禪武醫有助提升身心健康

Chanwuyi as A Way to Improve Psychological and Physical Health

Part of the essence in Chanwuyi is to get control of ones’ thoughts. Many psychological problems are caused by negative thoughts or illogical thinking. For instance, stress and anxiety may have resulted from unnecessary worry on daily living, negative thoughts, and unrealistic beliefs. If one can learn to control the way of thinking, many psychological problems might be reduced. Thus, Chanwuyi can potentially be an effective psychological intervention for people who wish to improve their psychological wellness.

“Mind-wandering” is a new concept in recent scientific study, referring to the experience of people’ mind not concentrating on a single topic, but thinking about something other than what they are doing for a long period of time. Interestingly, research studies showed people who spend less time on wandering his/her mind is happier than those who are always “day-dreaming”. Yet, mind-wandering is an unconscious and automatic process that almost every individual lives with a wandering mind. From the brain-science perspective, mind-wandering may lead to a waste of mental energy. Because individuals spend a lot of energy thinking about something unproductive, there is not much energy left for them to complete what they are supposed to do. This might be one of the causes of why we are less productive at work sometimes. Thus, practising Nei Gong, can be a training of the mind, to improve the productivity of the individuals.

According to the Chinese medical concept, there are some elements inside our body that have not been able to be measured or made visible with a medical machine, which are the Qi and Blood. The term “Blood” does not have the same meaning that is commonly understood in western medicine, but it is rather a dense form of body fluids that acts upon and is energized by the Qi. The Qi and Blood can be considered as a circulation system inside the organs, bones, muscles, skins and neural system of human body. A smooth and effective circulation of the Qi and Blood is the key to psychological and physical health. Practice of Nei Gong is to improve the circulation of the Qi and blood, thus an effective internal circulation system can be maintained in our body. In Western terms, that is to improve the functioning of our immune system.

Dejian Mind-body Intervention

To apply the traditional Chinese culture into modern society, we have developed a practical and easy-to-follow method, and termed it the Dejian Mind-Body Intervention (DMBI). This Chinese Chan-based mind-body Intervention is developed based upon the Chanwuyi, and is originated from the Shaolin Temple. The DMBI is named after the Grand Master of Chanwuyi – Shi Dejian (who is originated from Shaolin Temple and now the abbot of Songshan Monastery). Recent empirical studies on this intervention have shown that it has positive effects in improving physical health, mood and cognitive functions in children with autism, adults with brain damage and depression, and community-dwelling adults with memory difficulties.

The principle of the DMBI is to alleviate psychological distress by understanding the root of problems in accordance with Buddhism philosophy, also enhance psychological and physical health by refining dietary habits, practicing some Nei Gong exercises (i.e., mind-body exercises), and clearing bodily orifices (i.e., openings of the body). The DMBI also emphasizes an integrative intervening approach for the mind and the body through a thought changing process. It consists of four interconnected elements including: (1) diet modification, (2) awareness of the truth of self and the world (3) practice of Nei Gong, and (4) clearing of the bodily orifices. Although the four components of DMBI are interconnected to bring maximum treatment effects, each component or a combination of different components can be tailor-made flexibly for specific clinical cases.

Diet

According to the traditional Chinese Chan healing practice (i.e., Chanyi), some foods, if taken, will generate excessive internal heat, which in turn adversely affects our cognitive ability, emotional management and physical health. These foods include ginger, garlic, green onion, spicy foods, eggs, meat, and fish. Thus, avoiding these foods will have a positive effect on our psychological and physical health.

Nei Gong

Nei Gong is somewhat like Tai Chi, involve exercises that emphasize smooth, gentle, and calm movements. The benefits of practicing Nei Gong is twofold. On the one hand, Nei Gong helps reduce stress, increase flexibility of the limbs, enhance strength of the legs, and improve overall physical health and the circulation of the Qi and blood. On the other hand, Nei Gong helps foster self-awareness and self-control of one’s mental state, thus a calm and relaxed state of mind can be restored.

Thought Changing

Based on the Chinese Chan and the concepts of Buddhism, the thought-changing process aims to increase the awareness of how unrealistic desires (e.g., greed), anger and obsession (e.g., craving for something or somebody) affect one’s mental and physical health. For example, think about what are your emotional and physical reactions when you get into conflict with others, and when you crave for something that is beyond reality? How does the negative thought and emotion resulting affect your psychological and physical health and the quality of life? Based on the assumption that the mind and the body are interconnected, diet modification, mind-body exercises and clearing of bodily orifices can facilitate this thought-changing process.

