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Daily Qigong Tip
How To Prevent Hurting Your Back?
Recently three friends shared with me that they had each hurt their backs and were in varying degrees of lower back pain. Hurting our backs is both easy to do and easy to avoid. Self-awareness and Qi management are the keys to maintaining a healthy and pain free back.
As we age, the Qi flow inside our body gradually lessens and our body becomes more fragile. We feel like we are losing “lubrication” in our system. Although this is a natural life process, managing our Qi can strengthen our Qi flow and help maintain vitality. Most recreation is helpful. Qigong, Tai Chi and some Yoga practices can help the most.
Young people rarely have back pain because their Qi is normally stronger and they are better “lubricated”. People who are not so young usually hurt their backs because they forget they are not so young anymore. Self-awareness begins with being realistic about what you can do. My husband tells it is a “guy thing” to lift something heavy without giving much thought to how best to lift it--or whether to get some help.
Here are some tips about how to build and maintain your awareness to help prevent lower back injury. For people who have experienced lower back injury, applying the following tips before lifting will help prevent your back from getting worse and stimulate gradual healing:
1. Relax your whole body, especially your lower back before moving or lifting anything heavy.
2. Make sure you have enough of Qi supply in your lower back area before you put it to heavy work. The way to do this is to focus on your lower back before carrying or lifting anything heavy. When your mind focuses on a certain part of your body, Qi will run toward that area, and gives that part of your body some extra of Qi to help handle more exertion
3. Lower your center as much as you can. Ground yourself before the lifting and carrying by dropping your body weight as low as possible and imagine that your body weight goes into the ground and together with your legs, becomes the root for you, just like the root of a big tree.
4. When starting to lift or carry things, feel your root and think and feel that your waist is really initiating the energy for the job and transferring the needed power to other parts of your body, such as arms.
5. Keep in mind that squatting to lift with our legs, instead of bending over and using our back, is the best form to use. However, many of us are not used to lifting this way and are in the habit of lifting with our backs. Learn to use your legs and ask for help.
6. Most back injuries happens when we are in a hurry. Before we know it, the injury has already happened. So we need to build up a habit of using the lower back properly, remembering to practice the above tips and make your body act in this way automatically when you face a lifting or moving task.
7. Give some TLC to your lower back whenever you can: Rub your palms and after they feel hot, put your palms on your lower back for at least two minutes. Relax your back muscles and feel the heat from the palms.
Keep in mind that having a Qigong - or Qigong like practice as part of our daily life activity keeps our Qi flow strong and is the most reliable way to prevent lower back injury. If you like the idea of having a stronger Qi flow and better “lubrication” in your joints, come to classes and practice with us :)
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New Tai Chi and Qigong/Meditation Classes On Thursday Evenings
Good Time To Join
Gain Better Health Through Self Effort
When: Thursdays, Starting June 7, 2007
5:30 pm - 6:30 pm - Tai Chi Class
6:45 pm - 8:15 pm - Qigong/Meditation Class
Where: Soullenz Gallery
186 North King Street, upstairs
(River Street / N. King) in Honolulu
See Map of Location & Parking
Cost: $25 /month/class
Register by email admin@yesbewell.com
FREE Qigong & Meditation Seminar
When: Sunday, June 17, 2007
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
Where: Kaimuki YMCA, Honolulu
What: Learn Basics of Qigong and Meditation
How They Are Related To Our Health
& How You Can Get Started.
Cost: FREE
Register by email admin@yesbewell.com
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MORE FUNNY VIDEOS ON LARGE SCREEN
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Be Happy!
Continuation of an unpublished manuscript by Robert Cowling (BC),currently being edited
Chapter Fifteen
GRATITUDE
The Best Attitude
What is gratitude? Most of us know gratitude as something we experience when we have just avoided something terrible. Your boyfriend is in an accident. His car is damaged severely and he is rushed to the hospital. When you get the call at work you hurry to his side. You feel so grateful he is still alive. Your lingering upset over the argument you had with him this morning vanishes. Whatever condition your boyfriend is in, you feel grateful he is not in worse shape. Your love for him overwhelms you. Why? Gratitude opens our hearts.
When we are filled with gratitude, there is no room in our consciousness for the negative qualities which close our hearts. Can you be angry, can you complain, can you be afraid while you are grateful? Yes, we do mix emotions, but the more gratitude we feel, the less room we have for darker feelings. I have experienced being filled with gratitude for as long as a weekend. The feeling was incredible. I wish I could live immersed in gratitude all the time.
Why do we so often wait until a near-tragedy to feel grateful? Most of us have not trained ourselves to shape our feelings. Our feelings are by-products of our actions, words and thoughts. To live in a state of gratitude requires persistent attention. When I get upset with someone, I usually blind myself to a bigger perspective. I lose the awareness that I am here to grow, mature and serve. Everything I encounter can teach me something if I am open to learn, but it is easy to get stuck in the moment's negative qualities.
The earth is a place of both positive and negative energy. We can choose to focus on our troubles or we can choose to look for what we have in our life which uplifts us and be grateful for it.
How to be more grateful? Try smiling instead of frowning, no matter how you feel. Frowning perpetuates bad feelings. Smiling opens the door for positive energy and gratitude. List the people, the qualities in yourself and the things in your life for which you are grateful. Then review and update the list periodically and remind yourself several times a day to think about someone or something on your "Grateful List." Visualize yourself being grateful. Train yourself to consciously choose to be grateful.
The more you are grateful, the more your heart will open and the more you will Be Happy!
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