Qigong, an ancient Chinese exercise and treatment, benefits both health and longevity. It involves mind and body coordination to improve the flow of the body’s vital life force. Although similar to acupuncture in moving the qi (also called chi), qigong doesn’t require needles and also helps improve organ health. There are a number of schools and approaches to qigong, from exercises you can do yourself, to having work done to you by qigong practitioners.

One simple way to improve your immune system is to improve salivation in your mouth. Doctors and dentists know that saliva helps reduce dental cavities. People with poor salivation tend to have more dental cavities and poorer immune function.

Here is a simple qigong exercise to increase salivation. Clack your teeth together 12 times, move your tongue up and down 9 times, then move your tongue from left to right 9 times, and finally move your tongue out and in 9 times. You should notice increased saliva in your mouth. Swish the fluid around your mouth and swallow it in 3 amounts. You will notice even more saliva afterwards.

Improving the lymphatic flow in the body also improves the immune system. The lymphatic system is similar in structure to the circulatory system but with much smaller vessels. If the blood vessels were the size of straws, then the lymphatic vessels would be the size of silk threads. The lymphatic system removes waste material. Sometimes, if there is a lot of material to remove, congestion occurs, resulting in swelling, heaviness and decreased immunity. Even bone dust from certain surgical procedures can clog lymph nodes and vessels.

Using shaking machines or vibrators or jumping on trampolines can help move the lymph fluid. A simple qigong exercise involves doing mild shaking while standing and relaxing all joints in the body including the jaw, so that when you shake, your teeth clack. Imagine all of the water in your body, which is about 70% of your body composition, moving as a single unit, creating a tidal wave moving waste material out of the cell and driving in nutrition, including oxygen. Also imagine the various types of tissues gliding smoothly as separate units, unsticking any scar tissue that may have developed from trauma, infection or disuse. Your fingers, shoulders, vertebrae, skin and muscles should bounce or move as a wave or flap like a flag blowing in the breeze. The action should appear graceful and flowing, with movement occurring at each separate joint. Care has to be taken to shake at an appropriate speed so you don’t hurt yourself.

From a qigong point of view, this is the only exercise I know of that benefits the hormonal or endocrine system. The endocrine system could be described as the “mobile” messenger system, versus the nervous system which could be described as the “landline.” The endocrine system communicates messages that help with energy production (thyroid, adrenal), digestion (salivary), sexual function (prostate, ovaries), sleep cycles, growth, and coordination of all bodily functions.

As a child, I watched my grandparents doing a Japanese exercise called nishishiki. They would shake their arms and legs while lying on their backs. My grandmother lived to 88 and my grandfather to 97. Later, a 92-year-old Japanese patient told me to shake my hands to stay healthy. Even while playing sports, if a team member missed a point, everyone said, “shake it off.”  Shaking seems to lead to better health and performance.

What differentiates living from non-living things?  Movement.

Strength training is used more today to round out exercise regimes, especially for the “Baby Boomer” population. This addition compliments the previous focus on cardiovascular fitness programs. Evidence shows that strength training is not only good for activities of daily living, but also improves balance and helps with weight management and memory. Muscle strength involves coordination of nerve messages getting to the individual muscle fibers, which requires chemical messengers called neurotransmitters to link muscle and nerve function. Weight/strength training stimulates the production of these neurotransmitters, which also may boost memory.

Some of my patients are taking responsibility to keep themselves fit with a daily exercise routine but find that they are injuring themselves with the same routine they have done for years. Upon questioning, we find individuals are doing weight lifting of only certain muscles around a particular joint, usually the areas of the body that are easily seen. In doing so, imbalances can develop. Some people try to progress with their programs quicker than their bodies can handle. Some start off at too heavy a load and try to push through the exercise despite what their body says. Others do techniques or exercises with a higher risk for injury. Still others take statin drugs to lower their cholesterol but are not taking Co-Q 10 which gets depleted when taking statin drugs, thus reducing the body’s ability to produce muscle energy. Plus, add in the aging factor where muscle mass and strength decrease with each decade of life.

Most people who do weight training know that exercise is done gradually and every other day to allow for the muscle fibers to build with a day of rest between workouts. It is important to understand the different types of workout routines depending on your goals, whether to tone, bulk, increase strength or increase stamina.

Muscles are made up of different types of fibers; some are better suited for strong bursts of energy and others better suited for endurance activities. People have different ratios of each of these fibers, so that is why some people are better at long distance running and others are better at sprints.

Nutrition can make a difference in how muscle performs. Many books have been written on the subject, specific for various types of athletic events.

For the majority of us who just want to stay standing and functional for as long as we can as we age, there are simpler guidelines to follow, but it may help to get some guidance with an exercise program if you feel you are straining, plateauing or have gotten into a rut. Changing a routine may enhance brain function and muscle efficiency and get you to a new level with less risk for injury.

I still hear people talking about exercising to the point of pain and trying to work through the pain. Ever since I was an undergraduate in college, I have always believed, based on what my professor said, that pain is your body’s way of telling you that something is getting damaged. He said you could exercise without experiencing pain. Was I relieved to hear that, since I am such a baby when it comes to pain.

Coaches still push their athletes to the point of pain and it is one way to develop more muscle fiber. But some damage does occur and it’s similar to taking 2 steps forward and 1 step backward. You make forward progress but you do have some suffering.

