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Osteotapping for healthy bones ==

Osteotapping is a self-care mind-body exercise for healthy bones. It is a gentle self-tapping approach to bone building derived from a fifteen-hundred year old Chinese qigong exercise. National Institutes of Health (NIH) defines mind-body exercises as those combining physical activity, controlled breathing and mental focus for fitness, relaxation and overall health. Examples of mind-body exercises are yoga, tai chi and qigong.

Origins
Osteotapping self-care exercise is derived from specific elements of a qigong practice called Xi Sui Jing, meaning “Marrow Washing Classic”. Original texts of the Xi Sui Jing are missing. Methods and details were said to be transmitted secretly to a few disciples in each generation. Xi Sui Jing qigong included a variety of physical conditioning exercises for increasing bone density and stimulating bone marrow. Training systems were complex, demanding and harsh to practice. Traditional exercises developed over fifteen centuries included techniques that involved hitting the bones and muscles to build a “steel body”. Training equipment included wood and metal bars, bags of stones, mallets and heavy steel wire whips that were used to strike the body with varying degrees of intensity. Shaolin Kung Fu experts practiced these extreme physical conditioning exercises to develop sturdy resilient bone structure along with strong muscles and tendons for stamina, agility, balance and coordination.

Significance
Bone health is of vital importance. The National Osteoporosis Foundation (NOF) recommends that wellness essentials start with exercise, proper nutrition and lifestyle changes to keep bones healthy and prevent osteoporosis. Broken bones are a serious health risk. NOF reports that twenty percent of seniors who break a hip die within one year from complications and half of survivors need long-term nursing home care. Alliance for Aging Research projects the cost of osteoporosis care to rise to as much as $60 billion a year by 2020 without new preventive measures and treatments. Osteotapping self-care exercise is a gentle refined approach to healthy bone building utilized for centuries by martial artists for well-being and rejuvenation.

Health benefits
Osteotapping exercise for healthy bones enables individuals to practice self-care on a regular basis. Taking personal actions to minimize the effects of chronic health conditions improves physical and mental well-being. There are recent studies evaluating the effects of tapping and vibration on bone building. Bone tapping massage for prevention and treatment of osteoporosis is reported to have achieved good results even in severe cases. Tapping on the bones increases blood circulation and aids in formation of new bone cells. Light quick tapping can be done on the bones even with fingertips or sides of the hands. Osteotapping self-care exercise techniques and sequences can be learned quickly and performed by mobility impaired individuals. Hand-held multi-stranded flexible tapping devices stimulate gentle vibrations. A variety of economical tappers enhance effectiveness with no batteries or power cords needed. Key exercise facts from International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) include: Bone mass and exercise are inextricably linked; Bones respond like muscles when “stressed,” or forced to bear more weight or impact.

Approaches
Osteotapping self-care exercises encompass a variety of methods and techniques. Self-care practices benefit from mind-body qigong principles. Movements are careful and flowing. Breathing cycles are rhythmic slow, full and deep. Mental focus emerges with relaxed energized awareness. Gentle, brisk and vigorous styles each employ a particular sequence, rhythm, duration and intensity of tapping. Gentle guidelines are for sessions of ten to fifteen minutes repeated once or twice each day. Gentle sessions can include light tapping pulsations or even a brushing self-massage technique. Osteotapping offers many bone building benefits of weight bearing exercises and avoids the risks of injury from impacts on ankle, knee and hip joints.

Techniques
Quick light tapping starting at shoulders moving down arms to hands utilizes dynamic, relatively brief and intermittent activities that help to prevent and ameliorate osteoporosis. Tapping along the sides of the leg bones and around the sides of hip bones employs unusual loading patterns that initiate new bone formation. Tapping on forearms, upper legs and hips to strengthen bones most at risk of fracture derives benefit from site specificity of osteogenic mechanical stressing. Gentle tapping invigorates circulation and generates low intensity vibrations that can prevent postmenopausal bone loss. Osteotapping vibrations produce mechanical stimulation of bone marrow stem cells to promote formation of new bone tissue. Certain tapping sequences generate indigenous piezoelectric effects similar to those produced by normal functional exercise activities. Research has determined that these effects have potential for retaining bone mass or stimulating new bone formation for the prevention of osteopenia.

Medical research
A recent analysis examined the benefits of qigong and tai chi as determined in seventy-seven randomized controlled trials (RCT) reported in medical journals. The 2010 study found that qigong mind-body exercises played a positive role in nine categories that included: Bone density: preventing bone loss and increasing bone mineral density; Falls and related risk factors: decreasing falls and increasing balance; Cardiopulmonary effects: lowering blood pressure and heart rate and improving biomarkers. The analysis concluded that qigong has beneficial effects on bone health and advantages of low cost, low risk and high accessibility. Further studies of osteotapping self-care exercises with randomized comparative trials and treatment dosing for intensity, frequency and duration are warranted to enable development of specific exercise prescriptions.