92 percent of employees say financial worries are keeping them up at night,
according to a poll released by ComPsych Corporation today.
- Business Wire; 2008-10-27
- Reuters

According to UCLA researchers, performing Tai Chi improves sleep.

In UCLA a controlled study, the Tai Chi group, practicing two hours of Tai Chi per week, left 63% of the Tai Chi group with improved quality of sleep. The control group practicing only healthy habits, but no Tai Chi practice, left only 32% with improved quality of sleep. Tai chi alone doubled people's chances of improved sleep patterns, over simply adopting healthy habits.
- ConsumerReportsonHealth.org

AS OUR ECONOMY SHIFTS and our 401k meltdowns occur, there is not much that can help change that in the short term. However, one thing is certain. If we suffer severe stress damage, and chronic sleep loss, while it is happening, we will make panic driven decisions that will be made in a state of fear constricted tunnel vision.

Whatever decisions we make, or if we simply choose to stay in and ride out the bear market, our health will only be damaged by continually gnashing our teeth and ruining our sleep as we do it. A recent study at UCLA found that the practice of the ancient mind/body art of Tai Chi "doubled" the study group's ability to maintain healthy restful sleep. In fact, if we tighten our bodies and minds, we will be less capable of the change our world needs to evolve to the next level of possibility.

Wise men once reminded us, "And this too shall pass." One thing that is always true, is that no matter how bad things get, those bad times do not last forever. So, our task is to ride out the present in a way that damages us the least, and maintains our health, so that we don't make things worse while we wait for this too to pass. So let's look at the dynamics of stress and sleep, and then at some powerful therapies we can utilize.

How does stress disrupt our sleep? The human mind and body can hold onto stress in all of the fifty-trillion cells that make us up.. During the busy day, or mind is often too occupied to notice it at all. However, at night, when we lay down and let go of everything, then the stress load we've collected in our body, heart and mind, begin to evaporate through our consciousness... and you experience them as those swimming thoughts and worries that fill your mind when you try to sleep at night.

How does Tai Chi help? Tai Chi is an ancient mind/body cleansing exercises designed to process the stress loads we accumulate each day, so that we can release them and enable the mind and body to operate in its highest mode of efficiency and health. Tai Chi combines deep breathing techniques, gentle body movement, and visualization techniques that, when combined, are the metaphoric equivalent of running your central nervous system through a car wash. The gripping, clutching mind and body you start with on one end of your Tai Chi exercise is left behind, as you exit this mind/body cleansing with a fresh, more sparkly and clear perspective of life. Let's examine the three main elements of Tai Chi, in a more detailed way, through the following free tutorials you can enjoy on the internet right now.

BREATHING

Tai Chi is a form of Qigong (Chi Kung), which means "breathing exercise," or "energy exercise." Ancient Chinese researchers found that when we get stressed we constrict our breathing. In fact, our natural response to stress is to "hold our breath." Part of this is inherited from our pre-historic ancestors who'd "freeze" if a lion or tiger looking for lunch came around. However, our modern world stress is not fooled when we tighten and hold our breath. All that habit does now, is lock up the stress deeply into the fifty-trillion cells of our body, to... yes, that's right, wait until we try to go to sleep so it can evaporate through our tired mind.

So, by learning to breathe fully, even when stressed, is a powerful response to modern stress. That is what Qigong is designed to teach us.

You can visit this website page, where you'll see a video entitled "Qigong Breathing - Video Tutorial," which is a free tutorial, provided by World Tai Chi & Qigong Day, a worldwide health education effort that provides free resources to a stressed out world.

VISUALIZATION

Once you experience the above "breathing tutorial," and learn to practice full diaphragmatic breaths that can allow your entire torso to begin to unlock it grip on itself, you'll now be better equipped to enjoy a deeper visualization experience. This 17 minute experience will allow you to go a bit deeper, and enable your mind, body, and heart or emotional awareness to begin to release and un-load your accumulated stress loads at even deeper levels.

When you begin this process, your mind may spin that "I don't have time for this," or it may come up with a hundred other things you should be doing instead. Realize this, if you don't process your stress loads now, you'll be doing it when you lay down to go to sleep. Investing 17 minutes a couple of times per day, may help gain you many hours of restful sleep in coming days and weeks. Now, you can sit back, close your eyes, relax, and enjoy this 17 minute exercise.

