« January 2006 | Main | March 2006 »
February 27, 2006
Qigong, Stress, Cortisol and Excess Body Fat
Qigong is one of the very best ways to counteract stress. But did you realize that by reducing stress, qigong may also contribute to fat loss?
I recently read a good explanation of this in Ed Baran's excellent newsletter (go to www.combatconditioning.com to sign up for his free tips.)
Here is a paraphrase of what Ed pointed out:
“Cortisol is one of the body's stress hormones. When we get stressed, cortisol levels increase. Prolonged overproduction of cortisol brought on by excessive stress can cause many problems: some brain dysfunction, aging of the skin, impaired immunity, recovery and healing, excess fluid retention, depression, and poor sleep. All of these things accelerate the aging process.
Cortisol also increases your appetite, prompting you to eat large quantities of food, usually sweets and simple carbohydrates. And we all know these make you fat. These foods also make insulin levels rise then fall which gives you that hungry feeling like you haven't even eaten.
So here's the loop: stress increases cortisol; cortisol increases appetite
(of usually bad foods like simple carbs); insatiable eating of bad foods makes you fat.
And here's the real kicker: Not only does cortisol make you fat (indirectly), the fat that you gain is usually abdominal fat. So it isn't bad enough to get fat all over, now it's been concentrated in your gut.”
Well put Ed!
The solution is obvious: control your stress levels to lower your production of excess cortisol.
I have discussed in many of these blogs and in other articles just how well qigong does in helping manage our stress response.
Our culture encourages us to be addicted to stress. Break that stress-addiction by taking up a daily program of qigong. I recommend doing two sessions a day. One session in the morning and one session in the early evening.
After a month or two, life should start feeling a whole lot more pleasant. And who knows, some flab might also start disappearing!
Speaking for myself: I am now 56 years old but have a body fat of around five percent. My diet and other exercise certainly are factors but I have always credited my qigong as another secret for my slim look.
See all of John Du Cane’s qigong resources.
Posted by james at 8:24 AM | Comments (3)
February 20, 2006
How Qigong Can Counter the "Immobility Response" and Heal Held Trauma in the Body
I talk a lot about how qigong can help us counter the impact of stress created by the over-stimulation of the flight or fight response in our daily lives.
But can qigong also help us recover faster from the trauma we experience in a car accident, as a rape victim, from surgery or from any event experienced as an immediate threat to our life?
Right now I am reading a fascinating book by Peter A. Levine,
Waking the Tiger, which discusses how to heal from trauma. After my rolfer, Jennifer Enslinger and a somatic therapist, Dakota McKenzie both recommended Levine to me within the space of a week, in quite separate contexts, I thought I’d better check him out.
I’m very glad I did.
From his studies in ethology, Levine identified the “immobility response” as a method animals use to handle a threat to their existence they perceive as insurmountable.
When an impala decides the pursuing cheetah is going to pounce, it switches from a seventy-mile an hour sprint and drops to the ground in a sudden dead-faint. This immobility response prevents it from feeling the pain of being ripped apart by the cheetah – or allows it a chance to feign death for a while in the hopes it can revive itself and escape before the cheetah decides to start devouring it.
The impala’s nervous system however is still operating at seventy-miles per hour. The conflict between its external stillness and raging interior creates a tornado-like force that remains trapped in the body. If the impala survives to escape, it has the instinctive ability to shake this force out of its system and remain relatively unaffected by the experience.
Levine explains that the human animal, confused about whether it is a prey or a predator often fails to shake off the effects of an immobility response -- and the trauma remains lodged in the nervous system, with often highly destructive results.
Levine’s breakthrough in working with trauma victims was to identify the bioenergetic component vital to healing this stuck trauma.
The original immobility experience needs to be revisited as a sensed experience and “shaken out of.”
As the world’s first self-domesticated animals, we humans need help to pull ourselves out of our trauma.
Levine cites the history of shamanic healing, often involving extensive vibration and shaking, to heal an individual’s stuck pain.
I love it.
Clearly, many qigong practices will facilitate this liberation of trauma through the use of deliberately-induced vibration and shaking.
I teach methods to my students to create oscillatory currents in their bodies which can be used either to heal or strengthen. Other methods involve the creation of energy-vortices within the system.
And of course there are wonderful “shaking qigong” and other free-form practices you can use to induce spontaneous healing.
