Resistance training strengthens muscles, and adequate dietary protein supports the rebuilding that follows. Tendons also adapt to repeated loading, changing the properties of the tissue that transmits muscular force to bone. For anyone practicing Yijin Jing, this nourishes the practical work of cultivation. The effort you put in during practice, and the food you eat between sessions contribute to the body’s development in different ways.

In the previous article on physical alchemy, we explored how muscles use fat and glucose to supply energy. Protein adds another part of that explanation. Digestion breaks dietary protein into amino acids, which your body uses to build and maintain its own proteins. Some become part of the machinery that produces muscular contraction; others contribute to the connective tissue through which that force acts.

Muscles produce force, and tendons transmit it.

When you raise an arm, hold a stance, or press against resistance, your muscles generate tension. Tendons carry that tension to the skeleton. Although these tissues work together, they have different structures. Muscle contains the contractile proteins that generate force, while tendon is built largely from organized bundles of collagen.

Progressive resistance training can increase tendon stiffness and, to a smaller extent, its cross-sectional size. Here, stiffness means resistance to stretching under a given force. It describes a mechanical property of the tendon, distinct from the uncomfortable stiffness you might feel in a joint. Changes in this property affect how force is transmitted during movement. Tendon adaptation to mechanical loading

These changes develop through repeated training over weeks and months. The amount of force, how long it is applied, and how the training progresses all influence the response. This gives a practical reason to develop your practice gradually and consistently.

Protein supplies materials for muscular adaptation

Your muscles continually break down and rebuild proteins. Resistance exercise increases the rebuilding response, and dietary amino acids support it. Over time, an appropriate training program and sufficient nourishment can increase muscle size and strength.

A review of multiple resistance-training trials found that additional protein improved gains in muscle mass and strength. The average additional benefit for lean mass levelled off at about 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. This is a useful reference point for adults training to build muscle, with individual needs varying around that estimate. Protein intake and resistance-training adaptations

For someone weighing 70 kilograms (about 154 pounds), that works out to roughly 112 grams of protein per day. This refers to the protein content of the food, not the food’s weight. Use food labels and a few days of meal logging to see how your usual intake compares. The calculation is most useful when considered alongside your training demands, age, and overall nutritional needs.

Make protein part of your regular meals.

Including a substantial protein source at breakfast, lunch, and dinner makes it easier to meet your daily needs. In a controlled feeding study, distributing protein more evenly across meals increased muscle protein synthesis over the day compared with concentrating most of the same daily amount at dinner. Protein distribution across meals

This deserves particular attention as you age. Older muscle can become less responsive to smaller protein servings. Research comparing younger and older men found that older men needed a larger amount relative to body weight to produce the greatest increase in muscle protein synthesis after a meal. The practical lesson is to look at how much protein your meals actually contain, especially if breakfast consists mainly of toast, fruit, or cereal. Protein requirements per meal with aging

Eggs, dairy foods, fish, poultry, meat, tofu, tempeh, beans, and lentils can all contribute. Plant-based eating can support muscular development when the overall diet supplies enough protein and essential amino acids. In young men beginning resistance training, a plant-based diet supplemented with soy protein produced similar muscle and strength gains to an omnivorous diet supplemented with whey when total protein intake was matched. Plant-based and omnivorous diets during training

Collagen has a different nutritional role.

Collagen is a protein, but its amino acid composition differs from the proteins commonly used to support muscle growth. It is rich in glycine and proline, contains relatively little leucine, and lacks tryptophan, an essential amino acid. This makes it a poor choice as your main protein source for muscle development.

In older women, whey stimulated muscle protein synthesis more effectively than collagen, both with and without resistance exercise. For muscle maintenance and growth, prioritize protein sources that provide adequate amounts of all essential amino acids. Whey and collagen compared

There are encouraging findings for tendons. A small, 12-week trial in middle-aged men found that adding collagen to a progressive resistance-training program produced greater increases in patellar tendon size and stiffness than training with a carbohydrate supplement. The patellar tendon connects the kneecap to the shinbone. The trial used 30 grams of hydrolyzed collagen after twice-weekly training sessions, and both groups received vitamin C. These findings suggest collagen may play an additional role alongside a structured loading program. Collagen and tendon adaptation

For everyday practice, begin with adequate food and an appropriate training stimulus. You can consider collagen as an additional supplement for a specific purpose, while your regular meals continue to provide the protein needed for muscle maintenance and growth.

Applying this to Yijin Jing

The relevance to Yijin Jing lies in the muscular work performed during the practice. Holding the arms away from the body, maintaining a demanding stance, or deliberately contracting against resistance loads muscles and their tendons. How those tissues adapt depends on the effort and how it progresses.

Resistance-training research helps explain these principles. Applying them to a particular Yijin Jing method depends on how you practice it. A gentle sequence and a demanding series of sustained contractions create different training demands. If your aim is greater strength, keep the work sufficiently challenging as your capacity improves.

Nourishment supports this process between sessions. Plan meals that provide enough protein, eat enough overall to support your activity, and allow recovery between demanding bouts of training. During practice, increase the demand gradually while preserving control and the intended posture. Over time, assess progress through what you can do: hold a position more steadily, manage a greater load, or perform the same movement with better control.

Like what you read? Keep exploring…

If this post resonated with you, you may enjoy my new book:

The Science of Medical Qigong: How Breath, Movement, and Attention Transform the Body

This book examines the growing body of scientific research exploring how Qigong practice influences human physiology. Drawing from clinical trials and experimental studies, it explains how coordinated breathing, posture, movement, and focused attention interact with the body’s regulatory systems.

The book explores research on:

• autonomic nervous system regulation
• cardiovascular function and blood pressure
• respiratory mechanics and lung capacity
• sleep quality and recovery
• inflammatory and immune signaling
• brain function and neural plasticity
• cognitive performance and mental health

The Science of Medical Qigong draws on physiology, neuroscience, and clinical research to explain how regular practice affects the body.

Available now in print and Kindle formats.

Click here to get your copy on Amazon

Purchase

Your muscles use fat and glucose to sustain movement, maintain their cells, and support the work of repair. Repeated muscular activity also stimulates changes in the tissues themselves. With an appropriate training stimulus, adequate nourishment, and recovery, muscles can become stronger and better able to meet the demands placed on them. Physical alchemy in Yijin Jing can be understood as the deliberate cultivation of these transformations, along with the attention and mental discipline you bring to your practice.

The traditional terms jing, qi, and shen describe related aspects of this cultivation. Jing 精, usually translated as essence, includes the inherited foundations of life and the nourishment acquired after birth. Qi 氣 refers to the energy and activity through which life is sustained. Shen 神 refers to spirit, including mental vitality, clarity, and the spiritual dimensions of cultivation. Their relationship gives physical alchemy direction: nourish and conserve your resources, use them effectively, and cultivate the mind that directs your actions.

How your body uses nourishment and movement to support strength and repair

Food provides a concrete starting point for understanding acquired jing in physiological terms. Digestion supplies glucose, fatty acids, amino acids, and other nutrients. Some are used promptly; others are stored or incorporated into tissues. Muscle stores carbohydrate as glycogen and also contains stores of fat. These reserves help meet the changing energy demands of activity. Inherited constitution and hormonal regulation belong to a different part of the comparison with jing: they influence how the body develops and functions. Hormones regulate these processes rather than serving as the fuel consumed during exercise.

Converting nourishment into usable energy gives a physical meaning to refining jing into qi. When your muscles work, they use a mixture of fuels drawn from the bloodstream and their own reserves. The contribution of fat and carbohydrate changes with the intensity and duration of the activity. Chemical reactions transfer energy from these fuels into ATP, a molecule that supplies energy for cellular work. Mitochondria produce much of this ATP through oxygen-dependent processes, while other pathways regenerate ATP without directly using oxygen. Muscle fuel metabolism

ATP powers the interactions between muscle proteins that produce contraction. It also supports repair and the pumps that maintain electrical charge differences and ion concentrations across cell membranes. These differences enable nerve signaling and muscle excitation. Metabolism and bioelectricity are therefore closely connected. These mechanisms give us specific physiological processes to consider within the broader traditional concept of qi. ATP and ion transport

Muscular activity also changes how glucose enters the working tissue. Contraction moves glucose transporters called GLUT4 toward the muscle cell surface, where they help glucose pass from the blood into the cells. This allows active muscle to increase glucose uptake without requiring more insulin. Movement creates an energy demand and helps the muscle obtain the fuel to meet it. Exercise and glucose transport

Fuel use and tissue building are connected through the energy required for adaptation. Fat and glucose supply much of that energy, while amino acids supply the building blocks for muscle proteins. Resistance exercise stimulates muscle protein synthesis, and adequate amino acids support the rebuilding that follows. Over time, repeated periods in which protein building exceeds breakdown can increase muscle tissue. This transformation involves both using existing resources and building new tissue. Muscle protein synthesis after exercise

What muscle metabolism can teach us about physical cultivation in Yijin Jing

This helps explain why sustained postures and muscular effort matter in Yijin Jing. Holding the arms away from the body requires effort even with little visible movement. Tightening the fists adds muscular contraction. This effort uses ATP and loads the tissues. Whether that load produces greater strength or structural change depends on its intensity, duration, repetition, and progression. Research on isometric training, in which muscles produce force without substantial joint movement, shows that sufficient loading can increase muscle strength and alter the mechanical properties of tendon structures. These findings help explain why the actual muscular demands of a Yijin Jing method matter. Isometric training and tendon adaptation

Cultivating Shen through attentive practice

Cultivating shen includes developing a clear, steady mind and the vitality to fully engage with what you are doing. Intention, or yi 意, gives your actions direction. As you practice, you attend to your posture, judge your effort, and notice unnecessary tension. You can then change how you move or how strongly you contract. The traditional relationship between shen and qi includes this coordination of mental activity and bodily action, alongside its spiritual meaning.

Nourishing shen also has a straightforward physical foundation. Your brain depends on a continuing supply of energy to sustain attention, perception, and the control of movement. Nourishment supports mental activity, and mental activity helps direct how you use the body. In Yijin Jing, you practice this relationship whenever you maintain a posture with attention, adjust excessive effort, or perform a movement with greater precision. The refinement includes both the condition of your tissues and how skillfully and attentively you practice.

