ai Chi Reduces Insomnia in College Students: Exploring Inflammatory Factor Roles

A Study on the Intervention Effect of Tai Chi on College Students With Insomnia and the Potential Role of Inflammatory Factors

College student volunteers were recruited from a university in Anhui Province, China, and screened by the Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) scale, and those with PSQI scores higher than 7 were considered to have clinical insomnia, and insomniac college students screened were subjected to a 24-week 24-form taijiquan intervention, and the rest of the insomniac volunteers were randomly divided into the fast-walking group and the control group. As the most common form of physical exercise for college students and the easiest aerobic exercise, brisk walking was chosen as an intervention for insomniac college students to better compare the efficacy of tai chi with that of general aerobic exercise for insomnia. The taijiquan group performed taijiquan exercise three times a week for 60 minutes each time, the brisk walking group performed brisk walking training three times a week for 60 minutes each time, and the control group did not carry out any intervention and maintained a normal life and study status. Before the intervention, questionnaires were filled out and fasting elbow venous blood was drawn, and the staff uniformly explained the intervention-related contents and precautions, and after 24 weeks of intervention, the post-test questionnaires and fasting venous blood were filled out centrally.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Students With Sleep Disorders
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: tai ji quan

Detailed Description

Insomnia: measured by PSQI scale. The scale was developed by Buysse et al, a neurologist at the University of Pittsburgh, USA, and has an overall internal consistency Cronbach's ɑ coefficient of 0.83.The scale was used to assess the quality of sleep of an individual in the last month, and consists of 19 self-assessed and 5 other-assessed entries, for a total of 24 items, where the 19th entry and the five other-assessed entries do not participate in the scoring. The 18 scoring items include seven dimensions: subjective sleep quality, time to sleep, sleep efficiency, sleep disorders, hypnotic drug use, and daytime functioning. Each dimension is scored on a scale of 0-3, and the cumulative score is the total PSQI score, which ranges from 0-21, with higher scores indicating poorer sleep quality, and PSQI scores greater than 7 are considered clinical insomnia.

Physical activity: was measured using the Physical activity rating scale-3 (PARS-3). The scale has a revised by Liang Deqing et al. with a retest reliability of 0.82. The scale determines the amount of exercise in terms of intensity, time, and frequency of participation in physical activities. Exercise volume = exercise intensity × time × frequency, intensity and frequency are scored on a scale of 1 to 5, assigning 1 to 5 points respectively, and time is scored on a scale of 1 to 5, assigning 0 to 4 points respectively. The score range of the scale was 0-100 points, and the score of ≤19 points was low exercise, 20-42 points was medium exercise, and ≥43 points was high exercise.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 90
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• China
  • Anhui
    • Hefei, Anhui, China, 230000
      • Anhui Medical University

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child; Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Meet the diagnostic criteria of insomnia i.e. PSQI score ≥ 7;

  • Age between 18 and 25 years old; ③ Exercise of the study subjects is low exercise i.e. PARS-3 score ≤ 19;

    • Have not received any psychological and pharmacological treatments in the past one year;

      • Have no visceral diseases, normal vision and hearing; ⑥ Have good physical fitness and can perform basic intensity of physical exercise; ⑦ Have signed the informed consent form.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Recent cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal disease and other diseases that affect normal sports training;

  • Serious mental illness; ③ Antibiotics within the past three months; ④ Serious autoimmune disease; ⑤ Those who refuse to participate in the research project.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Double

Number of Arms

3

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: High Intensity Taijiquan Exercise Group; 60 minutes of tai chi exercise 5 times a week	Behavioral: tai ji quan; 24-Style Taijiquan as an Intervention for College Students with Insomnia
Experimental: Moderate Intensity Taijiquan Exercise Group; 60 minutes of tai chi exercise 3 times a week	Behavioral: tai ji quan; 24-Style Taijiquan as an Intervention for College Students with Insomnia
No Intervention: control subjects; The control group did not implement any intervention and maintained a normal life and study status.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Role effects of tai chi intervention in college students with insomnia	Insomnia: measured by PSQI scale. The scale was developed by Buysse et al, a neurologist at the University of Pittsburgh, USA, and has an overall internal consistency Cronbach's ɑ coefficient of 0.83.The scale was used to assess the quality of sleep of an individual in the last month, and consists of 19 self-assessed and 5 other-assessed entries, for a total of 24 items, where the 19th entry and the five other-assessed entries do not participate in the scoring. The 18 scoring items include seven dimensions: subjective sleep quality, time to sleep, sleep efficiency, sleep disorders, hypnotic drug use, and daytime functioning. Each dimension is scored on a scale of 0-3, and the cumulative score is the total PSQI score, which ranges from 0-21, with higher scores indicating poorer sleep quality, and PSQI scores greater than 7 are considered clinical insomnia. Use of this scale to assess the improvement of insomnia in insomniac college students using taijiquan	Minimum 12 weeks
Changes in inflammatory factors before and after tai chi intervention	Fasting elbow vein blood of 2 ml was collected from college students in the tai chi group, the fast walking group, and the control group. 2 ml of blood was tested using Luminex multifactor assay technology. The levels of IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, TNF-ɑ, IFN-Y, IL-8, IL-13, and IL-1 in the supernatant were measured. Inflammatory factor data before and after exercise were analyzed in each group to observe the level of inflammatory factor changes before and after taijiquan intervention and to explore the role played by inflammatory factor changes in taijiquan intervention for insomniac college students.	Minimum 12 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Anhui Medical University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): May 15, 2024
• Primary Completion (Actual): June 20, 2024
• Study Completion (Actual): July 20, 2024

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: December 9, 2023
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 9, 2024
• First Posted (Actual): January 11, 2024

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): December 18, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 11, 2025
• Last Verified: December 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Nervous System Diseases; Neurologic Manifestations; Sleep Wake Disorders; Therapeutics; Mind-Body Therapies; Complementary Therapies; Exercise Movement Techniques; Physical Therapy Modalities; Tai Ji
• Other Study ID Numbers: WLan

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No