Here's a good article I found posted on linked in about the benefits of Mindful Meditation in "Scientific American" which is what Tai Chi is: "Mindful Meditation in Motion". What is surprising is that actual physical changes in the brain are noted as mindful meditation is regularly practiced - most notably the amygdala (associated with lower order brain activity e.g. - stress) shrinks and the pre-frontal cortex (associated with higher order activity e.g. - awareness, decision-making & concentration) becomes thicker resulting in a better, more thoughtful control over the primal stress response. With regards to pain this article reinforces the previous post I wrote about how mindfulness affects the interpretation of pain. That is, the practice of mindfulness seems to allow the practitioner to have more control over the thought processes that exacerbate the experience of pain, hence lower the experience of pain felt. They (regular meditators) still feel it but the pain is lessened & they think that this is a permanent change in perception & brain structure!
Check the article out:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2014/06/12/what-does-mindfulness-meditation-do-to-your-brain/?WT.mc_id=SA_sharetool_Twitter
Check the article out:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2014/06/12/what-does-mindfulness-meditation-do-to-your-brain/?WT.mc_id=SA_sharetool_Twitter
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