Biopsychosocial effects of qigong as a mindful exercise for people with anxiety disorders: a speculative review

Abstract

In view of the inadequacies of mainstream treatments for anxiety disorders, we suggest that qigong, an ancient oriental mindful exercise, may be a useful adjunctive treatment. We base this on a biopsychosocial model for health. Evidence suggests that the benefits of exercise on personal well-being can be explained using six theories: cognitive behaviour; distraction; social interaction; cardiovascular fitness; amine; and endorphin theories. To date, not much has been done to employ these theories to analyze the benefits of mindful exercises. We try here to reorganize these theories into psychosocial and physiologic perspectives and integrate them with the "mind regulation," "body regulation," and "breath regulation" components of qigong. We propose, because of its potential therapeutic effects, that qigong can be considered as an alternative therapy to help meet the increasing demand of nonpharmacologic modalities in achieving biopsychosocial health for those suffering from anxiety in the general population.