Experimental study on Taijiquan exercise improving university students’ cognitive function

Abstract

Taijiquan is a traditional Chinese martial arts which is popular in China and even Southeast Asia. Now, many university students are Practicing it. Previous studies focused on the cognitive effects of aerobic exercise with different intensities on the human brain. This paper will present an experiment on Whether Taijiquan can develop cognitive function and what is the effective frequency of cognition developed by Taijiquan. In experiment 1: seventeen male university students were recruited as EG who had been exercising Taijiquan more than one year, another thirty male university students who were healthy but whose major were not sports were as CG. The differences of P300 were compared; In experiment 2: thirty female healthy university students were recruited for six weeks, randomly divided into 3 groups, 10 in each group. EG1 and EG2 for six weeks Taijiquan exercise. EG1 did Taijiquan exercise 3 times a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday). EG2 did Taijiquan exercise 5 times a week (from Monday to Friday). CG did not do any sports. The P300 of each group were recorded before the experiment, and in the second, fourth, sixth and eighth week. Through scientific reasoning and strict analysis, this study found: the long-term Taijiquan exercise can improve the cognitive function of the practitioners; For short-term Taijiquan exercise, the positive effects of Taijiquan exercise 5 times a week is better than that of 3 times a week.