Scientific
Research Findings

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- Mayo Clinic

• Lessens pain sensitivity and disability of arthritis sufferers

• Improves muscles and joint flexibility
• Staves off cancer and heart disease
• Enhances clarity and peace of mind
• Aids digestion and balances weight
• Enhances the immune system
• Improves balance and agility
• Helps lower glucose levels

• Lessens Anxiety disorders
• Curves sleep problems
• Lowers blood pressure
• Increases circulation
• Lowers Depression
• Reliefs Asthma
• Reduces stress
• Reduces pain

"Healthcare in America is expensive and underperforming. Despite spending exponentially more on Healthcare than any other country in the world, Americans suffer from more chronic conditions and poor health than most. Healthcare consumes 18% of our GDP and costs continue to rise. This is unsustainable, and our nation will lose its ability to compete in the global market as a result. Of this expenditures, it is estimated that chronic conditions which are largely affected by people's choices and behaviors consume more than 75% of healthcare costs. The current Healthcare model does not work because we do not have a core competency in engaging the patient to optimize their health, self care and well-being.

Now juxtapose this with the fact that changing lifestyle could prevent at least 80% of all heart disease! . But our system is not designed to do this it is the sign to intervene once the disease is established with very poor outcomes.

We have gotten it wrong. The job of medicine is not only to diagnose and treat disease. This Paradigm along alone does not work. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement is calling for a 'radical redesign' of Healthcare in this country, they call for changing the balance of power, to coproduce health and well-being in partnership with patients, families, and communities. They call for customizing care to the individual's needs, values, and preferences guided by an understanding of "what matters" to the person in addition to "what's the matter"? They call for promoting well-being to focus on outcomes that matter most to people appreciating that their health and happiness may not require health care.

These are indeed radical changes. The question is: how do we redesigned the system to do this?

The answer is Whole Health.? What is Whole Health? Whole Health is an integrative approach to health care that empowers and equips people to take charge of their health and well-being and live their lives to the fullest. But this requires a radical redesign of what health care is. And the time is now!"

Tracy Goudet, MD, Executive Director,

Veterans Health Administration Office of Patient Centered Care and Cultural Transformation

Western Science Research Validates
The Effectiveness Of This Healthcare Approach:

“The main physical benefits of Tai Chi are better balance, improved strength, flexibility and aerobic endurance...” “Psycho-social benefits include less depression, anxiety and stress, and better quality of life.”
- Ruth E. Taylor-Piliae, Ph.D., R.N., the study’s principal investigator and assistant professor at the University of Arizona College of Nursing in Tucson, Ariz. Co-authors are: Tiffany Hoke, R.N.; Bijan, Najafi, Ph.D.; and Bruce Coull, M.D. Author disclosures are on the abstract. An American Heart Association Scientist Development Grant and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Nurse Faculty Scholars Grant funded the study.

"Meditation programs - particularly mindfulness programs designed to focus attention and awareness on inner and outer experiences with acceptance, patience, and compassion - are beneficial for reducing psychological
stress including anxiety, depression, and pain. ”
- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

• “Virtually all major health organizations - including the Arthritis Foundation -recommend Tai Chi because it provides balance of body and mind.”
• “both Tai Chi and Qi-Gong are martial arts that can help your circulation, balance, and alignment. They can also help restore your energy...”
– WebMD

• “A compelling body of research emerges when Tai Chi studies and the growing body of Qi-Gong studies are combined. The evidence suggests that a wide range of health benefits accrue in response to these meditative movement forms”
• “the perceived ability to handle stress or novel experiences and exercise self-efficacy were enhanced”

• “This review has identified numerous outcomes with varying levels of evidence for the efficacy for Qi-Gong and Tai Chi, including bone health, cardiopulmonary fitness and related biomarkers, physical function, falls prevention and balance, general quality of life and patient reported outcomes, immunity, and psychological factors such as anxiety, depression and self-efficacy. ”
• “When both Tai Chi and Qi-Gong are investigated together, as two approaches to a single category of practice, meditative movement, the magnitude of the body of research is quite impressive.”
- National Center for Biotechnology Information

“Of the many outcomes identified by the reviewers, current research suggests that the strongest and most consistent evidence of health benefits for tai chi or qi gong is for bone health, cardiopulmonary fitness, balance and factors associated with preventing falls, quality of life, and self-efficacy (the confidence in and perceived ability to perform a behavior).”
- NIH, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health

“Reported benefits for Parkinson’s students include:
• Improves balance and agility
• Lowers blood pressure
• Increases circulation
• Improves muscles and joint flexibility
• Aids digestion and balances weight
• Reduces stress
• Enhances clarity and peace of mind”

- NCCAM, The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine

“Tai Chi exercise appears to be associated with improved quality of life, mood and exercise self-efficacy in patients with chronic heart failure...”
-April 25 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

“When learned correctly and performed regularly, Tai Chi can be a positive part of an overall approach to
improving your health. The benefits of Tai Chi may include:
• Decreased stress, anxiety and depression
• Improved mood
• Improved aerobic capacity
• Increased energy and stamina
• Improved flexibility, balance and agility
• Improved muscle strength and definition
• Enhance quality of sleep
• Enhance the immune system
• Help lower blood pressure
• Improve joint pain
• Improve symptoms of congestive heart failure
• Improve overall well-being
• Reduce risk of falls in older adults”
- Mayo Clinic

• “Tai Chi probably is one of the best interventions to curb the sky rocking health care cost, which already counts 18% of our Gross Domestic Product or GDP and continues to balloon. Dr. Wayne provides logical scientific reasons why Tai Chi is a suitable low-cost (or no cost) long-term solution for disease prevention and rehab/recovery.”

