Gentle Exercises for Optimal Health

In the 5:17 video below I teach three simple and relaxing exercises that can reduce high blood pressure.

Exercise 1: Belly Breathing Retraining

Breathing high and hard in the upper body can put extra pressure on the heart. Many, many people breathe this way and have for years, it having long ago become an ingrained, unconscious habit.  Breathing in this manner over and over and over, every day, for years, leads to habitual stress and underlying, unresolvable tension.

Belly breathing is the natural way to breathe; the first step for most people in retraining how they breathe.

Using a belt or flat strap, you can gently retrain your breath to become comfortable with going lower, slower and deeper. Simply wrap the belt around your abdomen–not tightly, just snug. Inhale, sending your breath deep to your belly. Such an inhale will create expansion against the strap. This teaches the muscles a better way of breathing. It shows them what to breathe against–the palpable pressure of the belt.

Exhale by relaxing the belly, allowing it to deflate.

Exercise 2: The Healing Sound “Haaaahh”

Look down and make the sighing sound “haaaahh.” Make this healing sound as the hands are expanding out and down from the heart, opening the hands forward, outward and toward the the ground.

The sound vibrations help release tension energetic stagnation in the center of the chest.

Opening and lowering the arms and hands dissipates tension out of the chest into the earth.

Looking down sends energy and consciousness downward; which is what you want for lowering your blood pressure.

Exercise 3: Rooting the Heart Energy in the Dantian

Begin with your palms facing down at the upper chest. With an exhale, press down from the upper chest to lower abdomen. Intend that excess energy in your heart to descend to your lower energy center, where it stays.

The premise of this exercise is that most people with high blood pressure have too much energy in the chest and too little in the lower energy center (the Dantian.) By redistributing the energy, a new and better balance in the body is established, leading to easier breathing, easier blood flow, and more calmness.

See a Larger Version of the Video on Youtube.

Right Now, Do a Little Awareness Experiment

Noticing both your feet and your head, how much of your awareness is in your feet and how much in your head, percentage-wise? In other words, are you balanced, top and bottom?

Most people I’ve talked to say they have anywhere from 60 to 90 percent of their awareness in their heads. This means, they are not balanced energetically, magnetically or consciously. They have much more awareness in the moment up top. They have more energy in their upper bodies than lower.

Whole Body Balance

It is a cardinal rule of Qigong that balance is a must for healthy, whole living.

50/50 is Nifty

It might sound obvious to pay attention to your feet, yet I find it common for people to be doing the opposite. Often people are so much in their heads, that their feet are afterthoughts, follow-alongs. They trip along on them, bidding them to get them from one place to another with hardly a parcel of awareness devoted to them. They become top-heavy energetically, emotionally, and physically. Read the rest of this entry »

“By a wide margin, the biggest threat to our nation’s balance sheet is the skyrocketing cost of health care.”
President Barack Obama, March 2009 (reported in The New Yorker, “The Cost Conundrum”, June 1, 2009)

The World’s Population is Getting Older

An article from the Associated Press on June 23, 2009 states that the population of over-65 people in the world will triple by 2050. The estimate is that there will be over one and a half billion people 65 years old and older.
By 2030, 20 percent of people in the U. S. A. will be over 65.

How can we get people to be 65 yet younger?

I learned a long time ago this simple formula

Movement equals health
Stagnation leads to disease
Movement is life

Or as a Haiku

Stagnation is death
Move at every level
To flow is to live

Or as a limerick

There once was this guy on earth
Who, confused of health’s true worth
Refused to train his body
Which was always shoddy
From the movement dearth

Qigong Can Help Solve the Health-Price Crisis

Qigong practice is not just a good idea or a fine practice for those that are into it. It is a super-inexpensive health regimen. The world is going to need it soon. There is no way  the developed world can continue to pay the gigantic amounts of money we currently do for disease care.

Get Healthier by Getting Back to Nature

We will need to allocate our resources of money better. There will be fewer expensive doctor’s visits, costly machine-produced tests, long hospital stays, or high-priced medications.

Society won’t be able to afford them.

We will need cheaper—much cheaper—alternatives.

I suggest Qigong practice as an important and effective piece to solving this monster-sized money puzzle.

Qigong Works

One of the safest, most reliable, and most amazing method of retraining and maintaining healthful movement is the practice of Qigong.

Qigong is good for everybody but it is particularly apt for seniors (older folks, not those finishing high school or college.)

