Depression is one of the more common patient complaints encountered by practitioners of both Western and Eastern medicine. While the Western medical practitioner sees depression as an illness primarily involving an imbalance of brain chemistry, the Eastern doctor views it as an imbalance of the internal energy of the body, or “qi” (pronounced “chee”).
While both types of practitioners treat the disease with medications designed to address this imbalance, they also share the belief that exercise is an important element in helping depressed patients regain their mental and physical health—aerobic exercise as part of a Western treatment regimen, t’ai chi for an Eastern one.
While teaching t’ai chi in Northern Colorado for many years, anecdotally, I can certainly tell you that I have seen practitioners who have experience relief from their symptoms of depression. But in this article, I want to share some of the scientific explanations for this, considering both Eastern and Western medicine.
T’ai Chi Helps Regulate Emotions
There have been many recent studies on the benefits of t’ai chi in alleviating the symptoms of depression, including a landmark one by Kong which is a summary of current research into how t’ai chi can regulate emotions and relieve the symptoms of Major Depressive Disorders (MDD).
This summary found that “t’ai chi may modulate the activity and connectivity of key brain regions involved in mood regulation, reduce neuro-inflammatory sensitization, modulate the autonomic nervous system, and regulate hippocampal neurogenesis.” Here are three documented, positive outcomes of t’ai chi practice that can give hope to those suffering from depression.
T'ai Chi Removes Qi Blockages
Oriental medicine considers most depressive disorders to be a result of qi blockage. This blockage (interestingly translated by some scholars as “qi depression”) occurs when the body’s internal energy does not flow freely through its conduits, the “channels.”
A paper by Scheid discusses the role of qi blockage (or “constraint” as he calls it) in mental illness stating, “biomedical disease categories such as depression or anxiety and popular disease categories such as stress are often conflated with the Chinese medical notion of constraint.” In essence, when the qi is constrained, the emotions can’t flow, and the result can be depression and other mental illnesses.
T'ai chi requires a focus on principles of practice intended to allow the opening of the channels, thus encouraging the free flow of qi†. The first principle is to relax. This principle requires eliminating as much tension as possible from the body, thus allowing energy to flow unimpeded.
The second is to keep the body upright. Upright standing, without slouching or slumping allows the channels to remain open, which permits unrestricted qi flow.
The third principle is to allow the waist to turn freely when performing t’ai chi. This principle is written with the Chinese calligraphic “sung,” which refers to the action taken when one loosens a girdle or sash. This loosening action takes place during the rotation of the torso. The unhindered rotation of the waist allows the qi to flow freely from the physiological center of the body, located just below the navel, then out to the internal organs and limbs.
By adhering to these t’ai chi principles, people suffering from depression enable their qi to flow throughout the body without blockages, and thus the primary condition leading to their illness can be diminished or eliminated altogether.
T’ai Chi Dispels Toxins
There have been many Western studies of the presence of excess cortisol levels in patients with depression. A study by Burke found that elevated cortisol levels due to long-term stress were common in these patients.
From a Western medical perspective, the organs responsible for these high cortisol levels are the adrenals, which in Eastern medicine are components of the “Kidney” channel. In Oriental medicine, high levels of cortisol are thought to represent a flooding of “toxins,” and the accompanying physical and mental disorders are thus deemed to be from an overtaxing of that channel due to stress or other emotional burdens.
T'ai chi has long been known to help the body dispel the toxins caused by emotional turmoil. It helps ease this condition by dampening the body’s response to stress through the relaxation mentioned earlier, and through the internal massage of the kidney organs themselves by its gentle movements and deep breathing.
This notion is supported in a study by Jin, which demonstrated that performing t’ai chi markedly reduces cortisol levels in the saliva. In addition to a reduction in measurable cortisol levels, Jin also reported that subjects who regularly practiced t’ai chi subjectively “experienced less tension, depression, anger, fatigue, confusion, and state-anxiety, and they felt more vigorous, and in general … had less total mood disturbance.” So from both a physical and mental viewpoint, people who struggle with depressive disorders who perform t’ai chi can gain great benefit in alleviating the adverse effects of their illness.
T'ai Chi Decreases Insomnia
Many studies of MDD have shown that insomnia and depression go hand-in-hand. When people experience depression, they often report sleep disturbances. And conversely, when they experience poor sleep they become prone to clinical depression.
A study by Reimann underscores this notion by stating “present day research takes the view on insomnia, i.e., prolonged sleep latency, problems to maintain sleep, and early morning awakening, as a transdiagnostic symptom for many mental disorders, being most closely related to depression.”
By saying that insomnia and depression are “transdiagnostic,” he concludes that one condition is symptomatic of the other.
T’ai chi can play a vital role in breaking up this vicious insomnia-MDD cycle. Indeed, a recent study by Siu of older subjects who either did conventional Western exercise or t’ai chi concluded that,
“both t’ai chi and conventional exercise were associated with improved sleep. Both [exercises] were equally effective in improving various actigraphy-assessed sleep parameters, and these beneficial effects remained persistent 24 months after the [initiation of the study].”
So, if sound sleep can be one of the factors that can either prevent or treat depression, those prone to depression or who are currently suffering from it would be wise to include t’ai chi as part of their daily exercise regimen.
Sign Up for a T’ai Chi Class in Greeley and Improve Your Mental Health
If you want to learn more about how t’ai chi can improve your health, or you want to try a new martial arts or fitness form, I’d love to see you at a Northern Colorado Ruler T’ai Chi™ class or workshop. You can also join the online Chen Tuan Society for exclusive online content and to be the first to know about upcoming events.
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† Most Yang Family t’ai chi forms, especially the one developed by Cheng Man-Ch’ing are based upon what he called “The 5 Principles.” For more detailed information on these principles see T’ai Chi: The Supreme Ultimate Exercise for Health, Sport, and Self-Defense by Cheng Man-Ch’ing, Turtle Publications, 2004.
Sources:
J Kong, “Treating Depression With T’ai Chi: State of the Art and Future Perspectives,” Frontiers in Psychiatry. 2019; 10: 237
V Scheid, “Constraint as a Window on Approaches to Emotion-Related Disorders in East Asian Medicine,” Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry. 2013; 37: 30–58
HM Burke, et al., “Depression and cortisol responses to psychological stress: a meta-analysis,” Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2005; 9: 846-856
P Jin, “Changes in heart rate, noradrenaline, cortisol and mood during T’ai Chi,” Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 1989; 33(2):197-206
D Riemann, et.al., “Sleep, insomnia, and depression,” Neuropsychopharmacology, 2020; 45(1): 74–89.
P M Siu, et. al., “Effects of Tai Chi or Exercise on Sleep in Older Adults With Insomnia,” JAMA Network Open, 2021; 4(2): e2037199