Urine catecholamine and cortisol levels in qigong practitioner under stress conditions

Author: Guo Youju 1//Tang Cimei 1//Liang Feng 2
Affiliation:
Psychological Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China [1] //Jiling Agricultural University, China [2]
Conference/Journal: 3rd Nat Acad Conf on Qigong Science
Date published: 1990
Other: Pages: 8 , Word Count: 323


The levels of catecholamine and cortisol in the body can be used to estimate the intensity of stress, and play an important role in causing some psycho-somatic diseases. The purpose of this study is to investigate the changes in levels of urinecatecholamine and cortisol in Qigong practitioner under stress.

The experiments were composed of three parts. The first part was under field stress condition. The result of this part had been reported previously. The second part was performed under mental stress condition. The stressor in this part must finish a mental arithmetic task in limited time. We gathered the urine samples during stress and an hour after stress respectively and measured the levels of catecholamine and cortisol in the samples. The result shows that there is no significant difference in the task achievement between the Qigong group and the control group, but the levels of adrenaline (A) and noradrenaline (NA) of urine in the Qigong group were much lower than those of the control group (P<0.01). The level of urine cortisol in the Qigong group was also much lower than that of the control group (P<0.05). But there were no significant difference in the urine levels of catecholamine and cortisol between the two groups one hour after stress. It as suggested that Qigong practice could depress the reaction to mental stress.

The third part was performed under Physical stress condition. The stressor in this part completed a static gripping task. It was found that the level of cortisol of urine in the Qigong group was much lower than that of the control group (P<0.05). There were no significant differences in urine levels of catecholamine and cortisol between the two groups one hour after stress.

The results show that Qigong practice can modulate the levels of catecholamine and cortisol in urine under stress, especially under mental stress condition. Therefore, Qigong practice may be beneficial in the prevention of some psycho-somatic diseases.

BACK