Balancing training and recovery for lasting strength

Training and recovery contribute in different ways to this work. Practice demands stimulate adaptation, while food and recovery support the rebuilding that follows. A posture that once required substantial effort may eventually become easy, so further physical development depends on an appropriate progression. For cultivation to remain sustainable, that progression must fit your current capacity and leave you able to recover. The aim is to develop a body you can use with strength and control, supported by a mind capable of steady, attentive practice.

Like what you read? Keep exploring…

If this post resonated with you, you may enjoy my new book:

The Science of Medical Qigong: How Breath, Movement, and Attention Transform the Body

This book examines the growing body of scientific research exploring how Qigong practice influences human physiology. Drawing from clinical trials and experimental studies, it explains how coordinated breathing, posture, movement, and focused attention interact with the body’s regulatory systems.

The book explores research on:

• autonomic nervous system regulation
• cardiovascular function and blood pressure
• respiratory mechanics and lung capacity
• sleep quality and recovery
• inflammatory and immune signaling
• brain function and neural plasticity
• cognitive performance and mental health

The Science of Medical Qigong draws on physiology, neuroscience, and clinical research to explain how regular practice affects the body.

Available now in print and Kindle formats.

Click here to get your copy on Amazon

Purchase

Inner Fire: Breathing, Meditation, and the Science of Tummo

Experienced practitioners of Tummo, the Tibetan practice often called inner fire, can produce measurable changes in body temperature through coordinated breathing, muscular effort, and meditation. In a study published in PLOS ONE, researchers observed greater and more sustained increases in armpit temperature when practitioners combined the physical methods with their usual visualization. These findings help explain the contribution of both physical effort and concentrated mental activity to inner-fire practice.

My new illustrated ebook, Understanding Tummo, explores inner fire through its traditional teachings and the physiology of heat production. You can examine what practitioners do, what scientists have measured, and how breathing and meditation come together in this practice.

Inner Fire in the Tibetan Tradition

Tummo is often translated as inner heat or inner fire. Within Tibetan Buddhism, its breathing and visualization methods belong to a wider path of meditative training. The practice is associated with the development of bliss, an intense meditative pleasure, and insight into the nature of experience. This background helps explain the importance of preparation and individual instruction within the tradition.

If you already practice Qigong, meditation, or breathing exercises, exploring inner fire offers a different perspective on coordinating physical effort with concentration. If the subject is new to you, the explanations and glossary introduce unfamiliar ideas without requiring a scientific background or previous study of Tibetan Buddhism.

How the Body Produces Heat

Your muscles generate heat as they work. Blood carries that heat through the body, while your surroundings and clothing influence how quickly you lose it. Warm hands can reflect a change in local circulation even when the temperature deeper inside your body changes very little. Understanding these processes helps you make sense of the warmth associated with practice and the measurements reported in Tummo research.

The illustrated explanations show how the diaphragm and abdominal muscles contribute to the physical methods. You will also learn why carbon dioxide matters and what changes during breath retention, or holding the breath.

Visualization receives its own discussion. A practitioner may maintain an image of inner fire while coordinating breathing and muscular actions. The ebook explores the place of this imagery within meditation and how researchers have investigated its contribution to the practice. References lead you to the original studies if you want to explore further.

Exploring Inner-Fire Breathing

The practical material includes sitting guidance and explanations of five exercises: Root Breathing, Dispelling and Energizing Breath, Alternate Nostril Breathing, Vajra Breathing, and Vase Breathing. A separate contemporary breathing and visualization sequence presents another arrangement of these elements. Each explanation identifies the method’s context and purpose.

This material supports informed study and preparation for further instruction. Traditional Tummo training and demanding methods involving forceful breathing, breath retention, or muscular locks call for appropriate individual guidance. The ebook explains those considerations alongside the methods.

Read, Listen, and Follow Along

Understanding Tummo comes with an abridged companion audiobook. The illustrated ebook provides the full explanations and visual material; the audio revisits the main ideas in a form adapted for listening. You can study a section closely, then return to its central ideas during a walk or another convenient listening period.

I have also created Tummo: Guided Breathing and Meditation as a separate companion, with follow-along guided audio meditations and breathing exercises. These recordings cover preparation, individual exercises, and breathing and visualization sessions. The audiobook explains the subject, while the guided recordings lead you through the practices.

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I invite you to explore inner fire through explanations that respect its contemplative origins and make the research understandable.

Explore Understanding Tummo: Ebook and Companion Audiobook.

You can also browse my books and other resources or visit the Jade Dragon Qigong School.

A Tibetan meditator’s toe temperature rose by 8.3 degrees Celsius, nearly 15 degrees Fahrenheit, during research conducted by Herbert Benson and his colleagues in 1981. Their findings, published in Nature, documented substantial warming in the fingers and toes of three experienced Tummo practitioners. Temperature measured deeper inside the body remained unchanged.

The observation brought scientific attention to Tummo, the Tibetan Buddhist practice commonly called inner heat or inner fire. It also offered a striking example of how a person sitting in meditation could influence bodily functions that usually operate outside conscious attention.

Tummo combines physical methods with sustained meditation. Within Tibetan Buddhism, it belongs to a broader path concerned with spiritual development, including the cultivation of bliss and insight. The warmth that attracts scientific interest occurs within a practice that has a much larger purpose for the person undertaking it.

For anyone interested in breathing and meditation, the research raises an intriguing subject: how physical effort and focused mental activity work together.

What the Early Temperature Findings Reveal

Benson’s observations are especially interesting because the warming occurred in particular parts of the body. Your fingers and toes can change temperature considerably while the temperature deeper inside your body remains relatively stable.

You may recognize this from ordinary experience. Your hands can feel cold while your chest remains warm. When circulation to the hands changes, their temperature can change with it. Heat production, blood flow, and heat loss all contribute to the temperature recorded at a particular location in the body.

The early Tummo findings therefore drew attention to how the body distributes heat. They also established a useful distinction for understanding later research: warming at the skin and a rise in temperature deeper inside the body describe different physiological changes.

What makes Tummo unusual is the setting in which these changes occur. A seated practitioner may appear relatively still, yet the practice involves physical effort and sustained concentration. The visible posture reveals only part of the activity.

The Contribution of Visualization

Some of the most interesting findings emerged when researchers examined the visualization alongside the physical techniques.

In a 2013 study led by Maria Kozhevnikov, experienced practitioners in eastern Tibet produced larger, more sustained increases in armpit temperature when they combined forceful Tummo’s physical actions with visualization. Readings reached 38.3 degrees Celsius, about 101 degrees Fahrenheit.

The physical components alone also produced warming, including in people without meditation experience. Among experienced practitioners, visualization accompanied a different response: they sustained the temperature increase for longer.

The researchers proposed that the physical actions generated heat while meditation helped maintain the increase, possibly by influencing heat loss. This gives the mental component a concrete place in the investigation. Understanding the breathing alone would leave out part of the practice associated with the observed warming.

Visualization in this setting is a sustained task. The practitioner maintains specific imagery while engaging in the physical aspects of the meditation. Attention and bodily activity occur together throughout the practice.

That relationship is one of the most compelling aspects of the research. A mental task performed alongside physical activity accompanied a measurable difference in temperature.

Meditation Can Involve Physical Activation

You may associate meditation with easy breathing, relaxation, and a gradual slowing of activity. Tummo offers another example of what meditation can involve.

In a 2022 study of experienced Vajrayana, or tantric Buddhist, practitioners, researchers recorded brain and heart activity during several meditations, including Tummo. They interpreted the Tummo findings as consistent with increased physiological arousal and changes in attentional control.

Here, arousal refers to physiological activation. Concentration can accompany that activation, just as a musician can remain intensely attentive while performing a demanding passage. Physical effort and focused attention can occur together.

This helps explain why different meditation methods can produce different experiences. The amount of muscular activity, the breathing method, and the task occupying attention all contribute to what the practitioner is doing.

Seeing Where the Body Warms

More recently, researchers have used thermal imaging to observe the distribution of warmth across the body.

A 2026 case report in Human Physiology followed one experienced monk across four sessions. Infrared images recorded warming over the abdomen during meditation that persisted afterward. The strongest warming occurred during a breathing stage accompanied by visualization.

These images add something useful to the earlier temperature readings: a view of where the skin warms and how that warmth changes during practice. They extend the investigation from a temperature recorded at one location to a pattern visible across the body’s surface.

The studies approach Tummo from different directions, but each helps make an aspect of the practice more understandable. Temperature measurements reveal warming. Comparisons between physical techniques and combined meditation examine the contribution of visualization. Brain and heart recordings offer another way to investigate the activity occurring during practice.

For practitioners, these physical changes belong within a contemplative tradition concerned with how they experience and understand the world. Keeping that context in view gives the scientific findings a fuller meaning.

If this post sparked your curiosity, you may enjoy my book, Understanding Tummo: A Scientific Analysis of Breathing, Inner Heat, and Physiology. It also comes with an abridged audio version that you can download as MP3s.

Through clear explanations and illustrations, it explores Tummo breathing, the role of visualization, and how the body produces and regulates heat. The book connects this research with Tummo’s Tibetan Buddhist background, helping you understand the physical practice alongside its traditional purpose.

The practical sections guide you through progressive exercises that lead up to “inner fire” breathing, with each stage preparing you for the next. The teaching respects Tummo’s history and traditional practice while drawing on modern research to explain how the breathing techniques affect the body.

A single session of Liuzijue Qigong was followed by faster responses on a computerized attention task, with accuracy maintained. Participants sat with their eyes closed, coordinated their breathing with six traditional sounds, and then performed the task more quickly than after quiet rest. Researchers also recorded changes in brain signals that help them investigate the physiology behind that improvement.

The study, published in Frontiers in Neurology on September 3, 2026, examined seated Liuzijue breathing and vocalization without any additional treatment. YuQing Bi and colleagues recruited twenty young adults and studied the immediate effects of practice. Their findings connect the physical details of Qigong practice with measurable changes in performance on a task involving attention.

