5 ways to increase your energy (Qi) every day

here's how to increase your energy levels every single day you know traditional Chinese medicine everything is focused around the concept of chi and if you want to call that energy you can call that energy but at the end of the day if there's no gas in your tank left you're dead so what do we actually do about this in this video I want to share five practices from traditional Chinese medicine that can improve the amount of chi or energy you have on a day-to-day basis hey guys I'm Dr Alex hin board licensed doctor of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine and author of the health book master of the day so let's jump in you know for thousand thousands of years in East Asia there's been a search for these mysterious tonics and Longevity Elixir many rulers of ancient China sought The fabled Elixir to achieve eternal life during the Chin Dynasty chin Shang sent DST Alchemist shuu to the Eastern Seas with 500 young men and 500 young women to find the elixir in the legendary Pung Li Mountain but returned without finding it now he embarked on a second voyage this time with 3,000 young boys and girls but none of them ever returned again from the trip and a legend has it that he actually found Japan instead now while there have been Chinese Emperors that have died from trying out alchemical Elixir filled with for example Mercury some of these herbs are actually shown to increase your lifespan so for example studies done on nematodes and on animals using the compounds in ginsing the ginsenosides have actually shown to potentially lengthen their lifespan so there is something to this but on a day-to-day basis what can we actually do to increase our energy on on a more pragmatic level the first thing is a high level concept that we call prenatal energy I want you to think of energy not as this esoteric concept but as a more pragmatic thing you know when you feel tired you know when you feel energized prenatal energy is basically the genetic material from your parents and from your ancestors this is why modern science does such a good job places such high emphasis on looking at your family tree in terms of the predisposition towards illness your prenatal Chi is basically your strength of your Constitution now while this is considered an archaic term in modern medicine it is a well-known fact that some kids are born sickly and weak and some are born pretty strong these prenatal resources these aspects of our nature are sort of like our Achilles heels in Chinese medicine the goal is to strengthen your constitutional weaknesses and also augment your overall health and vitality through living a good life now when we talk about your postnatal literally after birth energy resources primarily believe it or not we're talking about your digestive system according to Chinese medicine now one of the things that's most important to keep in mind if you're having really low energy is that there can be dozens of different causes of it some people they are very very bad digestion some are constantly in a state of nervous system disregulation with anxiety or depression some aren't sleeping well and other people have blood sugar issues so how do you know where your symptoms are coming from well the first link below this video or you can just go to Dr Alex hind.com quiz is a link to a 12-page quiz I put together exhaustively so you can actually quiz yourself on your symptoms symptoms that will help you hone in on is it digestive is it sleep is it nervous system is it anxiety related take that quiz score yourself there and then we've actually taken the time to hyperlink to other videos on this exact topic that I've put together so you can go more in depth and the whole things free so I'd highly recommend checking out that quiz go through it because according to traditional Chinese medicine the reason for your fatigue might be a little different than if you go to a normal doctor check it out link below this video so let's talk about that idea of the digestive fire it's interesting that in Chinese medicine we say that one of the main ways of building your postnatal energy and vitality is what we call the spleen one of the things I want you to think about is that I don't think for a lot of people it is immediately intuitively obvious that your energy levels and sleep levels for a high percentage of people are directly tied to your diet what you eat and how much you eat one of the reasons is that purely if you have a large meal and you're overeating during the day your body Stills to digest that and if it hasn't completed the digestion at night it is still digesting people who wear smart washes will often tell me you know oh I ate a really big meal last night too late I didn't have acid reflux but I noticed my heart rate was way elevated 3 4 5 in the morning and usually it comes down by midnight you will see the real physiological evidence that your body still is working to digest meals if you eat too much or if you eat too heavily so we say one of the first things you can do to improve your energy is focus on really clean eating focus on the Mediterranean diet try to orient your meals around when you actually have an appetite and hunger and try to give yourself a break between meals for a little bit of fasting in between really it gives it a sort of window where it can do a little bit of cleaning of the intestines and taking out some garbage now the third thing you can do is maximizing what we call your Yin time your recovery time so it sounds obvious when you're tired you should probably try to sleep more but there are lots of people who either can't sleep or they sleep okay and they're still feeling quite tired and quite exhausted on a daily basis what do they actually do in this sort of situation for starters I mean our as an animal we are designed to be up for 