Tai chi could help people with chronic insomnia, experts say

London (PA Media/dpa) – People with chronic insomnia could benefit from tai chi as an alternative to talking therapies, a study has suggested. Researchers writing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) said their study “supports the use of tai chi as an alternative approach for the long-term management of chronic insomnia in middle-aged and older adults”. Guidelines for doctors to treat people with insomnia often include managing issues such as anxiety, as well as short-term courses of sleeping pills and cognitive behavioural talking therapy (CBT) for more severe cases. In the new study, 200 people aged 50 and older with chronic insomnia were split into two groups to either undertake tai chi or have CBT. All of the people in the study were free of other chronic conditions that may affect sleep, were not taking part in regular aerobic or mind-body exercise, had not received previous CBT treatment and were not working shifts. They either did tai chi or CBT for one-hour sessions twice a week, for a total of 24 sessions. People scored their symptoms such as difficulty falling and staying asleep, waking up too early and being unable to go back to sleep, and impact on daily life. After the three-month period was up, the CBT group had better scores on improvements to their insomnia than those undertaking tai chi. However, in the longer-term, 15 months after the start of the study, tai chi seemed to match CBT and even slightly outperformed it. Tai chi and CBT were found to also have comparable benefits in areas such as quality of life, mental health and physical activity level. The authors, from the University of Hong Kong, acknowledged some people in the study may have continued tai chi after the three-month period, which may have skewed the results. But they said: “Our findings suggest that tai chi can lead to substantial improvements in insomnia severity after a three-month intervention while the long-term efficacy of tai chi is non-inferior to that of CBT, the gold standard treatment for chronic insomnia.” The following information is not intended for publication pa dpa coh

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