The practice behind the six sounds

Liuzijue (六字訣), often called the Six Healing Sounds, coordinates exhalation with six syllables: Xu, He, Hu, Si, Chui, and Xi. In this experiment, participants practiced the breathing and sounds while seated, without the accompanying movements used in many versions of the form. They inhaled through the nose and exhaled slowly through the mouth, repeating each sound six times. Their attention rested on mouth movements, airflow, and the sensations of vocalization.

In Liuzijue, you follow a sequence of breaths and sounds. Producing a sound shapes the exhalation and gives you something specific to hear and feel. Following those sensations gives attention a defined task. You are deliberately coordinating actions that usually happen without much conscious attention. From a Western scientific perspective, each provides a plausible route through which practice could influence your mental state.

Faster responses without more mistakes

To assess performance, the researchers used a version of the Stroop task. You might see the word “red” printed in blue. Here, participants pressed one key when the word and its color matched and another when they differed. The task requires you to recognize both pieces of information and select the appropriate response. It brings attention and response selection into a situation where competing information can slow you down.

You use related skills when you keep following a conversation despite nearby noise, or continue reading after something draws your attention away. The laboratory task isolates a small part of that larger ability to stay engaged and choose a response. It provides a specific, repeatable measure of performance, giving researchers something more precise than asking whether a participant feels clearer or more relaxed after practice.

After Liuzijue, the median response time across the task fell from approximately 643 to 606 milliseconds, a difference of about 37 milliseconds. Responses also became faster on the mismatched trials, which create more interference. Accuracy remained high, with no statistically significant change. Participants responded more quickly without an accompanying increase in errors. Thirty-seven milliseconds is a small interval in everyday life, but repeated trials let researchers detect differences at that scale.

Each participant completed both Liuzijue and an equivalent period of quiet rest, in a randomly assigned order. That crossover design lets researchers compare a person with themselves, reducing the influence of differences in baseline ability. The team also checked whether doing one condition first affected the results. The advantage associated with Liuzijue remained after accounting for order and testing period, strengthening the behavioral finding.

How breathing and attention work together

Breathing operates automatically, yet you can deliberately change its pace and pattern. As you control each breath, you also feel the movement and airflow it produces. When you practice Liuzijue, you coordinate respiratory movement with sound production and sustained attention to bodily sensation. Those actions involve sensory and motor systems as well as the networks that help you stay focused on a task. Practicing that coordination may help prepare attention for the next task, one possible explanation for the faster responses observed here.

Research outside Qigong has already established connections between respiration and brain activity. In a 2016 study, Christina Zelano and colleagues recorded electrical signals directly from the brains of patients undergoing evaluation for epilepsy. They found that nasal breathing synchronized activity in regions involved in smell, emotion, and memory. Separate behavioral experiments linked breathing phase with performance on memory and emotion tasks. This offers physiological context for studying breathing practices, while Liuzijue combines breathing with additional sensory and attentional demands.

Following the brain’s response during practice

Bi and colleagues examined those demands using near-infrared light sensors placed over the scalp. The technique, called functional near-infrared spectroscopy, estimates changes in oxygenated blood near the brain’s surface. Because active nerve tissue and its blood supply interact, researchers use these measurements to investigate activity in the underlying cortex. The method lets researchers track these signals while participants practice Liuzijue.

During Liuzijue, oxygenated hemoglobin signals were lower in several frontal and motor regions than during a comparison task involving the syllable “Fu.” That comparison included vocalization, but participants breathed naturally and received no instruction to focus on respiratory sensations. The difference therefore concerns the coordinated Liuzijue practice, including its breathing pattern and attentional focus, compared with a simpler sound task.

These measurements require an explanation that goes beyond “more oxygen means better thinking.” Brain measurements based on blood oxygenation depend on circulation as well as neural activity. Breathing can alter carbon dioxide levels, which influence the diameter of cerebral blood vessels. Richard Wise and colleagues demonstrated that spontaneous carbon dioxide fluctuations contribute to changes in functional MRI signals. In breathing research, lower or higher signals can therefore reflect several interacting physiological processes.

The authors propose that the changes during Liuzijue may accompany a more relaxed state and altered demands on sensory and motor processing. The clearest behavioral result remains the faster responses afterward; the oxygenation measurements offer clues about physiology. The lower oxygenation signals occurred during Liuzijue itself. During the subsequent attention task, oxygenation measurements showed no statistically significant change.

Changes in coordination across brain regions

A separate MRI assessment examined resting brain signals before and after Liuzijue. The researchers found changes in regions involved in movement, bodily sensation, and auditory processing. They also found altered functional connectivity involving the temporal cortex and insula. Functional connectivity describes how closely signals from different regions fluctuate together over time. It gives researchers a way to study coordination across the brain, beyond examining each region separately.

The insula helps process signals from inside your body, while parts of the temporal cortex contribute to hearing and language. These regions are relevant because Liuzijue directs attention toward breathing and the sensations of making each sound. The MRI results suggest that practice was followed by a different pattern of coordination among some of these regions. Because this assessment used a before-and-after comparison, its findings are exploratory associations.

What magnetic stimulation revealed

Another result came from transcranial magnetic stimulation, which the team used as a measurement tool. A brief magnetic pulse stimulates the motor cortex while electrodes record the response of a hand muscle. When the muscle is already contracting, the pulse can produce a short interruption in its electrical activity. Researchers call this the cortical silent period and use it to examine inhibitory processes in the motor system.

After Liuzijue, that silent period lasted longer. Among the fourteen participants who completed these measurements, its median duration increased from about 110 to 133 milliseconds. This measure is associated particularly with inhibitory signaling involving GABA-B receptors. GABA is one of the nervous system’s principal inhibitory chemical messengers. The finding points toward a change in motor cortical inhibition, providing a physiological lead that complements the attention results.

Inhibition is an essential part of nervous system function. It helps shape when nerve cells respond and how strongly they influence other cells. In movement, appropriately timed inhibition helps control output. During a cognitive task, suppressing an irrelevant response is also useful. These are related scientific questions, but connecting the motor measurement directly to the faster task responses remains a hypothesis for further testing.

What this means for your Liuzijue practice

The study gives us a practical reason to take the details of Liuzijue seriously. Its breathing, sounds, and attentional instructions form an integrated exercise. Comparing Liuzijue with quiet rest helps distinguish the effects of the practice from those of simply taking a break. A future comparison with equally paced breathing, matched vocalization, and similar expectations would help identify which features contribute most to the result. For now, the evidence concerns the coordinated practice as a whole.

The immediate response is also worth distinguishing from the effects of regular training. These participants were young adults, and the study examined the immediate effects of a single session. Whether those changes last, accumulate with practice, or help people with cognitive difficulties are questions for longer studies. The present finding gives those investigations a concrete starting point: a defined Qigong practice followed by faster task responses while accuracy remained high.

When you practice Liuzijue, the breathing and sound deserve attention alongside any visible movements. This experiment makes that especially clear by examining a seated form. Even with the arms and legs still, practice involves precise coordination and sustained engagement with sensation. If you already practice Liuzijue, this study gives you a reason to attend closely to those details: the sensations of breathing, the production of each sound, and your attention to the sequence.

Like what you read? Keep exploring …

If this post resonated with you, you may enjoy my new book:

The Science of Medical Qigong: How Breath, Movement, and Attention Transform the Body

This book examines the growing body of scientific research exploring how Qigong practice influences human physiology. Drawing from clinical trials and experimental studies, it explains how coordinated breathing, posture, movement, and focused attention interact with the body’s regulatory systems.

The book explores research on:

• autonomic nervous system regulation
• cardiovascular function and blood pressure
• respiratory mechanics and lung capacity
• sleep quality and recovery
• inflammatory and immune signaling
• brain function and neural plasticity
• cognitive performance and mental health

Rather than presenting Qigong through mystical language, The Science of Medical Qigong approaches the subject through physiology, neuroscience, and clinical research, offering a clear explanation of how regular practice can influence the coordination and harmony of the body’s systems.

Available now in print and Kindle formats.

Click here to get your copy on Amazon

Purchase

People in China were using movement and breathing exercises to care for their health more than two thousand years ago. A silk chart excavated at Mawangdui in 1973 comes from a tomb sealed in 168 BCE. It depicts forty-four figures performing exercises. Today, we recognize this chart as evidence of Daoyin (導引), one of the principal predecessors of Qigong (氣功) (Yang, 2018).

The history of the name Qigong is much more recent. Although the word appeared in earlier writings, it became widely established during the twentieth century as a shared name for Chinese practices involving movement, breathing, and meditation (Palmer, 2005).

How Qigong Got Its Name

Qigong brings together two Chinese terms. Qi (氣) carries meanings that include breath and vital energy in traditional Chinese thought. Gong (功) refers to work or skill developed through practice. “Working with qi” is a useful starting translation (Dorcas & Yung, 2003; Yang, 2018).

The term itself is much older than its modern usage. The characters for Qigong (氣功) appear in early Daoist literature, including the Yunji Qiqian (雲笈七籤), compiled around 1029 CE by Zhang Junfang. Another occurrence appears in the Jingming Zongjiao Lu (淨明宗教錄), traditionally attributed to the Jin dynasty Daoist Xu Xun (239–374 CE). This would place the term’s origins as early as the fourth century, although the attribution and dating remain contested (Zhang, ca. 1029; He, 2020).

The decisive period for the modern name “Qigong” began in the late 1940s. Liu Guizhen, a Communist Party official in Hebei, reported recovering his health after learning a traditional breathing method. His superiors asked him to investigate its therapeutic use. Liu and his colleagues adopted the term Qigong for their work, and during the 1950s it gained recognition within the development of modern traditional Chinese medicine, with dedicated clinics (Palmer, 2005).

Nourishing Life Through Movement

Long before Qigong became a common name, yangsheng (養生), usually translated as “nourishing life,” provided a broader approach to caring for health. Movement and breathing exercises belonged alongside everyday habits involving food, rest, and other aspects of life. These methods addressed health and longevity, often within a larger understanding of how human life related to the natural world (Kohn, 2008).

Daoyin, commonly translated as “guiding and pulling,” was an important part of that tradition. The name refers to guiding Qi and stretching or moving the body. A practitioner might bend, extend the limbs, or change position while coordinating breathing and attention. Historian Livia Kohn (2008) identifies Daoyin as a direct forerunner of modern Qigong and traces its development through medical writings and Daoist practice.

