Are your spinal column and connected muscles cranky from hours of sitting at a workstation day-in and day-out? These qigong-inspired exercises can help you maintain youthful suppleness. As we age, there can be an insidious drift away from the flexibility we took for granted in our earlier years and drift into stiffness, rigidity, tension, inflammation, pain, and stress if we’re not careful (this applies to our mental and emotional levels as well as the physical).

Generally speaking, qigong (chee gong) practices synchronize mind, body, and breath for some given intention. For example, in the muscle-tendon-ligament “functional compartment” there are qigong for gathering in, for lengthening, and for twisting. The four exercises featured in this video are based on a contractive energizing idea and can help drive oxygen- and nutrient-rich blood into the muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints in the vicinity of the spinal column, offsetting the imbalances caused by the common combination of long periods of seated deskwork and unmindfulness of posture. They are a slow medicine, giving their best results following a low-intensity, long duration thesis.

For perspective, recall that muscle and joint health do not depend solely on mechanical stimulation by exercise. Our attitudes, thoughts, emotions, assumptions, and conclusions about life–whether clearly conscious, semi-conscious, or unconscious–are major contributors to wellness and illness. If this level of self-care sparks your interest, the Pathwork or similar system can be of great benefit.

Copyright (c) Justin Jaucian