1 Review 5 star rating Comment on this Article

Learn to energize or destress with qigong

Qigong (or ch'i kung) refers to a wide variety of traditional "cultivation" practices that involve methods of accumulating, circulating, and working with Qi or energy within the body

I first learned about this medicinal therapy/exercise from a coworker while taking a short break from a long meeting. At first I was like, "What is this strange exercise? It won't do anything for me." But qigong is great because it touches on your meridians and helps center and energize you with minimal effort.

All you need to do is take 10-15, which anyone should be able to do, especially someone like me who needs to slow down. Simply stand with your feet, waist width apart, as you breathe in raise your arms out, palms facing up. As you reach your head press down (like you're pressing down a pump) and breathe out slowly. Do it 10, 15, 20 times slowly taking a full breath each time. I think this is just one of the moves but it helps you regain your energy, energy that I often run out of by overextending myself.

Article Tools

Reviews

5 star rating August 12, 2008

Adam W.
166 reviews
Send Message | Add to Friends

Cool beans

I took a Tai-chi class in college and we always started off our class with a bunch of qi-gong exercises. I never really liked them at the time because i was taking the class as an exercise class and At 9:30 in the morning I didn't need to relax - i needed to wake up! That being said, now I am really glad I know these exercises. We actually learned a bunch of them, and I definitely use them when i am kinda stressed out along with some good YOGA breathing just to center myself again. Here are a couple other I learned.

Bend your knees slightly. Bend down and put your hands on your knees. Using your hands, rotate both of your knees in a circle. First do it in one direction for 10 seconds, then do it in the other.

Put your hands on your waist. Using your hands as a guide, again, make large circles with your waist. Breath in for half the rotation, then out for half the rotation. Repeat for 10 seconds, the switch directions.

There are a bunch of others, but these are my two favorite. Well actually, the one Haru talks about is my favorite, but she already nailed that one. I also really recommend some simple tai-chi for relaxing, but thats a whole other post.

Was this review helpful to you?