Written instructions survive as well. The Yinshu (引書), often translated as the Book of Stretching, comes from a tomb at Zhangjiashan dated to 186 BCE. It contains exercises alongside guidance on daily and seasonal habits. Movement already had a place in an organized approach to caring for health (Kohn, 2008).

Exercises Modeled on Animals

Animal movements also appear early. Chapter 15 of the Daoist text, the Zhuangzi describes breathing practices and exercises modeled on bears and birds, associating them with people seeking longevity. The passage reflects a culture in which such practices were already recognizable (Zhuangzi, 1891, Chapter 15).

Later, a biography of the physician Hua Tuo credits him with a system known as the Five Animal Frolics (五禽戲), drawing on the tiger, deer, bear, monkey, and bird. This account gives animal-based exercise a documented place in the history of Chinese health practice (Kohn, 2008).

Breathing and Internal Cultivation

Breathing practices had their own vocabulary. Tuna (吐納) referred to expelling and taking in, or exhalation and inhalation. Xingqi (行氣) meant moving or circulating qi. These breathing methods often accompanied movement exercises, so the older names could describe different parts of the same practice. Their variety helps explain why Qigong includes practices that look quite different from one another (Yang, 2018).

Daoist meditation also influenced the development of Qigong. Neidan (內丹), or internal alchemy, developed methods of inner transformation involving the traditional concepts of essence (jing), energy (qi), and mind/spirit (shen). Its aims included spiritual realization and returning to the Dao, understood as the source and underlying way of the natural world. Internal alchemy retains its own teachings and purposes, while some of its methods have entered modern Qigong (Kohn, 2008; Pregadio, 2018).

The name Qigong brought many older practices under one heading, but they did not begin as parts of a single system. Daoyin, Tuna, Yangsheng, and Neidan developed with different aims, even where their methods overlapped. Understanding these distinctions helps us recognize why a practice was taught, what it was intended to accomplish, and how its purpose may have changed over time. The modern name tells us relatively little about a method’s original purpose; its history tells us far more.

References

Dorcas, A., & Yung, P. (2003). Qigong: Harmonising the breath, the body and the mind. Complementary Therapies in Nursing and Midwifery, 9(4), 198–202. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1353-6117(03)00053-2

He, X. (2020). 清初青雲譜《太上靈寶淨明宗教錄》研究：與晚明「淨明宗教錄」的比較 [A study of the early-Qing Taishang Lingbao Jingming Zongjiao Lu: A comparison with its late-Ming predecessor]. Daoism: Religion, History and Society, 12–13, 135–174.

Kohn, L. (2008). Chinese healing exercises: The tradition of daoyin. University of Hawai‘i Press. https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/chinese-healing-exercises-the-tradition-of-daoyin/

Palmer, D. A. (2005). Qigong. In E. L. Davis (Ed.), Encyclopedia of contemporary Chinese culture. Routledge. https://hub.hku.hk/bitstream/10722/194528/2/Content.pdf

Pregadio, F. (2018). Which is the Daoist immortal body? Micrologus, 26, 385–408. https://fabriziopregadio.com/files/PREGADIO_Which_is_the_Daoist_Immortal_Body.pdf

Yang, D. (2018). Prescribing “guiding and pulling”: The institutionalisation of therapeutic exercise in Sui China (581–618 CE) [Doctoral dissertation, University College London]. UCL Discovery. https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10061324/

Zhang, J. (ca. 1029). Yunji qiqian (雲笈七籤) [Seven slips from the cloud bookcase] (Vol. 60). https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/雲笈七籤/60

Zhuangzi. (1891). Zhuangzi (J. Legge, Trans.). Chinese Text Project. https://ctext.org/zhuangzi

Like what you read? Keep exploring …

If this post resonated with you, you may enjoy my new book:

The Science of Medical Qigong: How Breath, Movement, and Attention Transform the Body

This book examines the growing body of scientific research exploring how Qigong practice influences human physiology. Drawing from clinical trials and experimental studies, it explains how coordinated breathing, posture, movement, and focused attention interact with the body’s regulatory systems.

The book explores research on:

• autonomic nervous system regulation
• cardiovascular function and blood pressure
• respiratory mechanics and lung capacity
• sleep quality and recovery
• inflammatory and immune signaling
• brain function and neural plasticity
• cognitive performance and mental health

Rather than presenting Qigong through mystical language, The Science of Medical Qigong approaches the subject through physiology, neuroscience, and clinical research, offering a clear explanation of how regular practice can influence the coordination and harmony of the body’s systems.

Available now in print and Kindle formats.

Click here to get your copy on Amazon

Purchase

Embryonic breathing, or Tai Xi (胎息), brings together two central concerns of Daoist cultivation: nourishing life and settling the mind. The practitioner learns to breathe with less unnecessary effort while gathering attention within the body, especially in the lower abdomen. As practice develops, breathing may become remarkably quiet, and maintaining attention may feel easier.

The name evokes life in the womb, when nourishment arrives through a connection that requires no conscious effort. This image also introduces a practical lesson: refinement depends on reducing strain. Trying to manufacture an extraordinary breathing experience can interfere with the very ease the practitioner is learning to develop.

The Meaning of the Original Breath

Daoist teachings distinguish the prenatal condition, Xian Tian (先天), from the acquired or postnatal condition, Hou Tian(後天). In internal cultivation, returning to the prenatal means recovering an original unity beneath the habits and distractions of ordinary life. These ideas belong to a traditional account of human nature, vitality, and spiritual development.

Before birth, oxygen crosses the placenta and reaches the fetus through blood carried in the umbilical cord. The fetus does not draw oxygen through the navel by contracting its abdomen. For adult practice, the image of breathing through the navel directs attention toward the lower abdomen; air continues to enter the lungs through the respiratory passages.

Tai Xi has carried several meanings across Daoist traditions. Some methods emphasize abdominal coordination and visualization. Others describe an increasingly refined breath accompanying deep meditative absorption. Historical practices also include breath retention. Each approach has its own instructions and progression. Learn the sequence within the method you are studying, including how it coordinates breathing and attention.

The Lower Dantian and Internal Alchemy

The lower Dantian (丹田), often translated as the lower elixir field, provides a principal focus for this work. Teachers generally locate it within the lower abdomen, below and behind the navel, although precise descriptions vary. Practically, this gives attention somewhere definite to rest. Traditionally, it is a place where Qi gathers and where the practitioner develops the foundation for further internal cultivation.

Daoist internal alchemy, or Neidan (內丹), describes this cultivation through the Three Treasures: Jing (精), essence; Qi (氣), vital energy; and Shen (神), spirit. These terms carry meanings that extend beyond their brief English translations. Jing concerns the resources underlying life and development. Qi describes the dynamic activity that animates life, while Shen includes consciousness and spiritual awareness. Their relationships explain the purposes and stages of internal cultivation in the language of the tradition. Equating them directly with hormones, oxygen, or electrical activity loses much of that meaning, though doing so helps modern people understand their place in health/longevity practices.

In this traditional context, embryonic breathing helps bring Shen and Qi together. The practitioner learns to sustain attention in the lower Dantian as distracting thoughts gradually settle. Some alchemical teachings describe the resulting development as conceiving and nourishing a spiritual embryo. This language expresses the religious aim of inner transformation and spiritual maturation, beyond the immediate experience of relaxation.

A contemporary student can begin with the practical relationship between attention and breathing. When you become preoccupied, you may notice yourself tightening the abdomen or interrupting a breath. When you settle again, breathing often becomes easier. Learning to recognize these changes gives the traditional instruction to harmonize mind and breath a direct, observable starting point.

Tai Xi, Reverse Breathing, and Subtle Breath

In ordinary abdominal breathing, the abdomen usually moves outward during inhalation and inward during exhalation. Reverse abdominal breathing deliberately changes that coordination: the lower abdomen draws inward during inhalation and expands during exhalation. Some teaching traditions call this embryonic breathing; others use it as preparation within a larger training process.

Reverse breathing therefore identifies a particular movement pattern. Tai Xi refers to a broader traditional practice or attainment whose meaning depends on the lineage. Naturally subtle breathing describes another feature: the breath becomes quiet and less noticeable without deliberate suppression. Learning reverse breathing or noticing a very quiet breath does not, by itself, mean you have attained Tai Xi. A person can perform reverse breathing with considerable tension, or breathe very quietly without practicing Daoist internal alchemy.

During meditation, breathing sometimes seems almost to disappear. The sensation of barely breathing is different from intentionally holding the breath. Breathing can continue with small movements that attract little attention. For a beginner, breathing should remain comfortable, without deliberately making the breaths smaller or prolonging the pauses between them. Reverse breathing and deliberate retention are best learned through instruction specific to the method being practiced.

A Foundation for Practice

Begin with five to ten minutes in a quiet place. Sit on a chair with both feet supported, or on a cushion high enough to keep the lower back comfortable. Keep the trunk upright without lifting the chest or stiffening the spine. Rest your hands on your thighs, relax your jaw, and lower your shoulders. Use back support if maintaining the posture requires persistent effort.

Breathe through your nose if that is comfortable. For the first minute or two, observe the breath without changing its pace. Feel the movement around the lower ribs and abdomen. If you are pulling the belly inward or holding the chest rigid, ease that tension and observe the next breath. There is no need to fill the lungs completely or push the abdomen outward.

Then rest your attention in the lower abdomen, below the navel. Begin with the sensations you can actually feel, such as the movement of the abdominal wall. You do not need to visualize a precise point deep inside the body. When thoughts carry you away, bring attention back without interrupting the breath or criticizing the distraction. Keep enough awareness of your posture to recognize unnecessary tension.

Continue with ordinary abdominal breathing at a comfortable depth and pace. The breath may grow quieter on its own; you do not need to make it smaller or slower. Avoid squeezing the abdomen, tightening the pelvic floor, or extending the intervals between breaths to create a particular sensation. This is preparatory practice in regulating body, breath, and mind, giving you a foundation for more specific Tai Xi instruction.

