A Chinese study proves it

A Chinese study shows that 40 minutes of tai chi is better than 40 minutes of stair climbing, cycling or brisk walking to lower blood pressure.

Slow movements, very precisely connected, you’ve probably already seen people doing tai chi in the park. Well, you may want to join them soon. Details by Geraldine Zamanski, a journalist for Health Magazine on France 5.

franceinfo: This traditional Chinese practice has just proven its effectiveness in lowering blood pressure?

Geraldine Zamansky: Well, while our experts generally recommend regular endurance activities to lower arterial blood pressure, a Chinese study has proven that Tai Chi is more effective. For one year, 173 volunteers who did 4 hours a week were followed and the results obtained. While 169 other volunteers alternated the same period of cycling, brisk walking or jogging.

At first, they were all below the official threshold for high blood pressure, the excess pressure in blood vessels associated with increased risks of heart attack or stroke. After 12 months, on the Tai Chi side, and with one in 5 participants out of the red zone, stress “scores” had dropped an average of 30% more.

Without any medicine?

no one And precisely, the improvement made by tai chi is equivalent to the effect of medication against hypertension, as Professor Jacques Blacher, a cardiologist at the Hotel-Dieu in Paris, explained to me. He also noticed heart palpitations, a decrease in heart rate. We talk about it often among great athletes like marathon runners.

Tai Chi will have the same effect. Through actual physical exercise, but done gently according to the principles of Chinese balance. With controlled, slow breathing. The brain no longer receives any stress signals. He no longer needs to keep the heart and body in an alert state.

And will it lower blood pressure?

When this lull is repeated 4 hours a week, it begins to settle between Tai Chi sessions. And it interrupts the vicious circle created by excessive blood pressure, which damages the vessel wall. This slow muscular work will then have a physical and psychological effect, summarizes Professor Blacher.

Great news, because starting is easier than running, for example. If there are no classes near you, there are online videos. Another option provided by a previous study in November: exercises like the chair against a wall or the famous plank to gain strength are also very effective against hypertension!

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