• “Andrew Weil, MD and Professor of Medicine at University of Arizona, commented, (this book is) “a significant milestone in the integration of Eastern and Western medicine”.

• Herbert Benson, MD and Professor at Harvard University, a pioneer of Mind-Body medicine in the western medicine and world-renowned author of the famous bestseller “The Relaxation Response”. Herbert Benson praised Dr. Wayne by saying “he gives us a magnificent and useful contribution for the betterment of our health and well-being through the proper integration of Tai Chi into our lives”.

- “The Harvard Medical School Guide to Tai Chi: 12 Weeks to a Healthy Body, Strong Heart & Sharp Mind”, Harvard Health Publications, Shambhala, 2013, Peter M. Wayne, PhD, Mark L. Fuerst

“Regular Tai Chi exercise program may help lower blood glucose levels, allowing people with diabetes to better control their disease. Studies such as hers have demonstrated the practice’s vast health benefits.”

- Beverly Roberts, PhD, RN, FAAN, FGSA, Annabel Davis Jenks Endowed Professor for Teaching and Research in Clinical Nursing Excellence at the University of Florida College of Nursing.

• “A growing body of carefully conducted research is building a compelling case for tai chi as an adjunct to standard medical treatment for the prevention and rehabilitation of many conditions commonly associated with age," says Peter M. Wayne, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Tai Chi and Mind-Body Research Program at Harvard Medical School's Osher Research Center.”

• Muscle strength: Tai Chi can improve both lower-body strength and upper-body strength. When practiced regularly, Tai Chi can be comparable to resistance training and brisk walking. "Although you aren't working with weights or resistance bands, the unsupported arm exercise involved in tai chi strengthens your upper body," says internist Dr. Gloria Yeh, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. "Tai Chi strengthens both the lower and upper extremities and also the core muscles of the back and abdomen."
• Flexibility: Tai Chi can boost upper- and lower-body flexibility as well as strength.

• Balance: Tai Chi improves balance and, according to some studies, reduces falls. Proprioception — the ability to sense the position of one's body in space — declines with age. Tai Chi helps train this sense, which is a function of sensory neurons in the inner ear and stretch receptors in the muscles and ligaments. Tai Chi also improves muscle strength and flexibility, which makes it easier to recover from a stumble. Fear of falling can make you more likely to fall; some studies have found that Tai Chi training helps reduce that fear.

• Aerobic conditioning: Depending on the speed and size of the movements, Tai Chi can provide some aerobic benefits.”

- Harvard Health Publications, Harvard Medical School, The health benefits of Tai Chi

• “with the mounting evidence for health benefits and the current progress in research methodology, it is likely that Tai Chi and Qi-Gong will play a strong role in the emerging integrative medicine system as well as in prevention-based interventions in the evolving health care delivery system.”
• “lead author, Dr. Jahnke stated, “This highly visible review of the research literature on the wellness practices of Asian medicine demonstrates that there is a profoundly rich “evidence base” for the efficacy and safety of Qi-Gong and Tai Chi.”
• “This is an historic and immense contribution to the research base of integrative medicine, wellness, gentle excise, mindfulness, health promotion, health-self-reliance, self-care, stress mastery, mind-body practice and energy medicine.”
- The Institute of Integral Qi-Gong and Tai Chi, a training division of Health Action Inc., in collaboration with Arizona State University and the University of Arizona published in the prestigious American Journal of Health Promotion (AJHP).

• “Independent Component Analysis (ICA) of Electroencephalography and Electrocardiography shows elevation of Theta, Alpha, and Beta waves during Qi-Gong meditation, indicative of a dual state of mental relaxation and concentration.”

• “Measurement of Cutaneous Blood Flow with Laser Doppler Flowmetry, shows that many Qi-Gong/Tai Chi movements are highly effective in increasing cutaneous blood flow, particularly when coordinated with deep breathing cycles.”

• “Our on-going studies show that the mind-body practices of Qi-Gong/Tai Chi can induce a state of relaxation by conscious alteration of the sympathetic/parasympathetic balance of the autonomic nervous system. In the comparative studies on the effects of various activities and therapies, we have found a close relationship between changes in blood flow and body energy measured as heat, light, and electricity”

- The Laboratory for Mind-Body Signaling and Energy Research is affiliated with the Department of Developmental & Cell Biology, the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and the Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of California, Irvine (UCI).

“Multifaceted physical activities such as Tai Chi, Qi-Gong, and yoga involve varying combinations of neuromotor exercise, resistance exercise, and flexibility exercise. Neuromotor exercise training is beneficial as part of a comprehensive exercise program for older persons, especially to improve balance, agility, muscle strength, and reduce the risk of falls. Neuromotor exercise training is beneficial as part of a comprehensive exercise program for older persons, especially to improve balance, agility, muscle strength, and reduce the risk of falls”
- American College of Sports Medicine