To finish, broaden your attention to the room, move your hands and feet, and stand when you feel ready. If you experience dizziness, tingling, a feeling that you cannot get enough air, or distress, stop controlling the breath and resume ordinary breathing. Comfort during practice and a clear, settled state afterward are more useful guides than unusual sensations.

What Respiratory Physiology Adds

Slow breathing can change the interaction between respiration and cardiovascular regulation. In an experiment involving 15 healthy people, breathing at six breaths per minute increased measured baroreflex sensitivity compared with spontaneous breathing or breathing at 15 breaths per minute. The baroreflex helps adjust heart rate in response to changes in blood pressure. Breathing rhythm can therefore influence an automatic reflex involved in circulation. The experiment examined paced breathing, a related practice with different instructions from Tai Xi.

If you would like to explore paced breathing with guidance, try the Resonance Breathing practice in my Inner Resonance app. Set aside a few minutes to practice, keeping each breath comfortable and unforced. It is a practical way to bring regular breathing practice into your day.

Breathing also involves coordinated muscular movement. During an ordinary inhalation, the diaphragm contracts and descends, increasing space within the chest; the lower ribs and abdominal wall accommodate that movement. Air enters the lungs, while the movement felt in the abdomen comes from the diaphragm and displacement of abdominal contents. Attending to the lower abdomen can make this movement easier to perceive. The diaphragm remains the principal breathing muscle, regardless of where we direct attention.

Both breathing rate and depth affect ventilation. Taking excessively large breaths can remove more carbon dioxide than the body is producing, even when the breaths are relatively slow. Falling carbon dioxide can produce lightheadedness and tingling, sensations that can be mistaken for progress in an unfamiliar practice. These are recognized effects of overbreathing. Breathe comfortably, without repeatedly taking oversized breaths.

Regular practice helps you recognize when concentration becomes strain. As you learn to sustain attention while breathing comfortably, you build a foundation for studying more specific Tai Xi methods with an experienced teacher.

A Moment’s Notice: How Meditation Trains Attention and Changes the Brain

You sit down to follow your breathing, then discover that you are planning tomorrow or replaying a conversation. Recognizing that distraction and redirecting your attention are central to meditation practice.

In A Moment’s Notice, I explain what happens in the mind and brain as these skills develop. Drawing on neuroscience and clinical experience, I explore why attention wanders, how an urge can override an intention, and how practice helps you recognize familiar reactions before you act.

The book explores:

• How meditation trains attention.

• Why thoughts and emotional reactions become habitual.

• How to work with persistent thoughts, strong emotions, and discomfort.

• Why a difficult meditation session can still represent progress.

• How to apply these skills in relationships, work, and everyday decisions.

• The final chapter brings the ideas into a guided fifteen-minute practice, with practical instruction on posture, breathing, and working with distraction.

  Whether you are beginning meditation or developing an established practice, the book helps you understand what you are training and how to practice with greater confidence.

Click here to get your copy

Purchase

Works Referenced

Bernardi, L., Gabutti, A., Porta, C., & Spicuzza, L. (2001). Slow breathing reduces chemoreflex response to hypoxia and hypercapnia, and increases baroreflex sensitivity. Journal of Hypertension, 19(12), 2221–2229. https://doi.org/10.1097/00004872-200112000-00016

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. (2017, December 30). Infographic: The placenta (text alternative). National Institutes of Health.

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. (2022, March 24). How the lungs work: How your body controls breathing.National Institutes of Health.

Olson, S. A. (2019). Embryonic breathing: The Taoist method of opening the Dan Tian. Valley Spirit Arts.

The primordial breath: An ancient Chinese way of prolonging life through breath control (J. Huang & M. Wurmbrand, Trans.; Vol. 1). (1987). Original Books.

University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust. (2023, February). Breathing pattern disorders (Version 3).

Yang, J.-M. (2022). Qigong meditation: Embryonic breathing: The foundation of internal elixir cultivation (2nd ed.). YMAA Publication Center.

Applying controlled pressure to the shinbone helped animals recover from brain injury. In a study published in Nature Neuroscience on September 21, 2026, Zhiqing Cai and colleagues tested repeated tibial compression in mice after traumatic brain injury or stroke, and in pigs after traumatic brain injury. They reported improved survival and recovery of movement and cognitive function, together with reduced neuronal loss and chronic inflammation. Cai and colleagues

The finding gives us a new reason to pay attention to the skeleton during Qigong practice. As muscles contract and tendons transmit their pull, bone experiences changing mechanical forces. The cells within that bone respond. Understanding their response may help explain how physical training influences parts of the body far from the muscles performing the movement.

For Yi Jin Jing and its traditional association with Xi Sui Jing, this is a particularly interesting development. The language of transforming the sinews and washing the marrow directs attention toward changes within the body. Modern bone biology offers a way to investigate how that training produces physiological change.

How Bone Responds to Force

Living bone is continually renewed through remodeling, the removal of old tissue and formation of new tissue. Osteocytes, cells embedded within the mineralized bone, help regulate this activity. They detect changes in mechanical loading and communicate with other cells involved in maintaining the skeleton. Their work continues even when the body appears still. Research on osteocyte mechanosensing

One of the proteins involved is PIEZO1, an ion channel in the cell membrane. Mechanical forces can open the channel, allowing charged particles, including calcium ions, to enter the cell and trigger a response. Researchers call this conversion of physical force into cellular activity mechanotransduction. Through mechanisms like this, the loads placed on the skeleton can influence bone formation. Sun and colleagues

In Cai’s study, the benefits of loading depended on PIEZO1 in osteocytes. Removing the gene for this channel reversed the benefits. The researchers also transferred blood serum from treated mice to mice with brain injuries and reproduced protective effects. They identified proteins released directly by osteocytes, alongside indirect increases in other circulating factors. Together, these experiments traced a route from mechanical stimulation of bone to signals in the blood that supported recovery in the brain. Cai and colleagues

This provides a physiological basis for investigating effects of skeletal loading throughout the body. A muscle contracts, its force reaches bone, and bone cells respond through changes in their activity and signaling. The consequences of loading can extend beyond the tissue receiving the force.

How Yi Jin Jing Loads the Skeleton

Yi Jin Jing 易筋經, often translated as the Sinew-Transforming Classic, includes methods that stretch and load the body through sustained postures and coordinated effort. The traditional term jin 筋, usually translated as sinews, emphasizes tissues through which force passes. Different versions of the practice develop that emphasis through different movements and methods of training. Hsu and Lim’s study of Yi Jin Jing

Muscles pull on bones through their tendons. Supporting body weight adds further loading, while changes in posture alter where those forces act. A slow movement can require considerable muscular effort, and holding a position can maintain force through the limbs and trunk. The visible speed of a movement tells us little by itself about the work occurring inside the body. Muscle-generated forces and weight bearing both contribute to the mechanical environment that bone cells experience. Mechanical loading and bone formation

Consider a standing posture with the knees bent and the arms extended. The legs support the body while muscles around the hips and knees maintain the position. Muscles around the shoulders keep the arms raised against gravity. Changing the depth of the stance or the position of the arms changes the demands on the muscles and the forces transmitted through the skeleton. These are concrete features of practice that researchers can measure.

The new bone research suggests a specific hypothesis: some effects of Yi Jin Jing may arise through the signals generated when practice loads the skeleton. Investigating that possibility means examining the forces produced by particular movements, how long they are maintained, and how the body responds over repeated sessions.

What the Human Studies Show

Human studies already show that Yi Jin Jing can influence bone density and metabolism. In a 2025 randomized trial, 84 older women entered resistance-training, Yi Jin Jing, Baduanjin, or control groups. The exercise programs lasted 24 weeks, with three hour-long sessions each week. All groups received calcium and vitamin D supplementation. Yang and Liu

At the end of the program, the exercise groups had higher bone mineral density in the lumbar spine, or lower back, than the control group. They also showed an increase in PINP, a marker of bone formation, and a decrease in beta-CTX, a marker of bone breakdown. All three exercise programs produced this pattern of improvement. The 2025 trial

Along with the increase in lumbar bone density, the blood markers showed a shift in the processes through which bone renews itself. These changes followed regular practice sustained over several months.

A separate randomized trial assigned 40 postmenopausal women to usual activity or a program combining Yi Jin Jing with elastic-band resistance exercise. After six months, the combined exercise group showed improvements in bone density at several sites. Li and colleagues

A 2026 analysis of 31 randomized trials involving 2,457 participants also reported favorable lumbar-spine findings for Yi Jin Jing among traditional Chinese exercises. The pattern of benefit varied across skeletal sites and exercise forms. That variation suggests a useful question for further study: how do the forces generated by different movements relate to the changes observed in particular bones? Hou and colleagues

Sinew Transformation and Marrow Washing

Xi Sui Jing 洗髓經, usually translated as the Marrow-Washing Classic, extends the traditional discussion inward. Paired with sinew transformation, marrow washing describes a deeper process of cultivation. Sui 髓 means marrow, while the teaching uses that term within a broader account of internal refinement and human development. Tom Bisio’s discussion of the traditional pairing

The pairing encourages us to consider how training the structures that transmit force might influence internal function. Modern anatomy gives us distinct tissues to examine: osteocytes occupy the mineralized bone itself, while marrow occupies spaces within bones. The new research focuses on the response of osteocytes to mechanical loading, providing one specific avenue for investigating the internal effects of physical training.

The methods also have a history of development and variation. Scholarship places the Yi Jin Jing text of 1624 within the religious and martial culture of the late Ming period. Elisabeth Hsu and Chee Han Lim’s historical and ethnographic study describes differences between transmitted forms, including the use of sustained postures and flowing movements. Those differences offer useful material for research because each method places its own demands on the practitioner. Hsu and Lim

I find the traditional emphasis on internal transformation especially interesting alongside this new research. We can now investigate how the forces generated through practice affect living bone, and follow the signals that bone releases in response. The sinews and skeleton become active parts of an explanation for effects that may reach throughout the body.

Following the Signals Generated by Practice

A useful next study would measure the skeletal loading produced by a clearly defined Yi Jin Jing method and examine changes in relevant circulating signals. Comparing sustained postures with flowing movements could help identify which features of practice produce particular responses. Research could then examine whether those responses involve PIEZO1 and how they relate to changes in brain function.