At this webpage you'll see a Tai Chi woman pointing to a "Da Vinci Yin Yang" image. When you click on that, a free 17 minute Sitting Qigong Relaxation and Mind Expansion video will begin. Breathe, relax, enjoy.

GENTLE MOVEMENT

The third aspect of Tai Chi, beyond breathing and visualization techniques, is the gentle movement series. Gentle movement massages the body, as we breathe and let go of old rigidity we feel as we move. However, Tai Chi has a regimen or repertoire of movements that are always the same, like a dance move. The purpose of this is to engage the mind, so that it cannot run off and worry about the fears and stresses of the day.

When you do purely physical exercise like the stationary bike or the treadmill, etc. the mind often isn't "here and now" with you. In fact, at the gym you'll see people reading or watching TV while they do it. Even runners around the track often have headsets telling them the business news, or reading books on tape, or pulsing music into their heads. This is completely different than Tai Chi, for Tai Chi is a mind/body exercise that is all encompassing.

As you flow through the Tai Chi movements you are becoming deeply aware of your breathing, and using visualization techniques with that breathing to deeply release subtle stress loads your body, heart and mind have accumulated.

Would you like to experience a free Tai Chi lesson? World Tai Chi & Qigong Day's effort to distress the world, also offers a free video Tai Chi lesson on line. Visit this web page and click on the image of the Tai Chi figures with the words "Click for FREE Tai Chi Lesson."

Now that you have completed the "breathing tutorial," and the "sitting qigong relaxation therapy experience," and now a couple of "tai chi movements" on the video tutorial, you are probably feeling much better than you had in a long long while. I'd be willing to wager you are definitely feeling the best you have since the market began collapsing a few months ago.

Okay, now don't stress out about that. Continue coming back to the free video tutorials on the above pages every day. Keep expanding the sensation of safety and ease those exercises provide. WorldTaiChiDay.org also provides national and international directory of Tai Chi and Qigong teachers and schools, which is free to both you and teachers worldwide, to help connect a stressed out world with stress solutions.

Tai Chi isn't a drug, and it won't make your problems go away. Our world is changing, and we may need to change too. What we will find, is what Mr. Jagger told us long ago, "You can't always get what you want. But if you try some time, well you just might find... you'll get what you need."

Decades ago, back when I was first learning Tai Chi in Southern California, like millions of others, I'd get stuck in the 405 freeway traffic each morning. A morning DJ would come on between songs and do what he called the morning mantra. He'd engage all of us on the freeway to join him in chanting, "EGBOK, EGBOK, EGBOK." EGBOK was the acronym for "Everything is Going to Be OK."

I don't know what America or the world will look like on the other end of this crisis. But one thing I do know is that the Chinese character for "crisis" is made up of two other characters, one "danger" and the other "opportunity." Our world is changing. A danger is we hold our breath, tighten our gripping fists, and resist change. An opportunity is we learn time tested tools to relax, and breathe, and open to change as dynamic surfers of a new world.

As far as the crisis, it always was and always will be true that... this too shall pass. Our only choice is, do we get beaten and victimized by the changes coming at us, or do we allow them to evolve us into something wiser and more true than we were before.

Now, all together, take a deep breath, and when you let that breath out, let every cell in your body let go, letting your shoulders relax down and away from your neck. Two more nice full breaths, and on that sighing exhale as every cell lets go right at the deepest roots of your being, let the morning mantra flow through your lungs, throat and mouth, "EGBOK, EGBOK, EEEEEGGGGGBBBBBOOOOOKKKKK."

© Bill Douglas, 2009

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bill Douglas is the author of a #1 best selling tai chi book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to T'ai Chi & Qigong, and the founder of World Tai Chi & Qigong Day, held annually in hundreds of cities, in sixty-five nations and all fifty US states.

Bill began teaching mind/body stress management techniques for many of the world's largest corporations, after leaving a career in human resources. Bill reached an epiphany, and decided he could spend the rest of his life refereeing stress-induced conflicts in HR... or... could share highly effective stress management techniques with companies worldwide. Bill's decision led his being a Tai Chi source for The Wall Street Journal; The New York Times; BBC World Radio; The South China Morning Post; USA Weekend; and media worldwide.

You can reach Bill at his website SMARTaichi.com.