Abstract:
The literature method was used to search for Chinese and foreign literature published in the past 20 years in CNKI and PUBMED databases, and the effects of Tai Chi on the treatment of depression were analyzed, summarized and concluded. The study found that Tai Chi exercise has a beneficial effect on the treatment of depression, and most intervention studies can significantly reduce the depressive symptoms of patients; there are limitations in intervention experiments, and future intervention studies must consider these limitations.
1, Previous article Tai Chi exercise
The role of exercise, especially Tai Chi exercise, in promoting physical and mental health has attracted more and more attention. Depression is a syndrome characterized by psychological depression, which seriously threatens people’s physical and mental health. Tai Chi is a traditional national sports project that integrates health care, self-cultivation and cultural bearing, and has a certain impact on all systems of the human body. Tai Chi can reduce psychological pressure, relax emotions, and has effects on anxiety, depression and insomnia. Therefore, Tai Chi can enable patients to establish correct cognitive methods, promote patients’ physical and mental health, and thus alleviate the symptoms of patients with depression.
Foreign scholar Ma Y et al. evaluated the effects of Tai Chi training on sleep quality, depression level and social function level of patients with depression and found that Tai Chi training can effectively improve sleep quality and emotional symptoms of patients with depression. Domestic scholar Zhang Yidan conducted experimental research on patients with depression using the Anxiety Self-rating Scale and the Depression Self-rating Scale. The experimental results showed that 24-style Tai Chi has a good effect on the treatment of depression, can improve the tension of the central nervous system, exercise the central nervous system, activate the functions of various systems and organs, and improve the coordination ability of various systems of the human body. This article uses the literature method, with “depression patients” and “Tai Chi” as keywords, to search in databases such as PUBMED and CNKI, select literature related to this study, analyze, summarize and summarize the effects of Tai Chi exercise on the treatment of patients with depression.
2, Tai Chi’s Effect on Anxiety
Long-term Tai Chi exercise can significantly reduce the patient’s anxiety, and the practice time is negatively correlated with the number of people with depressive symptoms. Studies have shown that as the Tai Chi practice time increases, the number of people with depressive symptoms decreases significantly, indicating that long-term Tai Chi practice has a significant effect on improving depressive symptoms. If anxious patients can practice Tai Chi for a long time, their anxiety levels can be reduced. Lower anxiety levels can improve people’s memory and cognitive function, improve quality of life, enhance people’s energy, reduce smoking behavior, information overload, time pressure and negative thinking, etc. Tai Chi exercise has a very wide range of regulatory effects on individual depression, and is significantly negatively correlated with depression-related symptoms.
3, Tai Chi’s Effect on Subjective Well-Being
Tai Chi exercise can improve the subjective well-being of the exerciser, improve the bad mood of children and adolescents, and some bad emotional symptoms will also be alleviated or even disappear slowly. Influenced by factors such as emotions, social support, coping methods and cognitive methods, subjective well-being is an overall evaluation of the quality of life by an individual according to self-determined standards. Among the people who participate in Tai Chi exercise, the subjective well-being of middle-aged and elderly people, especially those over 60 years old, is higher, and the happiness of women is higher than that of men. Cai Yan et al. conducted a two-month Tai Chi intervention on 100 patients with depression. The experimental results showed that the SAS and SDS scores of the patients were significantly lower than those of the control group, proving that Tai Chi, as a relaxation exercise from the perspective of human body structure, can cause psychological, physiological and biochemical changes in the body, stimulate nerves and muscles through harmonious rhythms, make people experience happiness from exercise, produce pleasant emotions, and improve the quality of life of patients.