There is a way to push ahead 1 step forward, 1 step forward, without any backward motion. I tell my patients to listen to your body. Don’t look for pain signals, because that is an indication that you have already gone too far. If you have to use ice to calm the pain and swelling, then you have most certainly gone too far.

Instead, look for other signals from the body telling you the point of damage is near, such as breathing harder or feeling like more effort is needed. You may start to modify the movement by using more parts of your body. It can feel like you are straining. You feel fatigue coming on. These are signals that come before the pain and will give you a “heads up” that you should stop. Using these signals will prevent any damage or pain from occurring, making your progress proceed in a forward manner.

One incredible athlete I met in my life was Lynn Jennings, who won the Bronze Medal in the 1500 meters at the Barcelona Olympics. What made her so remarkable was the fact that she never had an injury in her running career at the time I met her. When I asked her how she was able to accomplish this, she said that she always listened to her body, taking it easy when she felt tired, taking a break when she felt her body needed a rest. What a contrast to other elite runners who usually feel compelled to continue to train despite pain and injuries to keep up with the other runners. She lived in the woods and trained with her dog, away from the running community, so she never got caught up in the competition of keeping up with the other runners. She listened instead to her body.

No matter what type of activity, exercise or class you are doing, listen to your body and stop before you experience any pain.  Keep moving forward.

I remember a story about a Peace Corps worker who tried to teach soil conservation to a group of nomadic farmers. They were not interested in the subject until he got them to believe that there is a limited amount of land. They believed that land was limitless and all they had to do was keep moving to new fertile land. It wasn’t until their understanding of the whole world shifted that they began to embrace the practice of soil conservation.

A significant portion of our national budget goes to pay for healthcare. With the focus of our government in reducing expenditures to reduce the national debt, it is expected that there will be reductions in government spending on healthcare. Many Baby Boomers are entering the age when they will start using Medicare and this is a concern. Articles show that jobs are increasing at a rate of 25% in the healthcare market, but some feel this is not necessarily a good indicator since the goal is to reduce healthcare spending. More and more effort is being placed on providers to become more efficient in delivery of healthcare services, especially in light of the fact that the United States ranks 37 in quality of health care of the industrialized nations despite being number 1 in healthcare costs.

Perhaps, more attention and money should be spent on expanding prevention and wellness programs since most of the effort is now aimed at extending insurance coverage and decreasing the growth of costs through improved efficiency. There is even a movement to decrease or eliminate tests that show limited efficacy. Some movies/books are showing impressive results in reducing heart disease, diabetes and arthritis with changes in diet, exercise, stress reduction, improved sleep and attitude.

Another strategy is to have each individual take responsibility for improving health one step at a time. Anything is better than nothing and making changes in your routine can be done systematically and easily. Start walking a little more; park the car just a little farther; stand and do a little exercise while watching TV; eat a few bites less with each meal; drink a little more water; drink less soda; laugh a little more; go to bed a little earlier; talk to your friends and watch a little less TV. You can do a lot of little things on a daily basis to improve the quality of your life. Wouldn’t you rather be a little healthier with better blood flow to your brain, possessing stronger muscles with more flexibility, while looking and feeling a little younger? You have a choice and you are in charge of your life.

I have been teaching qigong for about 13 years  and studying it for 15, and I often forget that there actually are people out there who have never heard about it.   A quick and easy description of qigong is “An ancient Chinese form of exercise designed to improve health and longevity.”  It is pronounced “chee gong” and means the practice of moving the vital life force throughout the body.  Similar to acupuncture, it moves the vital life force without using needles.  As an exercise program, it is designed to improve organ health.

Many people are familiar with tai chi and have seen the graceful movements of that martial art which has been adapted for use in promoting health and balance.   Although I have never studied tai chi, people who do say that the basic movements often take up to two years to perfect.  Qigong, on the other hand, is much simpler to learn and can produce health benefits in one lesson.

One of the key aspects of qigong is that it focuses on the message system, unlike other exercise that may focus on cardiovascular health, muscle strength, flexibility or coordination.

The message system is ideas, messages and thoughts that influence how we feel, posture ourselves to the world and color our attitudes.  A book written by Masaru Emoto,  Messages in Water, describes how various words, sounds and images can affect the formation of crystals in water.  The more positive the message, the more beautiful the crystal formation.  Negative messages do not produce crystals.  Since our bodies are primarily water, this book shows the power of positive or negative thinking.

I tell my qigong students to think positive messages telling the body to be healthier, happier, smarter and more beautiful.  The body does listen to these messages.   Eliminating or reducing negative messages improves one’s outlook.  The “News” on television is 80% negative, which can negatively impact each cell of the body.  Think about how talking to different people makes you feel.  Who lifts your spirits?  Who brings it down?  Who are the people you prefer to be around?  Think about times when you didn’t want to do something.  How did your body feel?  Can you remember your attitude?  What about a time when you were excited about something – how did you feel then?  Can you remember the way your body felt?   An instructor of mine once said that a simple touch can produce a cascade of sensation in the body, an indication of many different physiological processes happening.  He reminded us of how sitting in a dark movie theater at age 13 next to the boy or girl you had a crush on, arms just barely touching, could make the whole body respond with strong sensation and emotion.  Hormones are message senders, after all.

Qigong is a discipline that can systematically change the way you send messages to yourself and thereby can improve your health.  It’s an easy practice that only requires you to do it.