the brain and I believe you've done a recent study on that yes we compared the practice of taii and conventional exercise in including aerobic exercise and muscle strengthening activities for 24 weeks for improving cognitive function in older adults with mild cognitive impairment and in our study we found that taii actually can induce greater and earlier improvements on global cognitive function and cognitive flexibility now how quickly did you see the changes in people's cognitive function their ability to function in daily life when they started doing touy we start to see Improvement of the the cognitive function for the taii participant after 12 weeks we are talking about three hours of the taii practicing per week when we go to the end of the 24 weeks the conventional exercise group also shown Improvement we concluded that taii can actually induce an earlier Improvement when we examine their cognitive function right now that is really striking and by cognitive function presumably you mean things like memory and also mental flexibility your ability to switch between tasks that sort of thing yes and all this actually add up together allowed us to function in our daily life have there been studies which also show actual changes in the brain yes taii seems to train up your brain as well just like you working out your body and simultaneously you are training up your brain and there has been evidence from brain Imaging studies suggest that your brain would adapt at both the structural and functional levels that's been shown increases in the cortical thickness in the brain region related to cognitive function and other than that uh that has also been shown increase in the functional connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and the medial temporal Loop of our brain after taii practicing so all this can uh preliminarily uh suggest that practicing Tai Chi may help our brain to function better do you see similar changes going on in the brain to those you see when you do more conventional exercise conventional exercise can change the brain a little bit but not to the extent of what we observe from taiichi training now why do you think taiichi is having this impact on the brain because it's not that vigorous I think on one hand taii includes moderate intensity physical activity but on the other hand taii actually incorporates the meditations into the movements and I think that's why you may want to learn to incorporate the meditations during the taii movement in order to acquire the most benefit from taii I believe you've also done a study looking at taii and central obesity can you tell me about that yeah sure that was actually a very interesting study and one of my favorite study our perious study found that actually taii is about as effective as conventional exercise like including aerobic exercise muscle strengthening activities for reducing our waste circumference in the individual with central obesity that is really a good news because people may be adverse to commcial exercise due to some reason like their preference or their limited Mobility but now they can have another option that can allow them to manage the condition of censal obesity right because I think of central obesity as a problem because you have so much of this visceral internal fat which is filling up your internal organs and that's a bad thing now with taii from the outside it looks like a very gentle thing actually we observe taichi can perform similarly as the conventional exercise that means the participant practicing taii they burn similar calorie compared to the commen exercise in our research setting but if you look at people who practice taii it looks like it's very gentle very slow very smooth movement it doesn't look like they exercising and that's why this research studies getting a lot of interest suggesting that even you practice taiichi that can also reduce your way circumference suggesting that that may have a beneficial effect on your visceral fat now for our listeners who are total beginners how would you recommend they get started well I will recommend to the audience to join and taii class supervised by the qualified instructor because taii include both the bodily movement and the meditation component uh the bodily movement is not difficult to pick up in front of the the online video the difficult part will be the meditation part if someone that can guide you and Lead You and do it together with you that will be tailor made for you to pick up the meditation or the So-Cal moving meditation skills um more quickly and so if you can get that benefit uh and you will enjoy the process a lot more I would say but for those audience who may not be able to join the fitness class I think it will be also possible for you to look for some online video just to pick up a little bit the basic skill the fundamental move and that could help you to get started right that's the science let's check in with Sabina one final time and find out if Tai Chi is something she'll carry on with it's been 7 days and I feel better and I feel that it's very positive in the sense of my core strength my upper body is a lot stronger it's also been very good for my joints my neck my wrists doing the taichi has helped with my balance and it's surprising that it did that I feel like I will do taiichi moving forwards I am looking at classes it's a really positive feeling for my future and it's just been wonderful ah I have just finished off a Tai Chi session and I'm feeling good and I'm delighted to hear that Sabina has enjoyed her taiichi week and is planning to keep it up I've been doing taii all week as well there's an easy video on the BBC website and you can also try one you'll find on the NHS website what I really enjoy about taii is it's easy to do at home and you don't even need to get changed so why not give it a go try some taichi and your immune system your heart and your brain could all benefit so that's it it's just one thing you can incorporate into your daily routine which really could benefit your body and life if you want to hear more of the series why not subscribe