4, Tai Chi’s influence on psychological stress level
The improvement of self-efficacy related to Tai Chi exercise is negatively correlated with the reduction of psychological stress level of the exerciser. Psychological pressure is also called psychological stress in medicine. It refers to various events from psychology, society and culture. Under the influence of factors such as cognition and personality characteristics, the brain converts the stimulus signal into abstract concepts, processes, handles and stores them, and then causes various diseases through the interaction between the nerve-endocrine-immune system. Through the study of the influence of Tai Chi exercise on anxiety state, subjective well-being and psychological stress level, it can be known that Tai Chi can improve the negative emotions of patients with depression and has a significant beneficial effect on the mental health of patients.
5, The influence of Tai Chi on other diseases complicated with depression
Tai Chi exercise has a good improvement effect on depression. It can greatly improve the physical health, mental health, sleep quality and other aspects of patients with depression to a certain extent, and improve the quality of life of patients.
5.1 The influence of Tai Chi on patients with Parkinson’s depression Wang Jianzhong conducted a 16-week Tai Chi combined with antidepressant intervention experiment on 80 patients with Parkinson’s disease and depression. The results showed that Tai Chi can not only improve patients’ motor ability and balance ability, but also relieve depression, which has positive significance for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease and depression patients. Wu PL et al. found that balance training programs such as Tai Chi can improve the postural stability and quality of life of patients with Parkinson’s disease and depression.
5.2 The impact of Tai Chi on patients with post-stroke depression Tai Chi has a certain effect on the recovery of neurological function in patients with post-stroke depression. Tai Chi is based on Tai Chi philosophy and emphasizes breathing and relaxation methods. It can adjust yin and yang and dredge meridians, improving the depression of patients with post-stroke depression. Zhao Bin et al. selected 60 patients with post-stroke depression for research and found that after practicing Tai Chi, the patients’ motor function and daily living activities were significantly improved. Tai Chi has a positive effect on improving the depression and motor function of patients with post-stroke depression. Li Yuling et al. also found through experiments that applying sitting Tai Chi exercises to rehabilitation training for patients with post-stroke depression can improve their depression and improve their quality of life.
5.3 The effect of Tai Chi on depression in patients with other diseases Six randomized controlled trials conducted by Zheng Wei and Li Qiang found that Tai Chi, as an auxiliary method to intervene in schizophrenia, can improve patients’ social function, stress and depression; Wu Yonghui and others conducted a three-month Tai Chi intervention on patients with coronary heart disease accompanied by anxiety and depression and found that Tai Chi can effectively improve the anxiety and depression of patients with coronary heart disease, and has low requirements for venues and facilities, is simple and easy to learn, and can be promoted as a routine exercise method in the rehabilitation of patients with coronary heart disease. Tai Chi combined with conventional treatment can improve the sleep quality, depression and quality of life of elderly patients with chronic congestive heart failure and depression, and can improve the anxiety, depression and sleep quality of hemodialysis patients.
6, Summary and Outlook
Tai Chi can effectively relieve depressive symptoms, promote the physical and mental health of patients, improve the coordination ability of various systems of the human body, activate the functions of various systems and organs, improve sleep quality, significantly improve patients’ subjective well-being, and reduce anxiety and negative emotions.
Tai Chi intervention in depression also has certain limitations. First, the number of Tai Chi intervention experiments is very limited. These experiments only involve a small number of participants, which is not enough to illustrate the reliability of detecting differences. The results of some research experiments show a trend of improvement, but this is not a statistically significant level, so a larger-scale study of Tai Chi intervention is needed. Second, the age range of the subjects is very wide, there is no strict segmented experiment, and there is no treatment study for male and female patients separately, so it is impossible to determine the differences between different occupational groups and different ethnic groups.
The mechanism of Tai Chi’s influence on patients with depression and the mechanism of Tai Chi exercise in improving patients’ depression have not been studied and reported in detail. There are still very few intervention studies on Tai Chi exercise to improve depression symptoms. Further research is needed on the therapeutic efficacy of Tai Chi exercise on patients with depression of different ages and genders, the impact of Tai Chi on other diseases, and the efficacy and differences of different cultural backgrounds and different occupations.