-- Business Wire -- Reuters; 2008-10-27

"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. There may be a way to navigate these "interesting times" in a saner way. 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. This may offer both short term, and long term benefits to the crisis we face.

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. In the long term, effective, stress management mind/body tools like Tai Chi and Qigong, can be a part of a new economic alignment that can rehabilitate our global economy. Here's how. Medical research by Kaiser Permenente found that between 70% and 85% of illness sending patients to doctors is caused by stress. In coming years estimates are that United States health spending will exceed $4 trillion annually. This means that by educating our citizens and public education students in mind/body stress management tools, we could literally avoid trillions of dollars in illness in coming years. Those savings could be utilized to convert to a free energy, clean energy economy, rebuild infrastructure, including expanding broadband connectivity nationwide, and other investments that could revitalize a 21st century economy.

But, now back to the moment, and your current short term concerns. 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 each of us is constructed of. During the busy day, our mind is often too occupied to notice this accumulating stress. However, at night, when we lay down and let go of everything, that is when the stress loads we have collected throughout the day and week, in our body, heart and mind, begin to evaporate through our consciousness . . . and you experience these collected loads 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, which . . . yes, that's right . . . waits until we try to go to sleep at night to 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 the below 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. http://www.worldtaichiday.org/WTCQDHlthBenft.html

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 its grip on itself, you'll now be better equipped to enjoy a deeper visualization experience. This 17 minute experience below 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 with thoughts such as, "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 the below 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. http://www.worldtaichiday.org/LESSONQigong.html

GENTLE MOVEMENT: The third aspect of Tai Chi or other Moving Qigong, 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 the below web page and click on the image of the Tai Chi figures with the words "Click for FREE Tai Chi Lesson." http://www.worldtaichiday.org/LESSONTaiChi.html

Continue on to Part 2 of "Surviving the Financial Meltdown - Everything Is Going to Be Okay" for more useful information for facing your stressful challenges.