Self Evaluation For Possible Autism Spectrum Disorder

Free online self administration questionnaire for parents with 16-30 months old children. Possible follow-up assessment at Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is one of the fast growing developmental disorders worldwide. Because early intervention provides the best opportunity for improving the difficulties faced by individuals with ASD, accurate early detection of ASD is crucial. The Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers, Revised with Follow-Up (M-CHAT-R/F; Robins, Fein, & Barton, 2009), is a screening tool that helps evaluate potential risk for ASD in children aged 16 to 30 months, also identify children who require a more thorough assessment for possible early signs of ASD or developmental delay. In addition, the Autism Early Detection Kit created by the Autism Spectrum Disorder Foundation, includes a developmental milestones checklist for parents to assess if the characteristics of their young children aged 7 to 48 months signal the presence of ASD. If you suspect that your child is showing signs of ASD, please consider accessing these tools below:

For parents of children aged 16-30 months:

Chinese version of the M-CHAT-R/F

English version of the M-CHAT-R/F

For parents of children aged 7-16 months

Chinese version of the Autism Early Detection Kit

English version of the Autism Early Detection Kit

The project is supported by the Mama Charitable Foundation.

November 8, 2017

Depression! Chanwuyi may help

‘The Chinese Chan-based mind-body intervention helps patients with depression to get better and reduce their dosage of medication. ‘

This study, which was published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, showed that the Chinese Chan-based Dejian Mind-body intervention (DMBI) had positive effects on improving mood and health conditions of individuals with depression.

The study compared the treatment effect of the DMBI and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) on 75 participants diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either 10 sessions of CBT or DMBI, or placed on a waitlist. The participants were evaluated by psychiatrists who were blinded to the experimental design, and their cognitive abilities were measured by standardized neuropsychological tests. The results showed that participants who had received the DMBI showed a significant reduction in depressive mood, and there were significantly more participants showing reduced dosage of anti-depressants as compared with those in the CBT group. In addition, individuals who received the DMBI, but not those who had received the CBT or on the waitlist, showed significantly better concentration, gastrointestinal health and overall sleep quality.

This mind-body intervention is newly developed based on the Chinese Shaolin Medical principle, namely Chanwuyi (i.e., Chan, martial art and healing). The principle of this mind-body intervention is to alleviate psychological distress by understanding the root of problems in accordance with Buddhism philosophy and to enhance mental and physical health by practising some mind-body exercises, and reducing the intake of food that generates excessive internal heat.

“A major difference of this intervention from conventional psychological interventions is that it emphasizes an integrative treatment on the mind and the body, that is to change the thought process and the lifestyle to improve mental and physical health simultaneously. It is a Chinese wisdom of living that we have recently adopted for clinical application,” said the leading author, Prof. Agnes Chan.

According to Prof. Chan, the DMBI showed benefits that were not observed in other psychological interventions that were commonly adopted in local hospitals and other allied-health institutes. This encouraging evidence warrants further study and suggests that the practice of Chanwuyi can be considered as a potential intervention for improving psychological and physical health.

Reference: Chan, A.S., Wong, Q.Y., Sze, S. L., Kwong, P. P. K., Han, Y. M. Y., & Cheung, M.C. (2012). A Chinese Chan-based mind-body intervention for patients with depression. Journal of Affective Disorders, 142(1-3), 283-289. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2012.05.018

October 9, 2017 0

Chanwuyi may improve memory of older adults

Subjective memory complaints (SMC) are common among older adults. The presence of SMC is often related to increased psychological distress, reduced mental health well-being, lower quality of life, and increased healthcare costs. Subjective memory complaints is also a risk factor for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia, respectively. Given the rapid growth of the elderly population in many countries, and the link between SMC and the increased risk of dementia, there is a need to identify effective interventions to improve the memory functioning of older adults with SMC as early as possible. This study aimed to investigate whether a Chinese Chan-based lifestyle intervention, the Dejian Mind-Body Intervention (DMBI), leads to positive benefits for memory functioning in older adults.

Fifty-six adults aged 60 years or older with subjective memory complaints (SMC) were randomly assigned to receive the DMBI or a control intervention (i.e., a conventional memory intervention; MI) once a week for 10 weeks; 48 of the adults completed the intervention. Participants’ verbal and visual memory functioning before and after the intervention were compared. In addition, changes in the participants’ subjective feelings about their memory performance and physical and psychological health after the intervention were examined.

The results showed that both the DMBI and MI resulted in significant improvements in both verbal and visual memory functioning and that the extent of the improvements was correlated with participants’ level of performance at baseline.

In addition, compared to the MI group, the DMBI group had significantly greater improvements in subjective physical and psychological health after the intervention.

In summary, the present findings support the potential of the DMBI as an alternative lifestyle intervention for improving memory functioning, subjective physical and psychological health of older adults with SMC.