If you have any interest in the subject I strongly recommend not only Peter Levine’s book, but also our own author Zhongxian Wu’s Natural Breath of the Dao, Chinese Shamanic Tiger Qigong, which will give you a wonderful practice and a deeper understanding of the healing potential in this style of qigong.
See all of John Du Cane’s qigong resources.
Posted by james at 5:11 PM | Comments (8)
February 13, 2006
Are You Making Excuses for Not Practicing Qigong?
I think we all make excuses to ourselves for why we don't practice something that we know is worthwhile for us. And the excuses can be endless.
I have just finished hosting and part-teaching a three-day workshop (Unlock!) with Pavel and Steve Maxwell. There was one gentleman who showed up at the workshop who can be an inspiration for us all.
Justin is totally blind. Despite this disadvantage, Justin flew alone from Ohio to Minnesota to participate fully in a workshop devoted often to complex physical movements.
Justin did not miss a beat, hung in there for everything and with the friendly help of some other participants was able to absorb a remarkable amount of the content.
Justin could easily have used his total blindness as an excuse not to attend a movement workshop that was frequently challenging for the most experienced and skillful of practitioners.
Next time you whine to yourself about why you can’t make the time to practice or learn qigong, may I recommend you say one word to yourself:
“Justin”
And then make your practice happen!
See all of John Du Cane’s qigong resources.
Posted by james at 10:00 AM | Comments (0)
February 6, 2006
Time to Suffer But No Time to Practice Qigong? The Curious Tale of a Chinese Waiter's Dental Agonies
This Thursday I visited my local Chinese restaurant, which is particularly low quality, for a ritual self-poisoning. Yes, sometimes, I just don't care about the consequences and fulfill my craving for one of my comfort foods: fried rice. Oh well...
However, I’m not writing this to bewail my guilty shortcomings.
But rather because a life-lesson smacked me in the face so hard while I was there, I feel compelled to share it with you:
The usually genial Chinese waiter, who so happily indulges me in my self-poisoning escapades, was this time doubled over in pain.
It was all he could do, between squeezed eyes running with tears, clenched jaw and a face of abject misery, to dump a plate of dubious food at my table before scuttling off to a corner and hunching over in his own world of private pain.
After inhaling my fried rice, I went to pay the damage.
“Are you going to the dentist for that?” I asked my miserable friend as he did his best to process my payment.
It wasn’t really a question, more a way of affirming what he was surely about to do.
His answer astounded me:
“I don’t have time,” he blurted out between grimaces…
And there, I thought, sitting in my car a few moment’s later reflecting on this amazing statement, is our human predicament in a nutshell.
We suffer like hell, a lot of the time we know why we are suffering and we know the remedy but…
“We don’t have time” to fix it.
I hate to think how many times I have gone through a good portion of my day without doing my qigong, while feeling more or less out-of-sorts. And then finally, I can’t stand it anymore or I simply make the time and get some practice in.
The result? Invariably, a flood of well being, followed by hitting myself on the side of the head for being so slow “to take the time” to do what I need to do to alleviate my condition.
Sound familiar to you?
Many years ago I went through the EST process, a benignly cultic, rather earnest bunch who were probably best described as the “Amway of consciousness”. Or perhaps the “Hallmark of self-development”. They specialize in a kind of group spiritual butt-kicking that as obnoxious as it can be, can serve to knock a few cobwebs out of your attic.
One of their favorite homilies (of which they have many) I did love:
“You don’t have the time? Yes, you do, you have all the time there is.”
Words to live by, for sure, and certainly words to live by when it comes to maintaining a regular qigong practice.
Once you have realized the value of qigong practice, be it for greater strength, flexibility, emotional stability, spiritual well being, whatever, then it’s up to you to consistently make the time for that practice.
Qigong is experiential and time dependent. The benefits are not going to happen by sitting around on your duff and vaguely thinking about it or showing up to the occasional session.
Practice qigong on a regular, daily basis and you are less likely to end up with some metaphoric version of the Chinese waiter’s dental pain. Or, if you do find yourself suffering otherwise unavoidable pain (car crash anyone?) you’ll have a toolkit to help you quickly mitigate and resolve that pain.
See all of John Du Cane’s qigong resources.
Posted by james at 6:20 AM | Comments (0)