Qigong Exercise, Qigong for Women Chest Health

The following exercise is from the chest set of Health Balance Qigong and can be found in the Qigong for Women. This exercise improves Qi flow through the heart, lungs, breasts, upper torso, and the arms and hands.

Place feet shoulder-width apart and arms relaxed by your sides. Inhale, then as you exhale, bend the knees and round the spine and turn palms to face upward and continue moving hands up in front of the heart, forearms crossed, palms facing each other as if holding a small ball.

Qigong for Women: Chest Health
Inhale as straighten the spine from the knees up one joint at a time, rotating palms to face outward as extend hands out to each side at shoulder height. Keep the fingertips pointing upward as you rotate palms to face outward.

Begin exhaling as you turn palms face down. Continue exhaling as you round spine and shoulders and bend knees, palms descend to waist, turn palm up and rise up in front of heart with forearms crossed again. Repeat. The breath is deep but relaxed and slow and fills the chest (chest breathing).

On the inhale, visualize energy from the environment flowing into the heart and lung through their Mu acupuncture points. The Lung Mu is about an inch down from the outer edge of each collarbone near the shoulders. The Heart Mu is about a half inch down from the bottom edge of the breastbone. Visualize the energy coming into the lungs as white and the energy coming into the heart as red. As you exhale, gently allow any excess energy to flow down the arms to the space between your palms. Click to learn how Chinese medicine treats Coronary Arteriosclerotic Cardiopathy.

To emphasize psychological healing—when the hands cross in front of the chest, imagine feeling safe and protected. As the hands expand outward focus on feeling open and connected.

Practice just the movement with the breathing for a few days until you feel comfortable and relaxed. Then, try adding in the Mu points with the visualization of energy filling the organs as described above. Next, try focusing on the psychological healing by using the healing phrases listed above. Don't increase the complexity of the exercise too quickly. The mind must remain peaceful and unstressed during the exercise. Once you are comfortable with the movement you can add in more of the internal aspects of the form (Nei Gong). After a few weeks you will find that you can easily do both the Mu points and psychological elements simultaneously and feel completely relaxed. For health problems, repeat the exercise three times per day. For health maintenance, once per day is good. Only do as many repetitions in a row as feels completely comfortable and relaxing.