Chi kung, qi gong, or Chinese yoga, is a dynamic healing technique to dispel heat and dampness produced by the season of summer.
Heat and dampness are conditions that develop in the body that can lead to health problems like digestive disorders, anxiety, depression, exacerbation of inflammatory conditions, and excessive weight.
What causes heat and dampness?
- Iced and cold beverages that stagnates the energy of the spleen, producing dampness
- Extended exposure to high temperatures that causes the body to want to extinguish the fire by creating phlegm, mucus, or dampness. Therefore, on extremely hot days, we may feel heavy, sluggish, and uninspired to move our bodies.
- Steroidal drugs and antibiotics that can also generate dampness and heat
- Chronic and internal diseases kidney disease, congestive heart failure, diabetes, depression, fibromyalgia, and arthritis that can also lead to heat and dampness.
Qi gong or Chinese yoga can help free up stagnation and dampness of the spleen, eliminate heat and boost metabolism.
Self Massage
- Take a deep long breath filling in through your lower stomach and then exhale deeply.
- Envision your spleen energy, existing below your rib cage on the left.
- With your mind, feel into the areas that are heavy and gray. Also, try to feel the parts that are dry and light.
- With the palm of your right hand, slap lightly the part below your left rib cage, and brush any energy that has stagnated on the torso, legs, and down the feet. This will increase circulation to the spleen and move stuck energy in your body.
- Do this procedure nine times or more a day.
According to Chinese medicine in Orlando, the spleen is not only responsible for the conversion of foods into energy, but also of life experience as well. So, when you feel “stuck” in your life, you’re usually suffering from dampness in your spleen that makes it difficult to let go of negative holding patterns and harmful habits.
From the viewpoint of the soul, we may be storing old emotional wounds and injuries from past life experiences (prenatal) or early childhood in our energetic bodies. When we work with our spleen, we give ourselves the ability to convert those wounds and heal profoundly in order to generate new experiences from a healed space.
The Spleen can also be associated with our ability to center and ground our energies, but when we are busy, this can be a difficult thing to do.
We can be focused and more productive with the tasks at hand if we just take just a few moments of our time to practice Chinese yoga with the intent of enabling our spleens to ground our energy.
Finally, heat and dampness, can at times, be connected to mental states such as struggle and anxiety. Hence, the energy of your spleen can become burdened when these emotional states are felt.
Our minds have the ability to affect the physical aspect of our spleen, and in turn, this physical aspect can affect our minds.
For instance, if we drink cold beverages and consume raw, cold, oily, and heavy foods, it can lead to spleen stagnation that may appear as dampness, that in turn, produces naturally obsessive stuck thoughts or a feeling of laboring with all that we have on our plates (heat).
Qi Gong Breathing Techniques
The spleen can be liberated and invigorated by performing the following breathing techniques.
- Deeply and fully exhale fully and deeply, intentionally contracting your lower stomach to clear out all the air in your lungs.
- Deeply inhale deeply and allow air to fill into the middle part below your rib cage (your dan tien) to saturate your spleen with oxygen. Then visualize a yellow light filling your spleen as you do so.
- Do this pattern of inhalation and exhalation nine times, deliberately making each longer, fuller, and deeper.
Sit for a moment when finished and reflect. Allow some insights to enter your mind where you may be holding patterns in your mind, body, and life. Also realize that by constantly practicing breath work and Chinese yoga, you are allowed to free those patterns.