Exercise Health Outcomes and Tai Chi
A recently published study (Kerry et al 2025) has identified that structured aerobic exercise has greater positive outcomes in preventing the return of colon cancer after treatment than sedentary lifestyles. Further research is suggested to identify exactly how this works. Here we will suggest potential areas of study relating to observations of non aerobic Tai Chi exercise based on indigenous traditional teaching.
Athletes sometimes describe ‘being in the flow’, a state when activity seems effortless. Flow state is something like the experience of mindful movement that can unfold during Tai Chi practice. Here the intention is to find or unfold a sense of calm effortless flowing movement rather than it being an unintended outcome of an exercise routine.
I have suggested that this somatic approach to Tai Chi allows our physical self to find its own best most efficient posture. This may represent a mechanism for our physical body to remain as healthy as possible.
Here our mind plays a role in this process but it also lets go and allows our autonomic nervous system to adjust our posture and actions. Our mind has the intention of calm action while at the same time it is simply observing, paying attention to internal sensations and feelings.
In this way we do not treat the illness directly but seek to find our most efficient way of being in order to heal or remain healthy using the mind with a whole connected physical self.
Conclusion
Here we have suggested gentle mindful movement like Embodied Tai Chi can provide a potential middle way between a sedentary lifestyle and aerobic exercise when investigating exercise as a preventative health intervention. Further, causation in this process may result from allowing the autonomic nervous system to find the most efficient way of being. This middle way would also make exercise interventions accessible to those people unable to physically engage with aerobic exercise routines and at the same time reduce the identified risk of injury.
The study provided support for the exercise group over a three year period suggesting that there is no quick solution to improved health through exercise. Kerry et al state; ‘To achieve meaningful increases in exercise will require that health systems invest in behavior-support programs’. (Kerry et al 2025 p.12). Yet the cost of providing such exercise programmes may be small compared to the impact on health and social care systems when managing poor health.
Reference
Kerry S. Courneya, Janette L. Vardy, Christopher J. O’Callaghan, Sharlene Gill, Christine M. Friedenreich, Rebecca K.S. Wong, Haryana M. Dhillon, Victoria Coyle, Neil S. Chua, Derek J. Jonker, Philip J. Beale, Kamal Haider, Patricia A. Tang, Tony Bonaventura, Ralph Wong, Howard J. Lim, Matthew E. Burge, Stacey Hubay, Michael Sanatani and Kristin L. Campbell and Fernanda Z. Arthuso and Jane Turner, Ralph M. Meyer, Michael Brundage, Patti O’Brien, Dongsheng Tu and Christopher M. Booth (2025) Structured Exercise after Adjuvant Chemotherapy for Colon Cancer: New England Journal of Medicine, https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2502760 , accessed 3rd June 2025, pdf: