Taijiquan (Tai Chi) and your Brain

Taijiquan (Tai Chi) training, as taught by Grandmaster Chen-Xioawang, requires daily practice of Zhanzhuang, which is also called Standing Meditation. The name is not just due to poetic license: even tough in the first months of Taijiquan (Tai Chi) this exercise may seem very physical, it does take the student to a meditative state.

A research published in the Jan 30th, 2011 edition of Psychiatry Research – Neuroimaging sugests that regular meditation practice led to an increase in the gray matter in the subject’s brains, when compared to the control group. The changes took place in areas of the brain linked to memory and learning proccesses, emotional regulation, self-reference and perspective taking.

This is probably the first study demonstrating anatomical changes caused by meditation, using MR images of the brain, and shows how one can benefit from Taijiquan (Tai Chi).
Read also the New York Times article about it.