Secrets of Your Cells: Discovering Your Body's Inner Intelligence (22 page)

EXPLORATION

Mapping Your Energy

Keep an energy graph every day for a week, using the template provided in appendix 1 to monitor your energy, tension, and mood. Make seven copies of this graph so you can follow your energy rhythms for at least a week.

Track these qualities at about the same time five or six times each day; times are indicated across the bottom of the graph.

Mark on the graph how you perceive your energy, tension, and mood using a scale of 1 (
lowest
) to 10 (
highest
). You might use one color to mark your energy and different colors or shapes for tension and mood.

Once you know your usual energy patterns, you can do another week of mapping to discover how practicing qigong, taking a walk, drinking coffee or alcohol, eating candy, or anything else you choose to do affects all three. Note whatever your added activity was on your energy graph. When you achieve greater awareness in this way, you add to your own storehouse of wisdom, and you can choose to make changes that better support your life.

I had a student who was in the habit of eating a donut to boost his energy as soon as he got to his part-time job. When he did energy mapping for a few days, he was surprised to see that he got an initial jolt of energy from the tempting, empty calories but that it dropped quickly afterward. A donut is a downer? Yes. And this convinced him to kick the habit. Sometimes all we need is a little “data” to show us what’s going on and convince us to make a change. Keeping track supports us in knowing the impact of our choices, inside and out.

When I first did my own energy maps, I discovered that my peak energy occurred after 10:00 p.m. I had always known I was a night person, but seeing it in black and white allowed me to be easier on myself when I had a hard time getting started in the morning. One of my remedies for the morning sluggishness was doing qigong and the body prayers I offer in this book. Now my mornings blossom a bit more easily as I receive a burst of energy from practices that connect body and spirit.

Suppose you discover that your typical pattern is an energy crash with a lot of tension in late afternoon: the four o’clock blahs. Once you know this pattern, you can practice proactive stewardship by planning important events or meetings at other times. Or, if you must do something important at a low-energy time, you can manage your internal
resources beforehand. To increase energy and lower your tension, do a relaxation practice or take a short, brisk walk. With some experimentation, you will soon learn what best renews and sustains you, and you will be rewarded with a greater sense of control and the ability to harness your inner resources. If you believe you have the ability to manage a challenging situation, this attitude itself can minimize your stress.

Becoming familiar with our own energy rhythms and knowing energy-enhancing practices can change our relationship to stress and daily challenges. Rather than being victims of surges of tension and troughs of energy, we learn when and how to regenerate energy, release stress, and relax our bodies and minds. It is important for all of us to know how to rest and renew ourselves and our cells.

Managing and Sustaining Energy

Understanding our energy rhythms is an important step in making healthy choices and living a more manageable and enjoyable life. There are three steps involved: knowing, being, and doing.

How to
know
(awareness, tuning in):

• Energy maps

• Body clues: Pulse, breath, hand temperature, muscle tension

• Mind clues: Who and what drains you Who and what sustains you?

How to
be:

• Exercise

• Meditation

• Stress release

• Qi

• Laughter

• Tai chi

In addition to the items above that will help you sustain your cells’ precious energy, you can
do
any of the following.

How to
do
(energy renewal):

• Develop your own self-care plan

• Spend quiet time alone

• Do less, say no,
be

• Learn mindfulness meditation or another meditation practice

• Reconnect with a spiritual source

• Recharge your batteries daily

• Walk

• Hold one focused, connected, and meaningful conversation each day

• Play, seek pleasure, and laugh

• Value and cherish yourself

• Ask yourself what gives your life joy and meaning; do something in pursuit of this each day

• Make a list of what brings you happiness, and at those fretful times when you might be drawn to a destructive pattern of behavior, choose a joyful activity instead

BODY PRAYER

A Simple Qigong Practice for Cultivating Energy
⁷

You will find complete instructions for this practice in appendix 2. (It is also available on my CD,
Molecular Messengers of the Heart.
) The following is a brief listing of each of the nine sequences in this series. Many can be done alone, or they can be done together as a complete series. The series includes:

The Basic Posture: Standing Home Alignment

Rooting and Spiraling: Waist Circles

Opening to Breath

Energy Wash (This part of the sequence is perfect to do when you want to relieve the mind of unwelcome thoughts or stress.)

Sipping Qi (This is like a reversal of the Energy Wash.)

Core Wave

Heart Thymus Wave

Integration: Balancing Yin and Yang, Right and Left Hemispheres (This balances the right and left hemispheres of the brain and is equivalent to alternate nostril breathing in yoga.)

Gathering and Storing the Qi: Closing the Circuits

REFLECTION

The following reflections guide you in taking what you have learned about how your cells create and replenish energy into a wider view of how you use energy.

How do I invest my energy?

How do I recycle resources in my home?

What sustains and restores me?

What or who wastes my energy?

How am I renewing my energy?

When I am spent, what replenishes me?

How do I want to invest my resources?

Energy and Energy

Most popularized tai chi, qigong, and yoga exercises are actually based on spiritual practices and the elusive forms of energy, not molecules or the workings of our cells. Because of the popularity of yoga and tai chi and the presumed benefits for lessening stress, Western medical researchers began examining their effects on physiologic measurements. It has been clearly shown that these practices enhance flexibility and
aerobic capacity and improve our ability to relax. Elders who practice tai chi improve their balance and have fewer falls and hence a better quality of life.
⁸
So even though these energy practices were originally developed for spiritual deepening, once brought to the West, we demonstrated their body-mind and physiological effects. Our cells use all the energy that pervades their environment—qi and ATP. And we can too.

Fields of Energy

When we and our cells practice qigong with others, we generate a field of qi. Have you ever walked into a room and felt unpleasant “weird vibes” or absolutely at peace? Your experience is a reflection of both your sensitivity and the energy of the space. Walk into a church where incense is burning, candles are lit, and the essence of sanctuary surrounds you—the energy of hundreds of people who have prayed there. Enter a rowdy bar, and the energy screams at you. Many would call this “the field.”

If you meditate, you well know what a different experience it is to meditate in a group compared to doing it alone. If you sing or chant, you know the difference between soloing and being part of a community of voices, surrounded by and becoming part of the sounds of many. Similarly, when we pray with others, we bring a level of focus that changes the experience for all. We might refer to the effect we create as a field.

Esteemed biologist Rupert Sheldrake speaks of a controversial field of energy that pervades the planet; he calls this the
morphogenetic field.
⁹
One example he gives of the effects of this theoretical field is crystallization. When a newly synthesized molecule was made in a laboratory, it took months for it to crystallize. But then, as more labs around the world made this same chemical, the time span to crystallize shortened considerably. This didn’t happen because one lab told another how to do it. Instead, as Rupert explains the phenomenon, the molecules themselves “learned” by means of the common field of energy.

When I first began teaching a particularly difficult qigong movement—the integration move—it took weeks for a class to get it. Then, the more large groups I taught across the country, the quicker people learned, until they got it the first time. I believe this accelerated learning was a result of the morphogenetic field; through repeated work, we had changed the field globally. Think of runner Roger Bannister, the first man to break the four-minute mile—considered an impossible feat at the time. Yet soon after he broke that barrier, many others were able to achieve it and then attain even faster running times. Was it because beliefs were shattered about what was possible, or had the change in the energetic field shaped new abilities or possibilities?

We can interpret this as meaning that what we learn or do on one part of the globe has an energetic or cosmic influence elsewhere. This is invisible energy, the Mystery, at work in ways we do not yet fully understand.