Tai chi may be as effective as neck exercises for relieving chronic neck pain, a new study shows.

Tai chi is ancient Chinese discipline involving a continuous series of controlled usually slow movements designed to improve physical and mental well-being.

The exercise program is often is used for health care purposes and evidence supports its potential to help people with back pain, rheumatologic disease and psychological disorders, but no studies had looked at its benefits in relieving chronic neck pain.

An international team decided to investigate whether group tai chi would help people with nonspecific neck pain so they enrolled 114 participants, age 18 and older, which had dealt with it for three months.

“The study results showed that 12 weeks of Tai Chi was more effective than no treatment to improve pain, disability, quality of life and postural control in persons with chronic neck pain," says Peter M. Wayne, an assistant professor at Harvard University, who co-authored the study.

The study also showed that tai chi was equal to neck pain exercises, which are frequently used as a treatment for the problem, he adds of the findings, which appear in Journal of Pain.