For instance, Qigong practice can help seniors in the following ways:

Qigong is Good for the Joints

Qigong is not only easy on the joints, it helps articular function, bringing more full range of motion, easier movement, more space, and better relationships between bones. With good joint health older people (and younger) will use their body more, moving in more ways and for more miles.

Qigong Enhances Breathing

Qigong teaches the supra-important skill of how to keep breathing. Qigong breathing has the potentially to literally add years of health to one’s life.

Some Ways Qigong Enhances Breathing:

–Deepening the breath
–Drawing the breath lower in the torso
–Strengthening the correct breathing muscles
–De-training (untraining) incorrect methods of respiration
–Fostering the ease and smoothness of breath
–Equalizing inhales and exhales

Qigong Helps Ease Pressure on the Heart

More blood is pumped through one’s body with greater ease by simply relaxing the blood vessels. Instead of forcing the blood to plow through tight arteries and veins, Qigong practice opens these vessels through internal relaxation.

Qigong is a Dementia Preventia

The many sequences of movements train the mind, build new synapses in the nervous system and strengthen the focus power of your brain. Qigong also teaches the amazingly important skill of centering your energy and consciousness low in your torso instead of in your brain; by doing this you build body wisdom and avoid jagged, jolting thinking habits.

Qigong Fosters Equilibrium

With the gentle and slow movements that much of Qigong consists of Qigong can build leg strength, increase walking confidence, and reduce the number of falls. Studies of Tai Chi–the brother of Qigong– show that in just 10 weeks of practice a senior citizin can decrease falls by 40 percent.

Qigong is Good for the Lymph System

Qigong has magnified effects on lymph flow and lymph gland function. You want this so as to clear out the body and prevent disease.

Thirty to forty minutes of Qigong can increase white blood cell count by 40 to 200  percent and keep it there for a day or two.

Qigong is Pleasant and Pleasurable

Wouldn’t you rather engage in some pleasant exercises in your yard or living room— or down at the Park or local rec center with some friends—rather than need endless medical procedures.

Qigong in the Gardens in July

Every summer for the past several years I have offered free Qigong classes. The first year I held them in Whatcom Falls Park in Bellingham. That was good, but I found it too busy and loud there by the road. And there were some crows that kept throwing down fir cones on our heads from the trees above us. Weird.

Since then I have held the free classes in my front yard amidst the natural scenery and festooned beauty of our gardens.

Axton Gardens

It is time again for the free summer classes. Qigong is such a powerful, yet approachable practice I want anyone interested to come and give it a try!

I envision a day when tens of millions of Americans are using the accessible exercises of Qigong and related arts as a primary part of their healthcare and life empowerment practices.

Get the PDF Flyer or read below. Read the rest of this entry »

Wall Sitting

Wall sitting is one of those great exercises that brings multiples benefits. Wall sitting is primary prescribed as a homework exercise for people who need to strengthen their legs, yet cannot exercise much because of knee pain. This might be a chronic issue, like an arthritis, or it can be from an injury. Wall sitting can help strengthen, heal and align the ankles and hip joints as well.

The Main Benefits of Wall Sitting Include

• Strengthening the legs, especially the thighs (the quadriceps muscles
• Aligning your skeleton
• Relaxing your shoulders.
• Reliving pressure on the knees

How to Wall Sit

Lean your back against a smooth wall. Position your feet about hip-width. Inch your feet forward 12 or 15 inches. This distance will depend upon how long your legs are and how low you can comfortably sit. The longer the legs, the longer the distance you slide your feet forward. The more knee discomfort, the less distance. You might place a pillow or rubber ball between your knees. This is to stabilize the knees. You do not want your knees to bend inward. Slide your back down the wall.

Wall Sitting

Bend Knees Only Slightly to Begin

Fitness authorities usually recommend that you slide so far down that your knees are bent 90 degrees. In other words, the tops of your thighs are horizontal and you are in a full sitting posture, as if you were on an invisible chair. Actually this amount of squat is too much knee bending for many people. The goal is to safely strengthen the legs, not to achieve an athlete’s level of performance.

How Do You Determine How Far Down to Squat?

Come to a position that is comfortable, and does not cause extra pain in your knees. Pain will create tension in your body, and undo the gain of the exercise.

