A free chance to do Qigong with people from 90 + countries around the globe in the 26th year of this event How Qigong Works
Qigong follows traditional Chinese medicine principles, which claim that qi flows through our bodies. According to TCM, people tend to feel their best when qi travels freely, but health problems can crop up if the energy becomes stagnant or blocked in a certain area of the body. Through simple poses and patterned breathwork, qigong is believed to remove obstacles to promote a healthy flow of qi.
Beginners first learn how to coordinate physical movements with breath through the repeated practice of exercises. Once they achieve proper form, students work on turning those exercises into moving meditation, or finding the change in energy within the postures, movements, breathing patterns, and transitions.
It may sound simple, but there’s a lot happening within the body and mind during a qigong practice.
For starters, the slow, gentle movements are believed to warm up your tendons, ligaments, and muscles; mobilise the joints; and promote the circulation of body fluids (like blood, synovial, and lymph).
Meanwhile, deep breathing, which plays a central role in qigong, calms the sympathetic (fight-or-flight) nervous system and activates the parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) side of your autonomic nervous system, Bouguyon says. The autonomic nervous system regulates involuntary processes like breathing, heartbeat, and digestion.
By tapping into the parasympathetic nervous system, qigong can help reduce stress and anxiety, which has many implications for health. “Qigong offers the beautiful gift of working to quiet the mind, settle the emotions, and relax into the body,” Bouguyon says.
From the traditional Chinese medicine perspective, qigong optimises the flow of energy in your body to help mitigate or attend to any number of conditions.
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