 When it comes to improving your health, there's no shortage of things you can do if you Google health habits to do every day, right? YouTube and Google are filled with them, but in this video, I thought I would share three distinct habits that I do basically every day from traditional Chinese medicine, which is a very niche form of medicine that has a lot to offer. So let's jump in and I'll share what those are. Hey guys, I'm Dr. Alex Hain, doctor of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine and author of the health book, master the day. So before we jump into this video, there are two very important links I've put together right below the video. The first is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine, you can contact my private practice and clinic right below the video. And the second is that I've put together a free guide, which is four daily rituals that can potentially help you end years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. So check those out and we'll jump back in. Now the first health ritual that I do that is really from the Far East and East Asian medicine is Qigong. So Qigong is really the original breathwork, if you want to call it that and probably actually maybe before that was some yogic practices, probably from Ayurveda or from Tibet. But in general, Qigong has just exploded through Chinese history and there are thousands, maybe tens of thousands of kinds of Qigong for even specific various ailments, Qigong for asthmatics, Qigong for joint pain, Qigong for sleep and anxiety, Qigong for digestion and indigestion, right? So all of these varying kinds of Qigong have developed and even varying Qigong lineages have developed throughout China. But the big picture of Qigong is that it typically involves three things. It involves visualization, breathwork, and typically physical movements or postures that you do. Now the combination of the three of these is very distinct because just physical movement is just physical exercise, right? Me just doing the bench press, still is good for my health, but it's just physical movement. The visualization is almost the meditative aspect and the breathwork, the breathing exercises that range again wildly just from prolonging, extending the breath to all kinds of various breath holds to reverse breathing where you clench your abdomen in a way that is the opposite of what you'd normally do to even more obscure techniques where you breathe in air, you swallow, you pressurize the low abdomen to build a ball of qi in the dan tian, right? So there are all kinds of techniques but the big picture is that Qigong is great for a number of things. The biggest one in my mind is for the circulation of blood, so your cardiovascular health. Now for me, I do Qigong about 20 or 25 minutes every day or every other day. Sometimes I alternate it with yoga in the morning, but in general, the Qigong is very good for one, recognizing where there are blockages in your body. And I mean blockages in a very material sense. For example, if I've overeaten one night, the next morning, when I do Qigong, I'll notice discomfort in my epigastric area, my upper GI area. Sometimes if I've overtrained in the gym, when I do Qigong and I'm doing the standing posture, I'll notice, oh that left elbow has been hurting me again and I wasn't noticing that all day. So Qigong is a very interesting way of introducing you to areas of imbalance in the body and then even moving them. So third benefit in my mind is really the cardiovascular benefits. I mean it is still physical exercise at the end of the day, depending on how hard the Qigong is, the breathing that you do, and the physical movements that you do. The second habit that I do daily is I pay close attention to food grade medicine. Like anything in life, really, and in medicine, there's a spectrum, right? There are stages and grades of medical interventions. And if what you have, your symptoms or your disease, can be addressed with just your lifestyle, then obviously the highest form of medicine is just utilizing a good lifestyle and not progressing to a medical grade intervention. But sometimes, lifestyle is not enough. Or the symptoms or the illness are too chronic or too severe. And at that point, you need to move from lifestyle to a medical intervention. And we always start with the lowest grade intervention, theoretically, not in conventional medicine. It certainly pushes people into aggressive treatments. But in an idealized world, working with a wise doctor, you will have a gradual increase in interventional treatment. But food grade medicine is the simple recognition that different genetic types, body types, diseases, symptoms have a very common day-to-day set of habits and rituals that will help basically nourish that constitution. So for me, I have one of the traditional spleen-deficient constitution, as it's called in Chinese medicine. Now this constitution is prone to bloating and food sensitivities and lower appetite and prone to basically a lot of malabsorption, low stomach acid, indigestion if I overeat even a little bit. If I start drinking coffee regularly, I'll get indigestion. It's a very weak digestive function. Now for me, one of the things that I tend to avoid is what we call dampness-producing foods. So they say that the spleen tend towards dampness. Dampness, one of the symptoms would be, let's say, gas and bloating. For me, one of the main food groups that exacerbates that a lot is dairy. So day-to-day, I'm very careful about, for example, my dairy intake. Now there are a whole other host of principles that I do. For example, I drink wine instead of beer. I don't tend to have a very high-grain diet. I tend to opt for more meat and more vegetables. That helps with a lot of the lower GI symptoms. But understanding what is food-grade medicine or, I would say, your life as your medicine. So maybe if you're a stressed out busy person who works a lot, working from 60 hours cutting that back down to 40, you'll be able to stop taking Xanax or your antidepressant because of your level of anxiety. So recognizing where life is medicine. Now habit number three from traditional Chinese medicine that I utilize is trying to balance my life with the Tao. So everything in life, certainly in terms of medicine, is about balance. And that balance is different for each person. And it's even different each day. So on a very material level, let's say last night, you went out, you had a big meal with friends, you had a couple margaritas or a couple glasses of wine. There's a bit too much food and alcohol. You wake up feeling a little queasy. Now if you recognize the signs your body is telling you, you did too much last night when it comes to diet. So the wise person today to help your body move back in the right direction of healing is just to eat a little bit lighter or maybe follow your appetite. If you woke up a little queasy, slightly nauseous. But so many of us the next day, we just eat like we've always eaten. We eat breakfast even though we're not hungry, we eat a big lunch and then we do the same thing all over again. Little bit of acid reflux, no worries, I'll just take my private sec. But all along, we've missed the canary in the coal mine. The signal your body was telling you that last night, you tilted that dial way out of balance. And today, if you can dial it back just a little bit by eating lighter, eating healthier, being more moderate, you're going to prevent your body from moving in the direction of disease like chronic acid reflux. Paying attention in your day-to-day life, where is that dial? What are the canaries in the coal mine? Did I over-train and now my knees are hurting? Did I overeat? Have you been under sleeping and I'm feeling more anxious than normal? Recognizing where the dial is moving in the wrong direction and bringing it back will be key to feeling well in the long run. So three habits I do every day, guys, that really, really helps me from traditional Chinese medicine. Check out those other related links right below the video and I'll see you soon.