Standing Meditation
Tai Chi and staying Healthy. Can Tai Chi prevent the Flu?
Every winter we deal with the flu bug, it comes in many guises and despite the fact that many of us go in for our annual flu shot, a large percentage of us can count on losing time from work due to the flu. Can Tai Chi prevent the Flu? During flu season you continuously hear about making sure you have your flu shot, you wash your hands frequently and so on, but what most people have never heard and many are skeptical about is that the regular practice of Tai Chi can actually reduce your chances of coming down with the flu in any form.
How can the practice of an exercise such as the Tai Chi being taught in Portland Oregon prevent you from coming down with your annual case of the flu? What you need to understand is that influenza is viral illness that attacks your immune system. If your immune system is weak in any way, the flu bug will attack it successfully and overcome it, the net results of this you are probably all too aware of. Your immune system must have sufficient antibodies to fight off the flu virus or you will succumb to them.
There are many ways that you can increase the number of antibodies that reside in your blood stream; the first is the injections you go in for each year that contain the specific antibodies to fight off the flu. The other is a much more holistic approach and requires no medication at all, but rather uses meditation such as you practice while moving through the forms of Tai Chi. Several test studies have been run in recent years proving that those who meditate have a significantly higher number of antibodies in their bloodstream than those who do not.
Tai Chi
In recent study conducted at UCLA a group of 50 seniors all in their 70s was split into two separate groups, each of which had blood tests to measure the level of antibodies in their blood at the outset. Group A was involved in Tai Chi classes three times a week that lasted one hour. Group B the control group did not participate in the classes. Blood tests were taken over a period of five months to see how their immune systems reacted to the flu virus.
Those who practiced Tai Chi were found to have a significantly higher antibody response to the virus than those who did nothing. The conclusion of all of the different studies conducted was that the mindful practice of Taiji can be a fundamental approach to increasing the immunity levels of the human body to the influenza virus and the best part is that this is a low cost if not free treatment that is effective against any strain of the virus.
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