Chan, A., Cheung, W., Yeung, M., Woo, J., Kwok, T., Shum, D., Yu, R., & Cheung, M. (2017) A Chinese Chan-based Mind-Body Intervention Improves Memory of Older Adults. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience 9:190 DOI: 10.3389/fnagi.2017.00190

October 9, 2017 0

Better Self-control in Children with Autism with the Chanwuyi Diet

Better Self-control in Children with Autism with the Chanwuyi Diet

“We are what we eat”. In indeed, children with autism, who have difficulty to control their behavior, showed improvement after following the diet accordingly to Chanwuyi principle. How long to see the effect? One month.

More exciting, children having limited intelligence also become more flexible in problem-solving skills and exercise better self-control.

In the study, we randomly assign half of the twenty-four autistic children to the experimental group (i.e., with diet change) and the other half to the control group (i.e., without diet change). Parents of the experimental group children were recommended to modify their children’s diet by reducing the intake of ginger, garlic, green onion, spicy food, eggs, meat and fish for one month. These foods, according to the Chan-medicine principles, can easily generate excessive internal heat inside the body, which in turn, adversely affect one’s temper and cognitive functions. Therefore, changing dietary habit is one of the key components in Dejian Mind-body Intervention to enhance one’s psychological and physical health. To ensure a well-balanced nutritional diet, the experimental group children were also advised to take one to three kinds of food from each of the seven “good food” categories every day as listed in the table below. In contrast, parents of the control group children were informed to maintain their dietary habit as usual throughout the study period.

After the one-month period, children with diet change, even among those with limited intelligence, became more flexible and efficient in tackling problems and more capable of controlling their impulsive acts as revealed by their about 50% improved performance averaged across the standardized cognitive tests. Such extent of improvement is more than a triple of that in the children without diet change. Consistently, parents also reported that their children had better social communication with others and reduced repetitive behaviours and loss of control after changing diet.

Furthermore, the one-month diet modification has even changed the children’s brain activity level as measured by the EEG technique. There was a significant increase in the activity level in the anterior cingulate cortex (a brain region responsible for self-control ability, which is circled in figure below) in children having diet modification, but not in those without diet change.

The encouraging findings of this study may provide a cost-effective alternative method for parents with autistic children to improve their difficulties inflexible thinking and self-control. More importantly, it offers a hope to parents with low-functioning autism to enhance their functional level and potentially their quality of life.

Reference: Chan, A.S., Sze, S. L., Han, Y. M. Y., & Cheung, M.C. (2012). A Chan Dietary Intervention Enhances Executive Functions and Anterior Cingulate Activity in Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2012. doi:10.1155/2012/262136

October 6, 2017 0

Thomas

A Story of Hope

Thomas is a 20-year-old boy now, and I knew him when he was five. Remembering the time when we first met, his mother held him tightly as he could not remain seated. Thomas, climbed up and down the chair, ran around the room, shouted out loudly, and spin himself. After a while, he went to my side, held onto my legs tightly with his arms, like a koala hugging a tree. His mother was embarrassed; raised her voice and pull him away from me. Thomas was silent, neither was he crying nor laughing. His mother was exhausted after years of trying all possible methods to improve Thomas’s conditions, yet he still could not speak or control his temper. Thomas’s mother asked me “Professor Chan, could you help?”

Hence, I began to study the feasibility of Chinese medicine as a neuropsychological rehabilitation in 2002, because there was no Western pharmacological intervention available. Thomas became my first research participant. In 2003, I studied and found there was positive effect of cutaneous stimulation on treating autism, nevertheless I decided to stop from further investigation because children cried painfully during the treatment. After that, I studied the effect of a set of mind-body exercise, yet it was not quite effective. Then, I studied how stimulation on the Dan Tian region affected the brain activity level, but the progress was insignificant. Despite repeated failures, Thomas’s mother remained supportive, worked with me side by side, and she was willing to let Thomas to be the first participant of my many newly discovered methods. We tried and failed, but we had never given up each other for five years!

Five years later in 2007, I began to learn Shaolin medicine. Thomas remained to have limited language ability, and uncontrollable emotion and behaviors. Given that his uncontrollable behavior caused harm to other children at school, he had to take psychotropic drugs to stabilize his mood and behavior for two years. Thomas, just like before, was my first client to try practicing the Dejian Mind-body Intervention. Six months later, he no longer needed psychotropic drugs, and his self-control ability had largely improved with no more beating and biting acts. This is Thomas’s mother description in the progress record:

“When he made error in the piano class, he was able to follow the teacher’s instruction of sitting on another chair and awaiting teacher’s correction. Whereas in the past, he would instantly run away once he left his seat. Today, he sat aside waiting for the teacher to finish demonstrating, before he played the musical piece. This is the first time when he could pay close attention to the teacher’s guidance.”

“In the past, he reacted with temper outburst when he made an error in his painting. Today he painted the stairs in the wrong color, then he thought about it for a moment, and corrected the painting in his own way.”

Thomas loves to paint. He can express his inner world on a drawing paper. The following are recent drawings from Thomas, and in 2015 we held an exhibition of his paintings at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.