How Internal Energy Arts Boost Immune Function.
By Paul Cavel
My teacher, Taoist Lineage Holder Bruce Frantzis, released a short video on how to strengthen the immune system. He demonstrates three basic exercises to achieve the goal, which received two general responses:
Primarily positive - from people who are happy that the benefits are easy to achieve.
Primarily negative - from people who think it is ridiculous that immune function could be positively affected by such simple external movements.
So for the sceptics out there and, especially for those of you who experience benefit from practising internal arts every single day yet may have allowed a little doubt to creep in, let’s take an in-depth look at the construction of qigong forms and how exactly they improve immune function, as well as build health and vitality.
Movement and Immune Function
The human species grew up nomadic and remained as such for hundreds of thousands of years. Then suddenly, our ancestors settled and began farming just a few thousand years ago. Cultivation practices required daily physical labour, but, in the 21st century many people, especially those residing in developed nations, move very little by comparison.
A sedentary lifestyle can have detrimental effects on health and well-being for a range of reasons, and the particular effects can be highly individual. But the crux of the issue is "use it or lose it". When you do not move for long periods, you become stiff and your body’s 11 systems, including the circulatory, immune and lymphatic systems, can become blocked or stagnate. The volume of fluids and qi in circulation diminishes AND blood and qi flow decrease, so each also has a negative effect on the other. Over time and especially as we age, the body’s systems perform less optimally.
A common example is a person who is sick and lies in bed for a few days or more. They soon find their digestive system slows and they become constipated. It is the lack of movement which clogs the body’s operations by inhibiting its ability to efficiently expel toxins and waste.
All forms of exercise aim to increase blood flow, lymph drainage and all sorts of internal processes that improve health. The difference is qi arts like tai chi and qigong are designed to directly affect immune function.
Fluid Production and Qi Circulation
Internal energy arts target two specific areas to boost immune function:
Fluid production and mobilisation.
Qi development and circulation.
It is these two threads that intertwine to generate a superior functioning immune response and vital life-force energy.
In Chinese medical theory and the Taoist Water tradition’s practices, qi or vital energy circulates through the many channels and layers of the body. External arts and modern exercise programmes were not designed to include protocols for directly working with the qi of the body.
The X-factor in internal arts training are the techniques designed to affect the etheric field, wei qi and the deeper layers of the human energetic anatomy.
The wei qi is the protective layer of qi that runs through the meridian lines in the fascia just below the skin and is the second energetic layer of defence.
The wei qi is directly connected to the etheric field, often referred to as the “aura”, the first energetic layer of defence.
Together, these two layers of qi are responsible for protecting us from the full spectrum of foreign invaders. The stronger your qi—that is how thick and dense while circulating free from obstruction—the less likely you are of becoming affected (e.g. negative emotions) or infected (e.g. virus and bacteria). On the contrary, if your wei qi/etheric energy is blocked, stagnant or weak, the greater the chance you have of becoming ill.
"The man is not sick because he has an illness; he has an illness because he is sick".
—Chinese proverb
West Meets East
“But qi is energy and pathogens are physical”, I hear the sceptics counter.
Agreed!
There are two approaches to medical theory, Western and Eastern.
Western medicine puts the emphasis on microbes, such as bacteria and virus, and attempts to find methods for destroying invaders.
Eastern medicine puts the emphasis on the territory, the health of the tissues that the invaders land upon.
If you look towards eradicating all invaders, eventually you will activate nature's balancing principle by developing super strains that can live alongside chemical compounds produced to destroy them. And indeed bugs are now being detected inside saline solutions used in hospitals for disinfecting surfaces, and some scientists are predicting the end of antibiotics as soon as in the next decade.
Conversely, if you look towards boosting immune function, you either fight off would-be invaders effectively and efficiently with a light illness, or prevent infection altogether.
How Does Increased Qi Density and Qi Flow Translate?
In Chinese medicine, qi is above the physical realm in the hierarchy of life itself. In other words, qi tells matter (in this case, the body) how to function. You could think of electricity, where the computer runs smoothly and efficiently with a continuous supply, but has other dimensions too.
The stronger the qi, both in density and flow, the better the body operates.
You can meditate for longer and achieve more profound states of practice.
Martial artists can move faster and deliver more power, making their applications more effective.
For building vitality and healing, your body’s systems perform better, which naturally strengthens your defence mechanisms.
When qi flows uninhibited throughout the body, the fluids follow and can effectively:
Deliver nutrients and oxygen to every cell in the body.
Collect cellular waste, foreign materials and carbon dioxide, and expel them from the body.
