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What the Heck Is Qi?
It's impossible to get very far in a conversation about Chinese medicine without discussing the concept of qi. What is qi? Where does it come from? How can I get more and hang on to what I have left? These are a few basic questions that come up, so let me try to answer them.
First off, anybody who has ever tried acupuncture can tell you that they have felt their qi. What that sensation is can be hard to describe—usually somewhat like a twang or a zing. It is a distinct energetic sensation that occurs when the acupuncture needle stimulates the acupuncture point. When I treat someone I tell them to expect a tingle or heavy feeling. But there is more to qi than just a response by our nervous system. This is just one experience of qi.
Anyone who has ever studied Tai Qi or Qi Gong can tell you about the sensation of calm alertness and energized relaxation that comes with practice. How can we develop this paradoxical state of being (calm but alert, relaxed but energized)? This is yet another experience of qi.
Qi is generally translated as vital energy of the body, vital life force or universal life energy. Although this concept is not popular in contemporary Western medicine, there was a similar idea called the animus that was popular in the time of Hippocrates. In India the term prana is used to describe the same thing. The bottom line is that qi is what sustains us while we are alive and what we run out of when we die.
In Chinese medicine there are many different kinds of qi. There is the qi we get from the air we breathe. There is the qi we get from the food we eat. And there is the qi we inherit from our parents. While there is not a lot we can do to change the genetic predisposition we were born with, we do have more control when it comes to the quality of the food we eat and how dynamic our breathing is.
Qi is said to have several specific functions in relation to our bodies that include warming the body and holding all the parts in place. It is the source of all movement in the body and has the power to transform and transport substances internally. Also, very importantly, it protects the body from disease. With this understanding it is quite easy to see that our qi is something we need to protect and preserve to ensure a long and healthy life.
Qi can be abundant or deficient. It can be harmonious, or it can be stagnant, collapsed, or rebellious. When it is abundant and harmonious we are filled with the joy of living and are healthy and enthusiastic about meeting the challenges life offers. When it is deficient we may be sluggish, lacking the get-up-and-go to get through the day. When it is stagnant we often experience this as pain or discomfort in the body due to a blockage of qi in some organ or group of tissues. When it is rebellious, qi moves in a direction other than its usual course, such as when we sneeze or are nauseous. Collapsed qi is what happens when organs in the body become prolapsed and are no longer held in their correct positions.
While all the many forms of qi are important to our health, let me focus on the qi of our lungs and the air we breathe, because they are easy to promote - though often the most overlooked. Without food we can survive for up to months. Without water we can survive for up to a week. But without air we can survive only a matter of minutes. So clearly air qi (oxygen) is the most vital of the elements that sustain us, yet most of us take breathing totally for granted.
Historically, deep breathing was promoted through walking and physical labor and activities such as singing or chanting, which require the use of more than minimal lung capacity. By breathing deeply we not only increase the amount of qi we bring into our bodies, but stimulate circulation in our other internal organs via the action of the diaphragm.
Consider this: 200 years ago the air on this planet was 38 percent oxygen and 1 percent carbon dioxide. Today it is 19 percent oxygen and 25 percent carbon dioxide. There are many complex reasons for this dramatic shift, including the industrial revolution, the internal combustion engine and the loss of vegetation and biomass. Dr. Helen Caldicott calls our forests the "lungs of the planet." The earth's lungs are shrinking, and as a result it is getting harder for all of us to breathe with ease.
Consider this: Dr. Otto Warburg was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1931 for discovering the cause of cancer. "Cancer has only one prime cause. The prime cause of cancer is the replacement of normal oxygen respiration of the body by an anaerobic [lacking oxygen] cell respiration," he said. In other words, the growth of cancer is related to a lack of oxygen. Cancers cannot live in an oxygen–rich environment. Take a deep breath and think about that.
As a wise person once said, "The secret to a long life is: Don't stop breathing!"
© 2002 Larry Forsberg. All rights reserved.
Articles posted on this Web site are for personal use only and remain the property of Larry Forsberg, L.Ac.
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