Yi Jin Jing’s effects on bone density give this investigation a practical starting point. The bone-brain research adds a mechanism worth exploring. Together, they direct attention toward a feature of training that is easy to overlook: every posture and movement places forces through living tissue, and the cells within that tissue can respond in ways that influence the rest of the body.

Like what you read? Keep exploring …

If this post resonated with you, you may enjoy my new book:

The Science of Medical Qigong: How Breath, Movement, and Attention Transform the Body

This book examines the growing body of scientific research exploring how Qigong practice influences human physiology. Drawing from clinical trials and experimental studies, it explains how coordinated breathing, posture, movement, and focused attention interact with the body’s regulatory systems.

The book explores research on:

• autonomic nervous system regulation
• cardiovascular function and blood pressure
• respiratory mechanics and lung capacity
• sleep quality and recovery
• inflammatory and immune signaling
• brain function and neural plasticity
• cognitive performance and mental health

Rather than presenting Qigong through mystical language, The Science of Medical Qigong approaches the subject through physiology, neuroscience, and clinical research, offering a clear explanation of how regular practice can influence the coordination and harmony of the body’s systems.

Available now in print and Kindle formats.

Click here to get your copy on Amazon

Purchase

You might begin a Qigong session with your shoulders tight and your attention scattered across the unfinished business of the day. As you settle into the movements, your breathing becomes more comfortable. By the time you finish, you may feel more at ease. The next thing on your list seems a little easier to approach.

There is a biological side to that experience. Researchers studying Qigong have measured changes in chemical messengers involved in stress, mood, and the body’s response to discomfort. In some studies, those changes have occurred alongside improvements in how participants feel.

Emotional Chemicals

“Emotional chemicals” is a practical everyday expression for this topic. It includes neurotransmitters, which help nerve cells communicate, and hormones, which carry signals through the bloodstream. Dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, and cortisol each participate in processes that influence our emotional lives. Their effects depend on where they act, when they are released, and what else is happening in the body. Research on physical activity helps explain how movement can influence several of these systems. Basso and Suzuki, 2017.

Cortisol and the Stress Response

Cortisol is a good place to begin. Produced by the adrenal glands, it helps make energy available to meet the demands of the day and participates in our response to stress. Cortisol also follows a daily rhythm, normally reaching its highest levels around the transition from sleep to waking and falling toward the evening. Its timing helps coordinate activity, metabolism, and rest. Healthy function depends on that responsiveness and rhythm. Oster and colleagues, 2017.

For a student learning to care for patients, the demands can be considerable. A randomized study followed 34 first-year nursing and midwifery students over ten weeks. Eighteen practiced Qigong twice a week, while the others served as a comparison group. Within the Qigong group, depression, anxiety, and stress scores improved, and salivary cortisol concentrations decreased. The students’ reported experience and the hormone measurements both changed over the course of practice. Chan and colleagues, 2013.

A later trial explored that connection more closely. Thirty older adults with chronic physical illness were randomly assigned to Qigong or cognitive training focused on memory and executive function. The Qigong group experienced greater reductions in depressive symptoms, together with larger decreases in salivary cortisol. The researchers’ statistical analysis identified cortisol change as a possible pathway through which Qigong influenced mood. Lu and colleagues, 2020.

That finding gives us a practical way to think about the relationship between stress and emotional well-being. Changes in the body’s stress response may contribute to changes in how a person feels. In this trial, researchers could examine that relationship within the same participants.

Serotonin and the Biology of Mood

The same study also brings serotonin into the picture. Serotonin participates in mood regulation, and researchers have investigated its contribution to the emotional effects of exercise. The older adults who practiced Qigong showed a greater increase in blood serotonin than those receiving cognitive training. Here, the measurement describes serotonin in the circulation; serotonin activity within the brain is a separate part of the biological picture. Basso and Suzuki, 2017; Lu and colleagues, 2020.

The researchers also recorded an increase in blood levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, usually shortened to BDNF. This protein supports the survival and adaptability of nerve cells. Its presence in the findings adds another connection between Qigong research and the wider study of how physical activity affects the nervous system. Lu and colleagues, 2020; Basso and Suzuki, 2017.

Endorphins and Physical Comfort

Endorphins are relevant to the physical comfort we associate with feeling better. They belong to the body’s own opioid system, which participates in pain modulation, reward, and responses to stress. Basso and Suzuki, 2017.

In a study of ChunDoSunBup Qigong, researchers collected blood before, during, and after a training session. Beta-endorphin rose significantly during practice. ACTH, a hormone that helps signal the adrenal glands to produce cortisol, decreased during and after the session, while cortisol itself remained stable. The study captured several distinct hormonal responses as the practice unfolded. Ryu and colleagues, 1996.

Dopamine, Motivation, and Reward

Dopamine contributes another part of the story through its involvement in motivation and reward. Researchers have studied its role in the rewarding effects of physical activity, making it a natural subject of interest when exploring why movement can feel satisfying. Basso and Suzuki, 2017.

An early Qigong study measured chemical messengers in the blood of 68 people before and after practice. The researchers reported an increase in circulating dopamine. They also found a decrease in blood serotonin, a different pattern from the later trial in older adults. The studies recorded different chemical responses in different groups and practice settings. Liu, Jiao, and Li, 1990.

Related meditation research offers a closer view of dopamine activity inside the brain. In a study of meditation, researchers used PET imaging to examine dopamine release during meditation. They found increased release in the ventral striatum, a brain region involved in motivation and reward. Participants reported heightened sensory imagery and a reduced desire to act. This provides an example from meditation research of dopamine signaling changing alongside a change in conscious experience. Kjaer and colleagues, 2002.

Carrying the Feeling into Daily Life

Qigong gives movement and meditative attention a shared place in daily life. As you practice, you follow the position of your arms or the transfer of weight through your feet. You notice your breathing and adjust your effort. These are simple, repeatable actions that give you a way to engage with your physical and emotional state.

The chemical findings offer possible contributors to the changes people experience through practice. Cortisol connects the discussion with stress regulation. Serotonin and dopamine bring in processes involved in mood and motivation, while endorphins connect with pain and reward. Each adds detail to our understanding of why a session can leave us feeling different.

For your next practice, choose a familiar sequence and move through a comfortable range. Keep your breathing easy. When your attention wanders, bring it back to the movement you are doing. Give yourself a moment at the end before reaching for your phone or moving on to the next task. Notice how you feel and how that feeling carries into the rest of your day.

Like what you read? Keep exploring…

If this post resonated with you, you may enjoy my new book:

The Science of Medical Qigong: How Breath, Movement, and Attention Transform the Body

This book examines the growing body of scientific research exploring how Qigong practice influences human physiology. Drawing from clinical trials and experimental studies, it explains how coordinated breathing, posture, movement, and focused attention interact with the body’s regulatory systems.

The book explores research on:

• autonomic nervous system regulation
• cardiovascular function and blood pressure
• respiratory mechanics and lung capacity
• sleep quality and recovery
• inflammatory and immune signaling
• brain function and neural plasticity
• cognitive performance and mental health

Rather than presenting Qigong through mystical language, The Science of Medical Qigong approaches the subject through physiology, neuroscience, and clinical research, offering a clear explanation of how regular practice can influence the coordination and harmony of the body’s systems.

Available now in print and Kindle formats.

Click here to get your copy on Amazon

Purchase

References

1. Basso, J. C., & Suzuki, W. A. (2017). The effects of acute exercise on mood, cognition, neurophysiology, and neurochemical pathways: A review. Brain Plasticity, 2(2), 127–152.

2. Oster, H., et al. (2017). The functional and clinical significance of the 24-hour rhythm of circulating glucocorticoids. Endocrine Reviews, 38(1), 3–45.

3. Chan, E. S., et al. (2013). Biochemical and psychometric evaluation of Self-Healing Qigong as a stress reduction tool among first year nursing and midwifery students. Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, 19(4), 179–183.

4. Lu, E. Y., et al. (2020). Qigong for the treatment of depressive symptoms: Preliminary evidence of neurobiological mechanisms. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 35(11), 1393–1401.

5. Ryu, H., et al. (1996). Acute effect of qigong training on stress hormonal levels in man. The American Journal of Chinese Medicine, 24(2), 193–198.

6. Liu, B., Jiao, J., & Li, Y. (1990). Effect of qigong exercise on the blood level of monoamine neuro-transmitters in patients with chronic diseases. Zhong Xi Yi Jie He Za Zhi, 10(4), 203–205, 195. Chinese-language article with an English abstract.

7. Kjaer, T. W., et al. (2002). Increased dopamine tone during meditation-induced change of consciousness. Cognitive Brain Research, 13(2), 255–259.

Note: This post isn’t about debating the validity of Li Qing Yuen’s age. Instead, it’s a response to the many questions I’ve been asked over the decades as I’ve studied his story. Li Qing Yuen has been the subject of countless discussions across publications, internet forums, and YouTube videos. Here, I’ve aimed to compile some of the most authoritative information available. I also wanted to write something that wasn’t just a list of facts. I hope you find it intriguing.

Li Qingyun: The Life and Times of a 250-Year-Old Legend

Mountain journeys, Daoist teachers, and an elderly guest who wore out the officer sent to collect him.

In 1927, General Yang Sen (楊森) arranged a sedan chair for an elderly guest. Men would carry him into Wanxian (萬縣), where a room had been prepared and the general would welcome him in person. The guest was Li Qingyun (李清雲), an herbalist from the mountains of Sichuan (四川), and according to the people who knew him, he was 250 years old.

Li declined the chair and set off on foot.

By the time the party reached town, the officer escorting him was exhausted. The journey was roughly thirty to thirty-five kilometers, and he had struggled to keep up. Yang asked what had happened. His officer explained that Li considered the walk good exercise for his muscles and bones. The old man stood nearby, smiling, apparently none the worse for the trip.

The general had arranged transportation for his elderly visitor. He now had a tired officer and a guest who seemed ready for the rest of the day.

Li, whose name also appears in English as Li Ching-yun and Li Qing Yuen, has everything an audience could want in a wandering Daoist: mountain adventures, medicinal plants, mysterious teachers, and powerful visitors hoping to discover his secrets. Some of the most enjoyable details, however, concern his appetite, his sense of humor, and his apparent indifference to becoming famous.

