 What is the singular thing you can do to extend your life and be healthier? Besides the obvious diet and exercise practices that we all know about, what is something less well known? All the ancient doctors in traditional Chinese medicine talk about how chi, blood, and even lymph flow are key to longevity and staying healthy all the years of your life. Some would even say that circulation is the singular key to health and living a long life that is free of major illnesses. Now within East Asia for thousands of years, one practice has been highly prized and that is chi gong. Now chi gong has been highly prized because unlike other practices that improve cardiovascular function like physical weightlifting, chi gong doesn't damage the joints. It doesn't exhaust you like the morning after a really, really tough workout. And it isn't something that really has many cons in terms of how much time you do it. Some doctors, mystics, and monks argued this practice was the singular key to living a long life and that practice is chi gong. Hi guys, it's Dr. Alex Hain, board licensed acupuncturist and doctor of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine, author of the health book, Master of the Day. Let's jump in here. What is the purpose of all the thousands of kinds of chi gong? One of my mentors said the purpose of the 10,000 kinds of chi gong is what's called tong opening, movement, circulation, and flow. And we even know from modern people in America today the number one cause of death still is cardiovascular disease, which one could argue is just blood flow from not enough exercise and a poor diet. So flow on a material level, but even on a mental emotional level is good for the human spirit and therefore good for the body as well. Chi gong is special in the regard that unlike a physical heart gym workout, we are sure you sweat and you feel warmed up. It is hard on the joints. So you look at people who do lots of cycling or lots of high amounts of cardio, they often will have joint damage by middle age and even need knee replacements, for example, and lots of the people I know who are runners. Now, that is counter to longevity because joint replacements are a very modern technology that doesn't exist in the old days. If you had to limp in severe pain from 50 until death, that is a very hard life to have. But it's interesting research on how chi gong can help you. Now in particular, there's one research paper right here and this research paper is called Daoyin, aka chi gong, the origin, development, potential mechanisms, and clinical applications. Now in the article, there's a fascinating little diagram that talks about three of the ways that chi gong works in terms of mechanisms of action. So one of the ways is that it works on the HPA axis. So it works on chronic stress hormone secretion. And another one is the way it interacts with the immune system. And finally, a third is the way it regulates inflammation. So chi gong can influence blood pressure, blood sugar, your immune system, inflammatory markers in all of these ways. Now this first chi gong exercise is a very, very simple one that you see in lots of different chi gong forms in China and East Asia. So remember that what makes something chi gong is not just waving around your hands or doing an exercise. It's the combination of breathing exercises or sometimes altered forms of breathing, the combination of visualization or intention as well as physical movements. Those three things usually make something into chi gong. Now for this one, it's a very simple one you see in lots of forms. So you're basically going to hold your hands like this and the external movement is just inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. So what we're going to do first is just do the physical movement, right? So we'll just go, inhale, two, three, four. Exhale, two, three, four. Inhale, two, three, four. Exhale, two, three, four. Inhale, two, three, four. Exhale, two, three, four. That's the physical movement and one thing you want to work on is just lengthening the breath. So for example, you're having a rough day at work and there's a lot of work stress and you have five minutes on your lunch break and what do you do? Just go sit down in your car and just begin with this simple practice which is just purely doing. You're going to inhale to the count of four is a good one and exhale to a count of four and you can close your eyes and just imagine when you're inhale, almost imagine like you're sucking in particles from the universe and as you exhale, they're just forming this battery charge in your low abdomen, right? It's like you're sucking in these waves and particles from the universe and you're just condensing it in the abdomen like you're recharging your batteries, breathing in, sucking in all these things. As I breathe it out, I push it down into recharging that battery in the low abdomen. So this motion, just inhale, exhale with a certain breath pattern is one of the introways that you can practice Qigong in daily life. It's not complex, it's not esoteric or mystical but it's simple and it really works. Now another simple kind of Qigong you can do is just really a subtle body awareness we could call it. So for a lot of what traditional Chinese medicine focuses on for healing is trying to develop that subtle body in daily life, right? A little bit of indigestion. I'm gonna be careful about diet today. I'm feeling a little bit too anxious. Maybe I'm gonna hold off on the coffee but on an even more subtle level is really what's happening on a very, very, very small point. And by practicing this exercise you can become increasingly sensitive to those micro changes before you get sick. Ancient doctors viewed the free flow of Qi and blood movement in the body to be what leads to health and the opposite is what leads to death and illness we should say. But there are three functional areas that tend to have issues more than others and we call them the upper jiao, upper burner, middle burner and lower burner. And I'm going to break them down into just one simple organ for us to focus on. The upper burner is typically the heart that is weak and that symptomatic pattern looks like anxiety, heart palpitations, an elevated heart rate or actual cardiovascular disease and chest pain. The middle jiao is issues with digestion. Very commonly is what we call the spleen or the pancreas having issues. Bloating, food sensitivities, maybe a lot of fatigue or even some kinds of indigestion relate to the spleen, pancreas and TCM. And the lower jiao, lower burner, it's kidney deficiency. The kidney relates to issues with urination and libido can also be related to overall vitality or exhaustion like the adrenals. What we're going to do, we're just going to close our eyes and we're just going to do a 10 second body scan. I'm pretending that you're here on lunch watching this. So I'm just feeling the top of my head going to my eyebrows, to my eyes, to my jaw and my neck muscles. Are they tight? I'm feeling tension at the base of my skull and in my neck. And then we're going into the upper burner area here. And we may notice, wow, I'm feeling my heart beating right now in my chest. That's a good indicator of what's going on right now with stress. So we're saying, do I feel pressure? Do I feel tension? Do I feel my heart beating? Do I feel my heart beating fast? Then we come down to the middle burner, right? Middle burner dealing with digestion. Am I feeling pretty bloated? Am I feeling gas or heaviness or pressure or even maybe burning and in digestion right now? So we're just scanning this area above the belly button, below the sternum. Is there sensation there right now? That sensation being the precursor of a problem. Just like we felt the sensation in the upper burner with the heart, is there tension? Do we feel the heart? Is it beating hard? Is it beating fast? And then we come to the lower burner, the area below the belly button. Then we think, do I feel pressure, pain, distention there, right? Is it bloating pressure and pain? Is it bladder tension or bladder urgency? If you're female and issue with your cycle, lower abdominal pain or cramping. So going through from the top, scanning just the torso for the time being, the upper burner from the neck to the heart sternum, then from the top of the stomach, the end of the sternum to the belly button. What is this zone feeling like? And then below the belly button, what is this zone feeling like? And practicing that little subtle body awareness throughout the day. You'll notice I do have problems with these organs and I notice there is sensation. Something is going on there and that something is that little baby seed of something that could be illness or disease down the line. So this body scan is something you can do as part of your Qigong before or after or randomly throughout the day. So those are some simple Qigong practices you can do daily, at home or at work. And those are just some of the healing practices available within traditional Chinese medicine. Now I've also put together a free guide which is four daily rituals that can potentially help you add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. It's the first link right below the video and you guys can download that totally free. And also, if you'd like to book a visit with me locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine, you can contact my practice and clinic that way. And I've put together something brand new which is very exciting called the Healing Library. It is a series of online courses on how to heal with traditional Chinese medicine. And we are slowly rolling out courses on individual health conditions as well as an overall course on an introduction to healing and how to heal with TCM. So this is one of the ways we're trying to keep this channel, you know, sponsor and ad-free as much as we can rather than me trying to pitch some supplement or some nonsense that I know you've already bought and probably has not done anything. So you can learn more about the Healing Library and the online courses available there right below this video. And then before you guys go, there's a related video on Qigong and self-healing right there.