When the fluids do not flow well and circulation becomes sluggish, dead spaces are created where pathogens can gather and take hold. These “pockets” allow pathogens to thrive because they do not receive sufficient nutrients and white blood cells, which destroy invaders. The quantity of white blood cells is diminished while the time it takes for the body to deliver them to the relevant site(s) increases. Pathogens can then gain ground, more territory, multiplying faster than the body can supply and deliver its defences.
Interstitial Fluid and Lymph
When the body is internally open and qi flows strongly, no stone is left unturned and the fluids surge throughout the body’s systems. White blood cells and other nutrients swarm pathogens as and when they land. The heart pumps and moves the blood constantly, but interstitial fluid and lymph only move when the body is moving. This point is critical because both of these fluids carry white blood cells from the blood plasma to all the soft tissues of the body and back again, into the blood. They need to circulate in order to do their job: hunt and kill pathogens!
These three fluids (blood, interstitial and lymph) interact at the level of the capillaries, so highly refined internal motion through qigong practice will also increase blood flow—even before you can directly affect your vascular system.
Importantly, it is not about how complex the outer physical motion appears, but rather how refined the internal motion can become. This is achieved by developing your awareness of, directly focusing on and systematically opening up any stuck tissues or pockets in your body. This process can boost fluid production and circulation in a single practice session and, with ongoing practice over time, not just immune function but improved performance of all 11 of the body’s systems.
The Effects of Stress on the Body
Stress negatively impacts the body, including immune function, for two main reasons:
Stress tightens the nervous system, which in turn tenses the whole body, and restricts blood and qi flow.
Stress causes energy to be strongly drawn up the body and into the brain, which generates churning thoughts that can lead to anxiety, even panic, and the severing of the mind from the body. You lose your root!
Both responses negatively affect immune function by restricting the natural flow of fluids (blood, interstitial and lymph) and qi, but that is not all.
Stress and anxiety directly burden the heart and over activate the adrenal glands, which takes the joy out of life. The adrenals sit directly on top of your kidneys and overstimulation of these glands drains the essential life-force energy that is housed in the kidneys. This is why stress is an underlying cause of a great range of illnesses and diseases.
All qigong practice is designed to ground, reduce stress and build immune function.
The Medicine Is Not the Cure
All the above brings us to the point that medicine does not cure you, whether mainstream or alternatively derived, your body does!
Medicine can keep you alive and fighting invaders while your immune system works out what kills the pathogen. It does this mainly through the production of T-cells, which are specific cells designed to kill the particular invader that is causing havoc. Vaccinations are based upon this fact: a vaccine carries a small dose or weaker strain of an offending pathogen which, when the body receives it, causes it to create T-cells to neutralise the invader. When the body subsequently comes in contact with that pathogen, antibodies can neutralise the invader.
When I was a child, young children would be exposed to others with chickenpox, measles, mumps, etc., so that we contracted the disease, produced the T-cells and gained life-long immunity to such diseases. Yes, we were ill for a week or two, but the mechanisms of youthful bodies are usually more efficient and can work out defences more rapidly than older ones. This is one reason why disease and virus are typically more deadly for elders. Both of these examples demonstrate the action of the body's immune function in taking the lead role in curing itself.
Fusing Fluid Production and Qi Development Into One Practice
Qi arts are practised to engage both ends of the spectrum, that is developing the wei qi and etheric energies at one moment in time, and fluid circulation in another. Later, when you have developed skill with each aspect in its own right, they can be fused together into one practice, but not before. Trying to focus on both in the same moment, especially while doing complicated physical movements, is too much in early training and will leave gaps in your development.
If you move your fluids, your qi will move and, likewise, if you move your qi, your fluids will flow strongly. Therefore, to some degree, you cannot engage one without the other, but being lazy and only practising one aspect or the other will limit the potential and exponentially greater effects that the two can deliver together.
Dragon and Tiger Medial Qigong has been practised for 1,500 years by millions of Chinese to contact, mobilse and specifically develop the wei qi and etheric body.
Heaven and Earth Qigong is a perennial, self-healing neigong that has been practised by Taoists for 3,000 years to open up the inside of the body and increase fluid production and flow, as well as the deeper qi flows of the body.
However, a form is only a container and once the practitioner learns how to activate their fluids and the form’s associated qi techniques, both can be activated strongly in each practice. It is only a matter of whether you are moving from the outside in, as in Dragon and Tiger, or the inside out, as in Heaven and Earth. As these two important neigong threads become more deeply embodied, they naturally transfer (to some degree) to all other internal practices you train, such as Gods Playing in the Clouds Qigong, tai chi and bagua.
This is why I place a heavy emphasis on the Dragon and Tiger and Heaven and Earth systems, and advise students against moving on to the more advanced sets too quickly. Together these two practices alone can deliver much more than any form of external exercise if the measures are a healthy, open body and mind that is continually upgrading rather than downgrading into old age.
Français coming soon.
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