A Boy Leaves Home

When Yang asked about his birth, Li leaned toward the general’s ear and said he usually avoided discussing his age. Then he named the seventeenth year of the Kangxi emperor’s reign, corresponding to 1678.

That placed his childhood in the early Qing dynasty, more than two centuries before the Republic of China. Kangxi (康熙) still ruled an imperial court; by the time Li sat down with Yang, the last Qing emperor had abdicated. The empire ended in 1912.

Li described a family of modest means living in the mountainous country around Qijiang (綦江). He had received a few years of schooling and learned to read and write, but he liked climbing over ridges and exploring. At thirteen, he met three older herb gatherers who stopped near his home. They heard that the boy enjoyed the mountains and had little fear of wild animals. They suggested he come with them. He could collect medicinal plants and see something of the world at the same time.

It was an attractive offer for an adventurous boy. He accepted, beginning the wandering life that would occupy most of his story.

The work involved long stretches away from settlements. Li recalled traveling through western China, Tibet, and other distant regions, crossing mountains and rivers with his companions. They carried provisions, but sometimes ran short. They slept on the ground and dealt with bad weather and wild animals. Plants were their livelihood, and knowing where to find them determined where they went next.

The Wandering Herbalist

For his collecting trips, Li described carrying a small hoe, a sack, and a little food. He stayed in the mountains until he had gathered as much as he could carry, then brought the plants to a village market. Selling a load could provide enough money for several months of food. He gave some of what remained to poor people and elders.

When others questioned his generosity, his explanation was practical. The sack was heavy, his shoulders were tired, and he wanted to sell the herbs and put the load down. He needed little money himself. Someone else might have more use for it.

He could talk about centuries of mountain travel, then explain his finances in terms of getting a heavy bag off his back.

One encounter during those travels became closely associated with his reputation. Li described meeting an elder who moved across rocky ground with astonishing speed. He tried to follow and could not catch him. When they met again, Li asked how the man did it. The elder gave him wild berries called gou qi (枸杞), better known to English readers as goji berries or wolfberries. The medicinal fruit is also called gou qi zi (枸杞子).

Li said he began eating them regularly and credited them with helping him remain strong and tireless on long walks. The story has all the ingredients of a memorable mountain encounter: a stranger with remarkable abilities, a traveler trying to keep up, and a secret growing close to the ground.

Other herbs appearing in accounts of his work include he shou wu (何首烏), wild ginseng (ye shan shen, 野山參), and lingzhi (靈芝), the mushroom often called reishi in English. His reputation grew from this work with medicinal plants as well as from his teaching. Herbs gave him a livelihood, a reason to travel, and something useful to offer the communities through which he passed.

His recollections also included military service under Yue Zhongqi (岳鍾琪), an eighteenth-century Qing commander. Li told Yang that he eventually tired of military life and returned to gathering herbs. The mountains offered work he understood and the freedom to keep traveling. Along the way, he visited Daoist and Buddhist temples and met people who taught breathing, meditation, and methods of caring for the body.

Still Learning After a Hundred Years

Li recalled being more than a century old when he met a Daoist teacher in the Kongtong Mountains (崆峒山). He was still asking about longevity.

The priest laughed at the question. He pointed to the life Li was already leading: gathering medicinal plants, living in the mountains, and spending time away from the disturbances of ordinary society. Li persisted, and the teacher eventually passed on verses and methods of practice. Li then traveled to Mount Emei (峨眉山) with a small group of apprentices, built huts, and began teaching.

He described remaining there for about a hundred years. Students gathered around him, and the wandering herbalist became a teacher in his own right. His days now included practicing what he had learned and passing it on. His teaching career alone would have counted as an exceptionally long life.

Beyond the mountain, emperors succeeded one another and the Qing dynasty approached its end. The accounts place Li’s return to Chenjiachang (陳家場), in Kai County (開縣), around the transition to the Republic in 1912. After all those years of travel and teaching, he settled into village life.

There, according to the officer who later introduced him to Yang Sen, Li still fetched water, gathered firewood, and cooked. Neighbors brought rice and other supplies, helped with household tasks, and provided clothing. He offered herbs and treatment in return. The villagers knew him as someone who came and went, sometimes disappearing into the mountains for long periods.

His family history had become difficult even for him to recount. In one conversation, he spoke of fourteen marriages and more descendants than he could remember. Long absences had left him out of contact with many of them. His family recollections also included loss: wives and children had died, generations had grown up, and the family had become too large and scattered for him to know everyone.

Generals, Scholars, and a Reluctant Celebrity

Yang Sen was one of several military figures interested in Li’s teachings. Another was Wu Peifu (吳佩孚), often called the “Scholar-Warlord.” Accounts of Li’s travels place him in Beijing (北京) in 1926 at Wu’s invitation and describe him teaching at the Beijing University Meditation Society.

The mountain herbalist was finding an audience among people whose lives were occupied with military affairs, scholarship, and public responsibilities. Wu welcomed him into his home, hoping to learn how to prolong his life. Li’s advice emphasized maintaining inward calm. Whatever demands the commander faced outside his door, he would also have to attend to the activity of his own mind.

By 1927, news of this remarkable elder had reached Yang Sen, whose officers were discussing health and longevity. Gui Yunjin described the man from his hometown. His own older relatives had known Li, he said, and had remembered him as already ancient. Yang wanted to meet him. The sedan chair was arranged, and Li walked into the general’s life.

Once he arrived, the problem became how to give him any peace.

People crowded around his lodgings. Officials wanted to speak with him, residents wanted to see him, and invitations kept coming. Yang tried to manage the visitors and allow Li to decide whom he would receive. Li disliked noisy city life and its endless social obligations. Wanxian was providing plenty of both.

Those who met him described an imposing figure in loose clothing, with a ruddy face, bright eyes, and a strong voice. He wore a blue robe and straw sandals. His teeth were gone, and one of his fingernails had grown into a long curl. When he noticed Yang examining it, Li produced a small wooden box containing other long nails he had collected after they came off.

The nails became one of the most recognizable features of his portrait. During his visit, they also provided an unexpected moment between host and guest: the general noticed something unusual, and Li had a box ready to show him more.

At dinner, the conversation turned to food. Li ate slowly and enjoyed three large bowls of rice, along with a few slivers of lean meat. He said his usual meals consisted largely of vegetables, fruit, and rice. When Yang offered to obtain anything he liked, Li asked for rice cakes. The general promptly had some brought.

It is a pleasing detail amid so much talk of immortality. Offered the hospitality of a military commander, Li asked for rice cakes.

A local photography studio soon found a solution to at least some of the public demand. Its owner asked to photograph him. Yang thought displaying portraits would allow people to see the famous elder without everyone needing to visit his room. The studio took several photographs and put them in its window.

Crowds gathered there, too. People wanted copies. Requests reportedly arrived from Chinese living overseas, and the photographer made a small fortune. Li had spent much of his story avoiding worldly ambitions; someone else was now doing excellent business selling his likeness.

The portrait continued to travel. Yang later arranged for a photograph to be presented to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who expressed interest in meeting Li. Newspapers carried his story beyond Sichuan. A man who recalled setting out with a hoe and an herb sack had become a subject of international curiosity.

Breathing, Meditation, and the Six Healing Sounds

His visitors naturally wanted instructions. They asked what he ate and what practices he followed. Li’s answers repeatedly connected his way of life with the state of his mind.

He spoke of learning from Daoist and Buddhist teachers and described Daoism (道教), Buddhism (佛教), and Confucianism (儒家) as different approaches to cultivation. Breathing and meditation featured prominently. In one conversation, he emphasized breathing that was soft and smooth, without forcing. His teachings also discussed movement, rest, and the Chinese tradition of yangsheng (養生), or nourishing life.

For readers familiar with Qigong (氣功), much of this is recognizable. Physical practice belongs with attention to breathing and the mind. Li’s story gives those subjects a setting: years of walking, work with plants, periods of seated practice, and his repeated preference for mountain life over a crowded reception room.

The practices transmitted under his name include a seated form of the Eight Brocades, ba duan jin (八段錦). The movements have memorable names: the Heavenly Drum, Shake the Heavenly Pillar, and the Red Dragon Stirs the Sea. His commentaries describe a regular practice in which movement, breathing, and attention work together. The person who spent much of his life walking through mountains also made time for exercises performed while sitting.

These teachings use the Daoist language of the Three Treasures, san bao (三寶): essence, jing (精); vital energy, qi (氣); and spirit, shen (神). Through these terms, practitioners discuss the resources of life and their cultivation. Food, rest, physical activity, breathing, and the condition of the mind all have a place in caring for them.

The Six Healing Sounds belong to this approach. Also known as liu zi jue (六字訣), the Six Character Formula, this family of practices coordinates particular sounds with breathing and, in some versions, movement or posture. Within its traditional explanation, the sounds correspond to different organ systems. The method associated with Li combines the vocal sounds with specific bodily positions.

His wider teaching tradition also includes embryonic breathing, tai xi (胎息), and seated contemplative practice, often described more generally as quiet sitting, jing zuo (靜坐). These practices gave his pupils something to do each day. They could work with a movement, attend to their breathing, or sit and observe how readily the mind wandered.

Li’s ordinary activities supplied plenty of exercise beyond these formal methods. Gathering plants meant climbing, bending, digging, and carrying a load home. Village life involved fetching water, collecting firewood, and preparing food. His preference for simplicity still left him with a full day’s work.

Keeping a Quiet Heart

The most memorable advice attributed to him brings several of these ideas together:

“Keep a quiet heart, sit like a tortoise, walk sprightly like a pigeon and sleep like a dog.”

The animals make the advice easy to remember. We can picture the composed tortoise, the lively bird, and the dog settling down to sleep. Keeping a quiet heart receives much more attention in the longer teachings.

Li’s discussion of regulating the mind, tiao xin (調心), describes a person repeatedly occupied with past pleasures, another troubled by envy, and someone else imagining future wealth or success. These are recognizable habits. A person can finish the day’s work and spend the evening mentally continuing an argument. Time set aside for rest can disappear into thoughts about what someone else has achieved.

