 Throughout all of the ancient medical classics and traditional Chinese medicine, there has been one principle that is the bedrock of longevity and wellness and really living a long and healthy life. Now, in this video, I want to discuss what this principle is and how you can apply it in your daily life so that you get well and you stay well. Hey guys, I'm Dr. Alex Hine, Doctor of Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine and author of the health book, Master of the Day. Now before we jump into this video, I've put together two very important links right below this 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 this video. The second is I've put together a free guide, which is for you the rituals that can potentially help you add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. So check those out. Now when we go back to the ancient medical classics of traditional Chinese medicine, like the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic, one thing that we see a lot is the reference to this concept of the free flow of Qi and the belief that these ancient doctors had that the way to wellness and the way to health is unobstructed free flow of Qi and circulation in the body. Now unobstructed flow in the nervous system to me looks like a person who's calm and at rest and they're not experiencing symptoms of anxiety or depression or heart palpitations or sleep issues. To me free flow of Qi in the digestive system looks like someone who eats and doesn't have any discomfort, no upper GI indigestion or reflux or excessive burping and no lower GI excessive bloating or irregular bowel movements. To me free flow of Qi in terms of hormones looks like a woman with a regular menstrual cycle around 28 or 30 days who bleeds for three to five days and the blood is pretty unremarkable. It's consistent, not too dark, not too light, not too clotty. And in terms of overall health, free flow of Qi in terms of the human spirit is someone who is able to sleep well and has a relatively balanced and calm mood day to day. Now obviously that's not a lot of us, right? Day to day life places a lot of demands that make it hard to sleep, that make us feel anxious or feel depressed or not have a bowel movement for a couple days or be regularly irregular. But ultimately the free flow of Qi we can see in many of the symptoms and many of the dysfunctions that we have on a day to day basis. But how do you number one assess if you have that in your body and if you don't have that? How do you treat that just in the way that you live your life? Let's talk about that a little bit more. Longevity in life is all about flow. Now that flow can be this kind of non mystical flow. You know I don't inherently view Qi as some kind of mysterious energy. I view it as ancient practitioners observe, for example, when someone feels intensely anxious like a panic attack, there is sensation, an upward rushing sensation in the body. If I close my eyes and I visualize what does it feel like to have a panic attack? Like chest, maybe heat in my face, sweaty, clammy, shaky, I feel panicky, like my body is going upwards. That upward rising Qi, ancient doctors sometimes called upward surging, right? And so upward surging of Qi didn't necessarily mean that a mystical energy was shooting upwards but that clearly there is sensation, there's a massive overwhelming sensation of this in the body. And because what this is, no one really knows, but it is a palpable sensation inside the body that probably is the combination of stress hormones related to the way your body regulates temperature, right? People will have hot flashes with panic attacks, issues with the nervous system, right? Heart palpitations. So in reality, Qi may purely be a complex interaction of many systems in the body on the more material physiological level. But ancient people observe this, right? Because panic attacks have always existed. So they knew this sensation, but maybe they did not know what it was. But that thing in some medical cases, they called that was Qi. Now if you live your life in a way that produces too much tension in the body, this Qi can produce a sense of Qi stagnation. Now this Qi stagnation is almost the sensation where you really want to yell at your boss or yell at someone, but something is forbidding you from doing that. And so you feel this, but you have to contain it. You can't yell. You can't exercise. You can't shout. You can't fight. Your body is creating a pressure and you have to hold it in. It's like the teapot is boiling and you leave the lid on and it's just boiling and it's pushing. It's creating pressure. Now that pressure can create disease over time. That Qi stagnation creates pressure in the system that can come out in any number of organ systems. One of them we see is typically the gallbladder, the Xiaoyang organ system. Lots of people who have very, very high stress jobs, even sometimes with relatively okay diets, will develop gallbladder issues. Other people Qi stagnation affects the menstruation, right? Women begin missing cycles. They stop ovulating. They are very irregular cycles. Other people develop migraines or headaches. Other people develop palpitations, insomnia, etc. So when there is not that free flow of Qi, when it's going this way, the water is moving and it hits a dam and it's supposed to be going this way. It goes off in ways that it is not supposed to and it enters little corridors where it's not supposed to be and that can be one of the pathways to disease. So what is letting go have to do with all of this? What is Lao Tzu, Lao Tzu, the writer supposedly behind the Dao De Jing? Why was he talking about simplicity and compassion and peace and stillness and breathing all the way into your heels? What was the point of all of these things? The point is that a lot of what we do in modern day life, day-to-day life really, is pushing. We are pushing the Qi body. We are pushing the physiology. We are pushing the Qi dynamic. We're pushing the nervous system. Be flipping through my phone on Instagram. This is not rest, right? Watching Netflix, flipping through my phone, typing on the computer. This is not rest. This is activating the nervous system, utilizing the Yang Qi of the body. This is creating pressure in the system. That by itself doesn't produce disease, but you throw that in to a stressful commute. A long workday, deadlines, not sleeping enough, coming home to kids, a poor diet or too many cups of coffee to get you through the day. Now you're creating tidal waves of imbalance in the body. Not only is the Qi what should have been a free flowing river is like a sputtering river, like a tidal wave and then dry, tidal wave and then dry. It's creating all these little unnatural river banks and these little clusters of dirt and debris. It's damned up over here and there's too much flow over there. One of the best ways that I've seen to make this smooth again is really letting go. So much of the desire to achieve our goals, to have the finances we want, the goal we want, the spouse we want, the physical body we want. It's all pushing the body in a certain way. You can push the body to no ill effect, but there is an upper limit. When you hit that upper limit, you produce some of those dams in the Qi dynamic. Those dams create that Qi stagnation. That stagnation eventually is the seed of pathology. So sometimes if stress is one of your issues in a day to day life, understanding that learning to let go, whether it's, you know, I've been working so hard on having my dream body and I'm really disappointed because I've done this for 30 days and it's not happening, let it go. I'm in traffic in Los Angeles. People are acting like complete morons. And I just want to get home. I just want to go home and have a glass of wine. Let it go. I've been working so hard and I have student debt or bills I haven't paid or my kids are just running around and causing messes. Let it go. Let it go. That's one of the fastest ways you can alter the Qi dynamic, your physiology, your nervous system to prevent those kinks, those little blocks that are the seeds of disease layer. So if stress is one of your issues, have the mantra of let it go and you can prevent those kinks happening in the system. I hope that helps you guys. A lesson of not only ancient medical wisdom in terms of the flow in the body is what prevents disease and maintains health and also a simple practice that can help you day to day life. So check out those other related links in the free guide below and I'll see you guys soon.