Qi Gong for Anxiety
Flow is a term used in Qi Gong when we feel at peace and relaxed within.
Through the practice of Qi Gong, you can discover the flow for yourself. This routine is designed to give a you a mini-vacation. With continued practice, you’ll find yourself more relaxed, more resourceful, feeling lighter, and able to go with the flow.
The opposite of flow is stress and anxiety. If you are feeling anxiety in your life, you aren’t alone. Anxiety is one of the most common problems people face today. Qi Gong is a quick and easy solution to anxiety that comes from the inside out.
There’s a saying in Qi Gong, “Let your mind be clear like a mountain lake: reflective, free and open.” This routine will help you find that equanimity, where the body is relaxed and the mind at peace. Join Qi Gong teacher and PBS favorite, Lee Holden, in this simple and easy to follow routine.
- Transform anxiety into inner peace with moving meditations
- Clear anxiety using simple breathing exercises
- Release tension and stress with gentle stretching
- Balance the nervous system with long, flowing movements
Video Comments with Ratings
What follows below is an excerpt from my post in the General Discussion Forum of Video Fitness Forum -- in that post I compared Lee Holden's Qi Gong for Anxiety program and his Qi Gong for Depression & Emotional Balance. Click here to read that post.
==
Never ever have I experienced such a breathtaking sense of peace and calm and a physical sense of weightlessness then when I did the Qi Gong for Anxiety program. I even felt some warmth and prickly tingling in different parts of my body. It was truly a remarkable experience.
The program was filmed at Nisene Marks State Park in California and consists of an 2 minute intro, 16 minute short session, and 35 minute long session.
My favorite quote from Lee Holden in the introduction: “There’s a saying in Qi Gong. Let your mind be like a clear mountain lake: reflective, free, and open. Anxiety is like pebbles thrown into the water. If one thousand pebbles were thrown into the pond in succession there would be a lot of ripples and waves. These pebbles represent thoughts and emotions. Too many thoughts and emotions disturb the calm state of the mind. This routine will help you find that equanimity where the body is relaxed and the mind is at peace.”
I’ve only done the short routine and it is quite lovely – both with the setting; gentle sounds of instrumental music, water, and birds chirping; and with Lee’s instruction, explaining the purpose of the movements, and relating of information about our bodies and minds in regards to how the routine helps calm anxiety.
The shorter routine for Qi Gong for Anxiety focuses a lot on breathing, stretches, and some gentle flowing movements. The short program begins with belly breathing (inhaling and exhaling through your nose) and the moves onto to cleansing breaths (in haling through your nose, exhaling through your nose, and exhaling the rest of the breath through your mouth). Then there is massaging over the sternum bone and knocking on the sternum bone. After that you stand still with your palms facing the chest to feel the energy circulating through your body (this energy circulation check-in, in different positions, happens a few more times during the session). There are arm movements to clear lines of tension followed by neck stretches. Then body shaking, more arms movements, and stretches to open the chest. The session concludes with gently rocking and swaying the body.
The longer routine contains all of the content from the shorter routine but there are some new movements (such as massaging the low back, rubbing the abdomen, and stretching the rib cage) and some movements are repeated like the neck stretches.
Thank you again to YMAA for sending me Qi Gong for Anxiety and Qi Gong for Depression and Emotional Balance, both by Lee Holden. On the YMAA site both are available to purchase as a DVD or streaming immediately through their site. More info on streaming here – an actual file that you download to keep is not available.