Feel the Pump, Not the Pain

Just be able to feel the pump in the quadriceps, then you can build muscle and strength. The secrets to the results of wall sitting are that it does not reinjure your knees through repetitive strain; and the longer you sit, the more your leg muscles respond and grow. If you can’t bend very far, you may want to try and hold the pose for a longer period to get the quadriceps pump. One person I taught this to called it the ski burn. I recommend 30 seconds to 2 minutes.

Over several weeks or months of building up with this exercise, your legs will get noticeably stronger and knee pain should decrease.

You will deepen how low you go in your squat as your legs get stronger. But always avoid knee pain. Never go too deep.

Three Repetitions

After sitting for 30 seconds to 2 minutes, get up and walk around for a minute or two, then perform another rep of the same length of time. Again rest and walk around; then do the third and final Wall sitting rep.

Relax Your Shoulders

As you let your legs take all of the weight of the body from the pelvis up, the shoulders no longer act as if they have to hold you up. The muscles of the neck and  shoulders begin to let go and sink down.

Common Problems

Knees in front of toes. Could lead to pain in the kneecap. Don’t bend the knees so far forward that, if you look down, you can’t see your toes. The lower legs should be vertical, not angled forward.

Don't Bend Knees too far

Feet too wide or not wide enough. Keep the four pairs of joints lined up.

Knees bending inward or outward. Knees bending inward can injure the medial knee, while knees bending outward, cowboy style, can injure the lateral knee. When I was first learning Qigong standing practices I was taught what I now consider to be a too-wide knee posture. My knees ached, on and off, for years until I corrected my training.

Feet not pointing straight ahead. Make sure your toes are not angled outward or turned inward. Keep the toes exactly forward. This will help with a natural, normalizing process of balancing your major pairs of joints. The ankles should be perfectly aligned under the knees, which are aligned under the hip joints.

Don't angle the toes out

Putting weight onto the front of the legs. Try to sink your weight into the big muscles of your thighs.

Bending forward at the waist. People sometimes do this to take some of the stress off the leg muscles–the beneficial burn. This will put the stress of your weight on lower back and not help your leg strength, knee health, or alignement. Lean back into the wall to maintain a vertical posture.

Don't lean forward

Wall Sitting as a Qigong exercise

Wall sitting strengthens the legs, helps rickety-stickety knees heal, aligns your skeleton, and improves your posture. But there is yet more to wall sitting.

Wall sitting is an internal self-regulation exercise also, a Qigong (chi kung.) Wall sitting can increase vitality. This is done through regulating the breath, opening all of the joints, aligning the bones, feeling the vitality of the body, and calming the heart and mind.

Relax as much as possible, have an upright posture and keep all the joints open. You also want to pay attention to the flow of energy through the body as you sit. Feel and visualize your joints opening up and out. Imagine subtle rivers of energy running up and down your body, connecting your bones. Breathe deeply but as easily as you can. Keep the breath low in the body if you are able.

Train Your Body to Work Better

Qigong is a strange-sounding, oddly pronounced word that simply means training your body to work better. Qigong trains you to be natural, at ease and empowered in your own body. Qigong trains your body to work better from the inside out. This happens not through some mystical process, but by natural means. By incrementally improving how you move, stand, breathe, and think, you change how your body works for the better. A lot better.

Release and Refresh

For instance, by learning how to put or allow just a little bit more distance between your bones, you create more space in your joints. This is like opening doors and windows in your home after a long winter (like the current one that is hanging on) to let in a fresh, enlivening Spring breeze. It clears and renews. Stale air is replaced. This is like riding on air instead of crunching gears.

Give Yourself Some Space

Opening your joints just a little gives more room for movement in each joint and the articular system of the whole body. It is like putting cushions between your bones. You are more comfortable in your body when less compacted. You acquire more capacity to take stress.  Synovial fluid of the joints can clear out stuck gunk. Joint tissue healing that might have been stalled can restart.

Get More Energy from Yourself

With less energy of the body being used to deal with the compacted joints, more is available for other processes. Maybe some chronic joint pain clears up, which is great in itself, and frees more energy yet. You will probably also breathe easier because your are less tense and rigid. This means you are clearing more gunk and junk out of your body and absorbing more oxygen, which gives you still more energy. Can you get a sense of how you now have more “Qi”?

Stick to Principles

Creating space between your joints is just one of many powerful, principles that is cultivated in Qigong practice. Learning and using that one principle of opening the joints can help you feel and be happier, healthier and more relaxed. I will write more about the specificities of joint-opening in a later post.