 When I was young, I was really obsessed with the stories about Qigong masters. Where you'd hear about the old sage in the Himalayas or on the Chinese sacred mountain, and there was this Taoist mystic who could somehow perform miracles by doing all their little Qigong breath movements every day. Now studying Qigong has been a piece of me studying Chinese medicine, and I've always been curious about what it could really do, and why I should honestly do that over exercise or do that over something else that I already really enjoy doing that I know is going to help me live a long and healthy life. Well in this video, I want to share what I learned doing Qigong on and off for truly about a year, and even though I'm sharing that it's about 30 days here, I want to share some of the experiences that I had. Hey, Alex Hine, author of the book Master of the Day. Now I've included the first link in the description is a free download for a PDF, like an infographic, which is five daily rituals that can help you add 10 years to your life with traditional or classical Chinese medicine. So if you want, you can click the first link in the description to download that, and then you're going to get that sent right to your inbox. So the first thing that I noticed after doing Qigong is this idea that I call somatic sensing. So one thing I've noticed that's different between regarding exercise and Qigong is that I've been going to the gym for 10, 15 years and I can do an hour long weight workout and still have cold hands a little bit. Now the difference, when I'm doing Qigong, within five minutes my hands are warm and even hot. Now I think just subjectively in terms of think about what that means for circulation and think about what that means in terms of, in Chinese medicine, there's a saying that the Qi guides the blood or the Qi precedes the blood. So if blood is coming then Qi is moving. So what's crazy is that how could I possibly exercise for an hour and yet for whatever reason I'm not getting circulation to some of my extremities. In Chinese medicine, one of the reasons for doing Qigong is that it's supposed to be able to, number one, you begin to have a better radar for what's going on in your body. It helps develop this subjective sense of where are things not working? Where is the flow interrupted? Now that could be as obvious as I'm bloated or I feel a weird stuffy sensation in my chest or my hip hurts. But beyond that, doing Qigong is supposed to allow you to feel certain qualities of your patient better or the person you're treating. So for example, it's allowed you to get a better accurate diagnosis, a more accurate diagnosis to impulse. It's supposed to allow you to feel things you ordinarily can't feel in regard to just palpating a person like massaging. Just palpating a person and seeing what's going on with the channels in the body. So for me, this subjective feeling of warmth was very interesting. Now the second thing I noticed doing Qigong daily was movement. So when I say movement, one thing that Qigong is supposed to do that we talked about is make you more aware of what's going on in your body. So if you're someone that's not that sensitive, it can help you actually to become more sensitive. Now one thing that would start happening doing Qigong in the morning was that I would burp a lot. I would fart a lot. I would feel a lot of pressure in my intestines. And I would feel all of these sensations. But overall burping, farting and then later having a strong appetite in the morning, which I almost never do, was really very telling to me that it was moving something. So in theory Qigong is first supposed to help you be aware of those blockages. And then second, it will eventually with time clear those blockages. So to me it was very fascinating that number one, it was making me aware of what I was feeling in my body, often indigested, often bloated, often gassy, and then I would burp or I would have gas in the morning. But then ultimately I would have a good appetite. And that was very, very interesting to me because that was part of what the promise of Qigong was supposed to do, make you aware and then eventually move and fix some of those blockages that were actually going on inside of the body. Now that's pretty cool because that's part of the self-healing mechanism of the body and what Qigong is really designed to do, which is in the absence of movement, of exercise, of changing your diet, of taking a drug or an herb or whatever intervention it is, Qigong by itself can help regulate the person's body to kickstart that self-healing mechanism. Now the third sensation that I felt was being calm and warm. So one of the first things that I asked a Qigong teacher was what's the difference between Qigong and doing exercise? Because honestly I like working out much more than I like doing Qigong and I'm very disciplined about that. So why do this for my longevity or feeling well as opposed to just going to the gym? And what she told me was that there's three things. Qigong entails breath work, so changes in your natural breathing rhythm, visualization and physical movement and doing that often even with other things on top of that is the difference between Qigong and just going to the gym. So while I was doing Qigong, I was doing certain kinds of breath work so that typically meant instead of my normal breathing, maybe inhale is every two seconds, exhale is even shorter, my inhale and exhale were up to eight seconds long each. So that's like a double triple or quadruple the length and duration of my breathing, lengthening the breathing. So you can think what all that added oxygenation does to your tissues, to your brain function, to your energy, to your digestion, to everything. Now that is the calm part and the warm part was that increase, obviously the increase of oxygen made a lot more circulation for me. So I would feel warm, my whole body felt warm, my extremities warm and calm. So it was a big difference, especially if I did Qigong after an entire nine to five work day, I noticed the difference after versus before. So before, when I've been working all day, my breath was relatively shallow and my hands were starting to get a little bit cold. And then within 10 minutes of Qigong, my breath was very long and relaxed and my hands were warm. So to me, this warm and calm phenomenon was very, very interesting and I understand how that would be very strongly correlated with longevity and a healthy life. So I hope that helps. Those are just my personal revelations doing Qigong for a while, trying to understand what it's about and why to do it. And this is one of those things that always has puzzled me and a little bit frustrated me because I couldn't understand why I should just do this versus just going to the gym, which I already love and I already do and I have done for over a decade. But hopefully that provides some insight for you as to whether or not you want to investigate it, find a teacher or whatever. But I hope that helps. And of course, you can check out the first link in the description, which talks more about practices like Qigong. It's a free infographic that is five daily rituals you can use to potentially add 10 years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. You can click that link, first link in the description. And otherwise, check out my last related videos right there and right there.