The teachings associated with Li treat this continual agitation as something to address in daily life. They give considerable space to moderation, kindness, and restraint in speech. They discuss family members getting along and friends helping one another. Caring for life includes how we behave when we are hungry, disappointed, irritated, or eager to get our own way.

That is a demanding kind of practice. Learning an exercise gives us a clear task. Becoming less attached to a grievance requires us to notice how often we choose to revisit it. The work continues after the exercises are over, when we have to deal with the person who annoys us or a day that refuses to go as planned.

It also fits some of the less spectacular details of his biography. Li sold herbs, shared money he did not need, and received help from neighbors. Solitude mattered to him, but so did ordinary acts of assistance. His story gives room to both the wandering practitioner and the village elder whose neighbors brought him food.

Wu Wei and an Ordinary Day

The Daoist principle of wu wei (無為), often translated as nonaction or effortless action, appears in the teachings associated with Li. His discussion concerns the way desire, ambition, praise, and disappointment occupy the mind. A person can spend an extraordinary amount of effort pursuing approval or resisting circumstances.

In this setting, wu wei means letting go of that compulsive interference. Daily responsibilities still require attention. Li walked, gathered plants, cooked, taught, and dealt with visitors. The practice concerned how he approached those activities and how readily he could put them down when they were finished.

His teaching on simplifying daily activities follows the same direction. Adding more possessions, elaborate comforts, and occasions for display gives the mind more to manage. Simplicity leaves fewer unnecessary concerns competing for attention.

This gives practical meaning to his preference for the mountains. There was work to do, food to prepare, and a place to sit. In Wanxian, even a photograph of him drew a crowd.

Only Today Is Today

After reports of his death reached the international press in 1933, the photographs and sayings continued to circulate. Decades later, Yang Sen’s recollections helped introduce him to another generation of readers. His teachings found their way into books, classrooms, and the daily routines of people practicing Chinese medicine, Qigong, and Daoist cultivation.

Li remains easy to picture: the robe, the curled fingernails, the old face, and the suggestion that he might still be able to walk faster than the person asking his age.

Among the poems he is said to have enjoyed reciting is this line: “A life may last for a hundred years, but only today is today.” It is easy to hear those words from the man who took his time over dinner and asked for rice cakes. His visitors wanted to know how to acquire another century. Li, at least in that moment, was enjoying his evening.

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Biographical sources

• Yang Sen. The Immortal: True Accounts of the 250-Year-Old Man, Li Qingyun. Translated by Stuart Alve Olson. Valley Spirit Arts, 2014. Principal source for the biographical stories and teachings, especially pp. 37–58, 71, 83, 89–98, and 166–169.

• Time. “China: Tortoise-Pigeon-Dog.” May 15, 1933.

• North China Daily News. “250 Years Old.” June 5, 1928. Reproduced in The Immortal, beginning on printed page 58.

• The New York Times. “Li Ching-Yun Dead; Gave His Age as 197.” May 6, 1933. Archived article listing.

Teachings and practice

• Olson, Stuart Alve. Li Qingyun: Longevity Methods of a 250-Year-Old Taoist Immortal. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016.

• Olson, Stuart Alve. Qigong Teachings of a Taoist Immortal: The Eight Essential Exercises of Master Li Ching-yun.Healing Arts Press, 2002.

• Liu, Da. Taoist Health Exercise Book. Links Books, 1974. Revised and expanded edition, Paragon House, 1991.

• Olson, Stuart Alve, translator. “The Tao of Longevity by Li Qingyun.” Sanctuary of Tao, October 25, 2022. Selection translated from the collection compiled by Yang Sen and Wang Chengsheng.

• Sanctuary of Tao. “The Six Healing Sounds.” October 26, 2022.

• Sanctuary of Tao. “Eight Brocades Seated Qigong and Longevity Methods of Li Qingyun.” Contemporary teaching materials.

• Journal of Chinese Medicine. “Master Class: Healing Sounds Organ Detoxification Qigong.” Course description distinguishing the Li Qingyun and Hua Tuo traditions.

Historical and terminology references

• National Palace Museum. “Selections: By Dynasty.” Historical reference for the Kangxi period.

• Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art. “Timeline of Chinese History, Art, and Culture.” Historical reference for the end of the Qing dynasty.

• Hong Kong Department of Health, Chinese Medicine Regulatory Office. “Chinese Materia Medica Included in the Hong Kong Chinese Materia Medica Standards.” Reference for traditional Chinese herb names.

The ability to recover tells us something about our health that the ability to keep working can conceal. We may meet our obligations through a demanding week, then spend much of the weekend trying to feel rested. When this becomes familiar, it is easy to adjust our expectations and carry on. We still get things done, although doing them requires more effort and leaves less energy for anything else.

Chinese medicine paid close attention to this pattern. Daily energy mattered, but so did the strength that supported growth, reproduction, and recovery over many years. This deeper foundation was called Jing (精), usually translated as Essence.

Jing belongs to the Three Treasures, alongside Qi and Shen. Qi supplies the activity of daily life, while Shen is expressed through consciousness and awareness. Jing supports the body’s development and its capacity to endure. Classical practitioners assessed its condition through patterns of growth, reproductive maturation, the strength of bones and teeth, hearing, and recovery after illness. Their understanding depended on observing several aspects of a person’s health together and following changes over time.

The image of a root captures this idea well. A plant depends on structures we cannot see simply by looking at its leaves. Similarly, a person’s outward activity gives us only part of the picture. Someone may remain productive while finding it increasingly difficult to recover from the effort.

Chinese medicine described two sources of Jing. Prenatal Jing, also called pre-Heaven essence, is received from one’s parents at conception. It establishes the original constitution, including strengths and vulnerabilities present at the beginning of life. Postnatal Jing, or post-Heaven essence, is supported after birth through nourishment and the general conduct of life. The terms pre-Heaven and post-Heaven distinguish what we inherit before birth from what sustains us afterward.

This distinction allowed Chinese medicine to recognize inheritance while leaving considerable room for the influence of daily habits. A strong constitution could be worn down by prolonged strain. A more delicate constitution could be supported through steady care. Two people might perform similar work and sleep for the same number of hours yet recover differently. Within the traditional model, part of that difference belonged to the constitution each had inherited.

A schedule that suits one person may leave another persistently tired. Seeing someone else manage long hours can make us expect the same of ourselves, even when we struggle to recover afterward. How rested we feel between periods of work helps us judge whether we can sustain that pace.

The Huangdi Neijing, or Inner Classic of the Yellow Emperor, describes the Kidneys as the storehouse of Jing. In Chinese medicine, the capitalized Kidney refers to a functional system that includes the anatomical kidneys and extends to development, reproduction, bones, marrow, and aspects of aging.

The opening chapter describes maturation through seven-year cycles for women and eight-year cycles for men. These cycles belong to an ancient model, rather than a literal timetable for every person. They trace the emergence of teeth, reproductive maturity, physical strength, and the gradual changes of later life.¹ They also place those changes within the whole course of human development. The needs of a growing child differ from those of an older adult, and habits that once suited us may need adjustment as we age.

Jing has no single biological equivalent. Genetics accounts for aspects of inheritance, while endocrine function, metabolism, and tissue repair help explain other parts of development and recovery. Modern research describes interacting hallmarks of aging, including changes in mitochondrial function, genomic stability, and cellular signaling.² These mechanisms help explain development and aging, without establishing Jing as a measurable substance.

In Chinese medicine, inherited constitution and daily habits were considered together when assessing how a person developed, aged, and recovered from illness. Jing gave practitioners a way to describe the lasting influence of both.

Caring for this foundation belonged to yangsheng (養生), the art of nourishing life. Sleep, food, movement, breathing practices, and moderation in activity were central to it. These ordinary habits were understood to influence health through their repeated effects over many years.

Effort was an expected part of a full life. Work, study, exercise, sex, and travel all require energy, and each can contribute to our well-being. The concern was whether sufficient nourishment and recovery followed that expenditure. Even an activity we value can become exhausting when it is added to a schedule that already leaves too little time for rest.

Sleep held a particularly important place. Sleep supports tissue repair, memory formation, and immune and metabolic function.³ Chinese medicine described this period through Yang withdrawing inward and Shen settling as the body restored what waking activity had spent.

Winter offered a seasonal image for conservation. In a dormant orchard, little growth is visible, yet the trees remain alive through the cold months. Chinese longevity traditions associated winter with longer rest, warm nourishment, and fewer demands on outward activity. The seasonal lesson was to recognize when reduced activity helped sustain life.

Putting this into practice depends partly on our circumstances. Caring for a family member, working long hours, or living with financial pressure can leave little freedom to change a schedule. We begin with the choices available to us. Protecting an earlier bedtime, eating regularly during a busy period, or leaving an evening free after a demanding day can give recovery a more dependable place in the week.

The pattern matters more than any isolated choice. One late night is different from years of shortened sleep. A demanding week followed by recovery is different from a succession of weeks in which fatigue steadily accumulates. Over time, it is worth observing whether sleep still refreshes us and whether ordinary effort requires more recovery than it once did. These observations cannot establish a diagnosis or measure Jing, but they can help us recognize changes we have gradually come to accept as normal.

Jing concerns the strength that sustains us over a lifetime. We may continue meeting our daily obligations even as it takes longer to recover from them. If we regularly begin the next day still tired from the day before, it is worth reconsidering how much we take on and how much time we leave for rest.

References

1. Unschuld, P. U., & Tessenow, H. (2011). Huang Di Nei Jing Su Wen: An Annotated Translation of Huang Di’s Inner Classic, Basic Questions. University of California Press. See chapter 1 for the traditional account of maturation in seven-year and eight-year cycles.

2. López-Otín, C., Blasco, M. A., Partridge, L., Serrano, M., & Kroemer, G. (2023). Hallmarks of aging: An expanding universe. Cell, 186(2), 243–278.

3. Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. (2019). About sleep. National Institutes of Health.

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Stand in a horse stance for a few breaths and it may seem simple enough. The feet are planted, the knees are bent, and the body is upright. Stay there longer and the work becomes unmistakable. The thighs begin to burn. Small adjustments appear at the ankles and hips. Rising a few inches would be easy, but remaining at the chosen height requires continuo…

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