Controlled breathing, regulated breathing, breathwork, or any type of breathing exercise produces Chi or life force in your body. Chi can then be accumulated in the lower belly. It can also be gathered in other centers of your body, such as your solar plexus through specific ways of breathing. 

Why Is Breathwork So Powerful?

When enough of this Chi or life force is stored in your center, it generates heat and warmth in your body. This has a positive effect on your body. 

When you focus on the pace of your breath, you can also have a positive effect on your mind. When you pay attention to your breath, you are connected to your emotions, and awareness of your body is activated.

Breathing exercises can regulate your nervous system and help you to reduce stress. Different types of breathing, whether rapid or intentionally slow, activate your brain structures involved in thinking, feeling, and behavior.

For example, if you rapidly breathe right now, you may stir up some emotions and feel excited or anxious.  When you slow your breathing, you end up having a calm state of mind.

Particular breathing techniques help us to manage our thoughts, mood, and experiences. The practice of breathwork is mainly beneficial to your mind.  However, that’s not all. There’s more than just the mind. You still need to do some physical exercise, one that moves your Chi, which is good for the body.  

More Than Just Breathwork

Complementing breathwork with moving the energy in your body makes for a great life.

The practice of breathing exercises while concentrating on your lower belly and moving your limbs best describes Tai Chi.  And doing Tai Chi helped me to move my energy and forget all of my troubles.

After long hours at my desk, I sometimes feel very tired or completely exhausted. Sometimes I feel like I’m stuck in a rut and nothing is going on. Nothing is moving.  But just a few minutes of breathing and Tai Chi movement renews my strength and enables me to get on with my work.

When Chi begins to circulate in my body, I feel it permeate every organ, bone, nerve, and muscle. 

When you’ve accumulated enough Chi in your lower belly through breathwork, then you must do something with it. You just can’t let it just sit there, be stored and locked away.  You must direct your Chi to move.

You can’t and should not prevent the Chi or life force from flowing freely in your body. When you have stored enough energy in your belly, it is advisable to shift your concentration from cultivating to putting your energy into motion. Otherwise, you’re going to feel that nothing is moving in your life. Things will be the same and you feel life is repeating itself.  Instead, move your Chi around and create new experiences, thoughts and feelings.

How Do You Move Your Chi?

Let’s spread some Chi to all parts of your body. At the same time, achieve complete stillness of mind by freeing it from all external disturbances.

Begin with a Tai Chi movement and start by concentrating here with your fingers.  (Follow me in the video.)

1. Energize the fingers up to shoulder height. 

2. Exhale, relax. 

3. Energize the fingers. 

4. Relax back down. Then turn, energize and ward off left. 

5. Exhale, relax and energize to ward off right. 

6. Turn, shift the weight and energize. Rollback. 

7. Exhale into your right foot and energize. Press. 

8. Relax and exhale back down.

Let everything go. Let everything fall to the floor.

By energizing the fingers, you can direct the Chi or energy to flow through your body and out through your fingers. Just concentrate on moving the fingers by exhaling, relaxing down, and inhaling, coming right back up. Exhale right back down, release the fingers and then energize the fingers up. Then relax back down, exhale all the way.

One more time. Just move your fingers.

1. Move the fingers up and down.

2. Move them left and right.

3. Move them forward and backward.

4. Exhale, relax.

5. Energize the fingers up.

6. Exhale.

7. Energize the fingers.

8. Relax back down.

Feel Your Chi

When the Chi flows freely in all your channels, it permeates first in the bone marrow.

Then it permeates through your nervous system, calming you down. 

It then permeates through your inner organs. 

Finally, it permeates through your skin, therefore refining your whole and entire body. 

Tai Chi is a whole body practice of energy flow. Its purpose is to make you feel whole again. 

What if you can raise your spirit by having both a sound mind and a sound body, and what if you can follow a method that looks after both your mind and body at the same time? 

What are some other methods you can use to energize your Chi, to put it into your bodily circuits for the purpose of harmonizing your body with your mind?
Check out my breathing video, where I show you how you can integrate your body with your mind with some very simple breathing techniques.

Are you also interested in online Tai Chi classes? Check out my schedule of classes HERE and I’ll see you in class!