 When people think about Chinese medicine they often think about the mystical and the esoteric. People tend to be obsessed with the idea of energy or qigong healing or these alchemical Taoist practices that people do to unlock certain energy circuits in the body but I think day-to-day Chinese medicine is a lot more pragmatic than people think. And of course there are many types and many branches but in this video I thought I would share three practical ways to increase your amount of energy or qi in the body every day. Hey I'm Dr. Alex Hine author of the health book Master of the Day and doctor of acupuncture and Chinese medicine. So before we jump into this video here today two very important links right below the video. The first is if you would like to become a patient of mine in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine you can reach out to my private practice right below this video and the second is for a free guide and a weekly video newsletter for daily rituals that can potentially help you add years to life with Chinese medicine. So I'll be candid I don't necessarily believe that qi is a certain kind of life-force energy to be honest I don't really know what it is but I do know that there's a certain series of practices you can do and in terms of Chinese medicine diagnostics there are certain diagnostics we can use that your traditional doctor cannot do that will determine basically how much vitality you have and in some ways it shouldn't be rocket science right someone who's exhausted is probably has less energy I mean energy in the colloquial everyday sense but also less qi energy in the everyday sense then someone who is super energized they have that bright look in their eye you can feel it right it's the little kid versus the old person it's not rocket science who has more energy in the everyday sense of energy like someone who is energetic I think there are three practices you can do and I thought I would share them just from a Chinese medicine perspective so practice number one is literally qi gong which means qi work these days the idea of breathwork is very trendy I live in Los Angeles Californians are all about it Vim Hof it's very common and popular practice people do these days but qi gong literally means qi or breathwork and so if you wanted to use that interchangeably it is one in the same in Chinese medicine there's a saying that the lung is the master of qi and I think this is really important because even physiologically if you're having a stressed out day and you are in not a good state the fastest way you know bar putting a xanax in your body the fastest way to change your state is by changing your breathing so all ancient cultures were tapped into this the yogis being a very famous example of doing these intense breath practices but that also existed all over Asia and in China one of them was qi gong you commonly see this in Taoism now in qi gong not only are there myriad kinds of breathing exercises that range from normal breathing that's just prolonged to reverse breathing or you actually rather than inhale exhale creating natural movements with their lower belly you actually create the opposite movement there are breath holds they're even breath holds where you clench the perineum the groin suck in the lower belly and swallow and it generates a kind of pressure in the lower abdomen said to increase the amount of qi storage in the dantian supposedly one of the lower energy centers just below the belly button so there are all kinds of methods of increasing your personal energy I want to start though just from a day-to-day sense qi gong in particular in some ways is synonymous with exercise so I would say a lot of the time the patients that I notice are the most vital as they age are exercises without exception there are people who regularly exercise that continue to exercise who are the most vital have the strongest pulses and the healthiest pulses I feel in my clinic as they age in their 80s now qi gong as a certain advantage which is that qi gong fuses breathing postures and typically visualization and the difference though with qi gong and exercise is that it is exercise fundamentally it's cardiovascular exercise so we'll have the same benefits but it's low impact so it won't harm the joints which is a major drawback of traditional exercise and traditional sports which can be really hard on the joints and you tend to see people that exercise a lot who by middle age tend to have joint issues or if they over train a lot be joint replacements because they've damaged their joints so the benefit of qi gong is that number one it's meditation breathing exercises meets physical exercise so it's one part meditation one part physical exercise the third benefit is that it doesn't harm the joints so it's low impact now a final saying about qi gong one thing I've noticed as someone who is not able to nap it must be a genetic trait I've never been able to physically nap in my life I find that 20 to 30 minutes of qi gong on the days where I am absolute toast is able to replace a nap for me to significantly change me from being dead to okay I can get through the rest of the day so it's worth trying now the second way to improve your qi or also improve your energy from a day to day every day sense is formulas so I specialize in internal medicine and Chinese herbs and there are certain herbs we use to boost the qi or the yang basically the functioning the vitality as a concept of the body famous herbs like ginseng so are said to boost the qi but there are hundreds of herbs that increase the functioning of the body and will give you more energy other herbs like Guajur the medicinal grade cinnamon twig foods which is aconite and for some people just by drew fooling herbs that regulate the digestive functioning will improve the qi and the energy of the body so for some people just giving them formulas that work on regulating their digestion will improve their energy to the point where it's night and day difference for them and I didn't necessarily give them a tonic herb you know tonic herbs are very over prescribed in Chinese medicine but when you improve often the functioning of the weak link you can improve the person's energy in a big way the third way to boost your qi and or your energy is rest now I know this is obvious but this is saying in Chinese medicine and I wish I could find the original saying one of my mentors said when people are really taxed and really ill you have to close the doors and shut the windows and what that means is that you are minimizing all energy expenditure you're not going out with your friends and doing tequila shots you're not staying out after midnight you're not doing intense crossfit workouts or hot yoga five days a week you're closing off all these energy expenditures that you're losing your resources from you're not overworking you're not saying yes to things you mean no to you're avoiding those friends that are draining or those commitments and in general this idea of shutting the windows closing the doors means shutting off these areas where you're leaking plugging these kinds of energy leaks and this can come from many different things for people for some people it's their diet for some people they're over committing themselves for some people it's the staying out late every night and for other people it's something different but this idea of you can increase your energy and your resources by thinking about where do you need to shut the windows and close the doors so that you can go into a deep winter hibernation mode to regain your energy and rebuild again because if you're frittering in a way all day with all the activities of life even just scrolling through Instagram even though that is rest that does not have the same healing effect in your nervous system that sitting out in a park and reading a book or just looking at the dog's play or looking at the clouds has they're not the same so nervous system activity is still using your young it's using your chi it's using your resources so close the windows shut the doors and rest those are three ways you can improve your chi or improve your energy in an everyday sense to feel more energized again before you guys go info to reach out on becoming a patient below and I have two other related videos for you right there