Tai Chi on psychological well-being: systematic review and meta-analysis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Physical activity and exercise appear to improve psychological health. However, the quantitative effects of Tai Chi on psychological well-being have rarely been examined. We systematically reviewed the effects of Tai Chi on stress, anxiety, depression and mood disturbance in eastern and western populations.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Eight English and 3 Chinese databases were searched through March 2009. Randomized controlled trials, non-randomized controlled studies and observational studies reporting at least 1 psychological health outcome were examined. Data were extracted and verified by 2 reviewers. The randomized trials in each subcategory of health outcomes were meta-analyzed using a random-effects model. The quality of each study was assessed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Forty studies totaling 3817 subjects were identified. Approximately 29 psychological measurements were assessed. Twenty-one of 33 randomized and nonrandomized trials reported that 1 hour to 1 year of regular Tai Chi significantly increased psychological well-being including reduction of stress (effect size [ES], 0.66; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.23 to 1.09), anxiety (ES, 0.66; 95% CI, 0.29 to 1.03), and depression (ES, 0.56; 95% CI, 0.31 to 0.80), and enhanced mood (ES, 0.45; 95% CI, 0.20 to 0.69) in community-dwelling healthy participants and in patients with chronic conditions. Seven observational studies with relatively large sample sizes reinforced the beneficial association between Tai Chi practice and psychological health.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Tai Chi appears to be associated with improvements in psychological well-being including reduced stress, anxiety, depression and mood disturbance, and increased self-esteem. Definitive conclusions were limited due to variation in designs, comparisons, heterogeneous outcomes and inadequate controls. High-quality, well-controlled, longer randomized trials are needed to better inform clinical decisions.</p

Tai Chi on psychological well-being: systematic review and meta-analysis,”

Abstract Background: Physical activity and exercise appear to improve psychological health. However, the quantitative effects of Tai Chi on psychological well-being have rarely been examined. We systematically reviewed the effects of Tai Chi on stress, anxiety, depression and mood disturbance in eastern and western populations. Methods: Eight English and 3 Chinese databases were searched through March 2009. Randomized controlled trials, non-randomized controlled studies and observational studies reporting at least 1 psychological health outcome were examined. Data were extracted and verified by 2 reviewers. The randomized trials in each subcategory of health outcomes were meta-analyzed using a random-effects model. The quality of each study was assessed. Results: Forty studies totaling 3817 subjects were identified. Approximately 29 psychological measurements were assessed. Twenty-one of 33 randomized and nonrandomized trials reported that 1 hour to 1 year of regular Tai Chi significantly increased psychological well-being including reduction of stress (effect size [ES], 0.66; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.23 to 1.09), anxiety (ES, 0.66; 95% CI, 0.29 to 1.03), and depression (ES, 0.56; 95% CI, 0.31 to 0.80), and enhanced mood (ES, 0.45; 95% CI, 0.20 to 0.69) in community-dwelling healthy participants and in patients with chronic conditions. Seven observational studies with relatively large sample sizes reinforced the beneficial association between Tai Chi practice and psychological health. Conclusions: Tai Chi appears to be associated with improvements in psychological well-being including reduced stress, anxiety, depression and mood disturbance, and increased self-esteem. Definitive conclusions were limited due to variation in designs, comparisons, heterogeneous outcomes and inadequate controls. High-quality, well-controlled, longer randomized trials are needed to better inform clinical decisions

Miscellany & Actes de la journée Thomas Hardy

The 69th volume of Cahiers victoriens et édouardiens is an issue that compiles eight spontaneous contributions from various fields of research. They compose its first section simply entitled Miscellany. This part features in no specific order the questioning of the heroic in Rider Haggard’s fiction, the way new sound technology fashioned Tennyson’s poetry, love relationships in Tasma’s antipodal fiction, Walter Pater’s dark aestheticism on the one hand and his consideration of old age on the other, the exotic eroticism pervading Daniel Deronda, the mystical ecstasy in Christina Rossetti’s poetry, and the construction of mid-Victorian suburban fiction. The second section is composed of seven contributions by Hardy specialists who attended the annual conference in Lyon in 2007. This part starts with Hardy’s now proverbial “moments of vision” where the woman, object of the male gaze, dissolves the screen and allows a new mode of writing to emerge; it is followed by Hardy’s poetics of stone, the close analysis of two counterpart poems “The Church-Builder” and “The Chapel-Organist”, followed in turn by an article about what the scholar calls the small prose poems pervading Tess of the d’Urbervilles, by a philosophical approach of rapture in “Tess’s Lament” and “Beyond the Last Lamp”, by the constant blending of poetry and fiction in Hardy’s career to end with the twin notions of repetition and poeticality in The Mayor of Casterbridge. Le volume 69 des Cahiers victoriens et édouardiens regroupe huit propositions spontanées constituant la première moitié nommée miscellany. Cette section aborde pêle-mêle le questionnement héroïque dans la fiction de Rider Haggard, la façon dont la nouvelle technologie du son au tournant du siècle a pu façonner la poésie de Tennyson, les relations amoureuses aux antipodes dans la fiction de Tasma, pseudonyme de Jessie Couvreur, deux articles sur Walter Pater (sur ses talents gothiques de « sombre esthète » et sur le thème du vieillissement), l’érotisme exotique qui régit les relations entre les deux protagonistes de Daniel Deronda, l’extase mystique dans les poèmes et la vie de Christina Rossetti, et la construction de la fiction souterraine au cœur de la période victorienne. La seconde section fait figurer sept articles issus de communications données lors de la journée « Thomas Hardy » organisée par Annie Ramel en 2007. On y aborde à la fois les travaux poétiques et romanesques de Hardy : ses « moments of vision » à l’intérieur de ses romans, où la femme, objet du regard de l’homme, permet à l’indicible de s’exprimer, la poétique de la pierre dans l’oeuvre de ce fils d’architecte, le monologue dramatique dans deux poèmes « the Church-Builder » et « The Chapel-Organist », les petits poèmes en prose au sein de Tess, la syncope comme symptôme dans ses œuvres poétiques et romanesques, la frontière poreuse entre roman et poésie qui a toujours prévalu chez lui et, pour finir, la figure de la répétition dans The Mayor of Casterbridge