Qigong & Tai Chi can keep you young!

What keeps us young? Hormones. We humans have both estrogens and testosterone in different ratios depending on our sex.

As we ladies get older, we lose an important source of our estrogen - the ovaries. However there are other sources of estrogen in the body which float around in the blood in the form of estradiol. Usually it is formed from fat cells and in the brain, sometimes it is not enough to balance the system as much as the way the ovaries did. BUT there have been studies that have shown that doing Qigong can raise or maintain the estradiol levels to a normal that keeps away symptoms of menopause.

Loss of estrogen can also affect the bones, and new studies are showing that Tai Chi can help keep the bone density healthy as well as help coordination and balance as we age.

For the gentlemen: As they age their levels of testosterone decrease naturally and the resulting ratio of estrogens:testosterone increases causes symptoms too. The study showed that men in the Qigong study had a reduction of the estradiols and thus improving the ratio to near normal again.

If you are interested in reading about the study go here:
http://www.healthy.net/scr/article.asp?id=382
It revealed that sex hormone levels may be balanced by the practice of Tai Chi & Qigong exercises:
“…female sex hormone (estrogen) levels tend to increase in men and decrease in women as aging occurs. Three studies indicate that tai chi & qigong exercise can reverse this trend. Estradiol levels were measured before and after qigong practice for one year…” Results showed that high estrodiol levels in men lowered to near normal, and low estrodiol levels in women raised to near normal after qigong practice.


These hormones keep our skin younger, keep our libido healthy and affect many systems in a positive way without the use of HRT. HRT (hormone replacement therapy) had been found to be very effective but greatly increased the risk for breast cancer, heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots, so is recommended by doctors less now.

So if you want to maintain your youthfulness as you get older. Find a class, teacher and learn how to do some simple Qigong exercises and keep your youth!

Much of the research upon which the author based this article is derived from a lengthy article by Kenneth Sancier Ph.d
from part d. Improvement in sex hormone levels in his article "Anti Aging Benefits of Qigong" published by The Qigong Institute.