Energy and Health: Rising and Setting of Sun and Moon Practice
Tending to our life and lifestyles takes an incredible amount of energy. Embracing responsibility for your health can seem overwhelming, especially when you have anxiety. Addressing anxiety involves emotions such as anger, fear, depression, and worry.
Several effective techniques for raising our health energy include being in nature, eating whole nutrient-dense foods, active movement, rest, and cultivating your soul.
For anxiety, we want to offer a Qigong practice called Rising and Setting of Sun and Moon, which is simple yet highly effective. When we use the word simple, we mean accessible to everybody. To learn more about Ha.Lé’s Qigong treatments, call us or schedule here.
How to Do Qigong Practice:
To practice Rising and Setting of Sun and Moon qigong, place your feet shoulder-width apart; keep your knees, hips, and waist relaxed with your back straight and head aligned with the spine. The hands are comfortable with palms facing inward in front of the thighs. With a relaxing, deep inhale, lift the hands leading with the wrists in an arc up and away from the body and over the head.
The hands then rotate so that the palms face each other, and then with an exhale, the wrists lead away from each other and arc to the sides and downward toward the outer thighs. This simple movement is Rising and Setting of the Sun.
Now let’s move on to the moon phase, Moon Rises, and Sets, reverse the movement: Inhale as the palms turn upwards and rise to the sides over the head, then exhale as the palms turn forward and arc down to the starting position.
Take care to match the movement to the breath, which is soft, slow, and deep, into the belly. Belly breathing is essential for the movement to “massage” the organs and their pathways. The lifting and sinking of the arms shift the focal point of the breath internally to the different quadrants of the lungs and open energetic pathways and associated emotions.
Beginning with 10-12 deep breath cycles is always good practice. Breath work helps center the body and mind and prepare you for training. A relaxed body results in a calm mind. We like to practice this form nine times since the number nine represents longevity and health.
Interested in more? Explore the qigong exercise “Lifting the Sky.”