16 hours and asleep for about 8 so if you imagine that is our yin and yang ratio genetically as a species and when sleep researchers have done studies they find that pretty much every hour below 8 hours your reaction time goes down even your quote intelligence goes down certainly your ability to solve complex problems goes down and your alertness your focus and all of that decreases and that about a week or two of 6-hour night of sleep is equivalent to one night of an all nighter of no sleep we do have a genetic prerogative to sleep eight hours and be up 16 and if you alter that ratio you're probably altering the balance that is producing illness on some level besides the fact that if you're having sleep problems you're probably going to have energy problems one of the main areas I see this benefit people in is when people have issues with their nervous system people who have a high heart rate they feel anxious often they feel stressed they may have heart palpitations they may have depression they may have headaches but the main thing that I see is that for people who are experiencing these symptoms more Y in time doesn't have to be sleep could be at home alone in the quiet could be walking your dog in the woods could be with someone you love who's very regulating to your nervous system in Chinese does is saying you shut the doors and you close the windows for someone who's very sick and what that means is you're trying to minimize any energy expenditure any energy leak so that the body has no way that it is being taxed so maximizing Yin time is basically putting your nervous system into a state of storage and if you can do that saying no to more things stronger boundaries you will often accelerate your your ability to have more energy during the day because you aren't being drained the fourth practice is what I call maximizing your yang strengthening your yang chat when we talk about rest and Recovery that's strengthening your Yin your Yin is almost like your resistance to stressors right the difference between sleeping 8 hours a night and then having a stressful day versus sleeping four and having a stressful day we all know the difference right in terms of how you feel and how you act but when we talk about strengthening your yangi that's like your immune system your ability to do work to work hard to generate more output to go for hard hikes and not be wiped out by it now we're talking about your yangi the main thing that I see strengthening your ability to have more energy in terms of output is physical exercise or chiong I mean chiong you could literally translate as breath work if you wanted when we're talking about Chi chiong is one of the best practices you can do to improve your energy levels which is different from exercise because if you are in a state of deficiency where your batteries are less than 50% let's say as a concept and you notice yourself feeling better initially after workouts but 2 hours later you want a nap you're either very R down or you're overdoing your workouts chiong by comparison will never make you more tired it will only improve your amount of energy so for example I never nap I will only do Chong if I'm really exhausted the reason for that is this slow rhythmic the increasing of the breath time big inhale really slow exhale all of that is one of the best Rays to improve what ancient Chinese literally believed was like the vital force Chi is one of the only non-material ways you can improve your energy is through chiong but physical exercise is a good close second for a lot of people you know little side note here the elderly people that come into my clinic when I do pulse diagnosis on them the ones who have the strongest pulses they're always the people who are regular exercisers throughout their life who work out four or five days a week who are cyclists who are runners go to the gym who do yoga that's very telling because they often have more strong pulses than people who are 40 or 50 half their age so that says something about how much stronger you can make what we call your blood and Chi through physical exercise and finally there are herbal tonics we traditionally use to improve your energy levels if all else fails or you don't want exercise you don't want to do chiong you just want to see me take some herbs like taking a medication and improve your energy levels it is it's a lot easier to be honest but in a perfect world you're doing all of the above right for a holistic approach but there are five herbs I want to focus on here that are traditional tonic formulas or herbals herbs but modern scientific research also supports that and more importantly clinically it is obvious that these improve energy in people the first one very commonly ginsing renen ginsing is in the category of herbs that tonify chi in our ancient medical books sure enough both modern research and clinical experience shows that formulas with ginsing generally do improve energy the second herb riola or Hong jingan this is an herb that is typically used to regulate the HPA access the chronic stress response that's become disregulated or has become excessive this herb very very good you see it more in like naturopathic medicine although I think it is originally from high elevation in Tibet and this herb is very very good for that as well so for people experiencing fatigue due to high levels of stressers this is something that can regulate those stress Pathways very well a third herb is called hangi or aralis astragalus is very commonly an herb you used for low immunity when there's fatigue susceptibility to colds and flu hangi or arrus can be very very effective for improving your immune system functioning and is commonly used for hypothyroid issues and also conditions that involve fatigue the fourth herb is called linger or RI RI often is an herb that we use to calm the spirit often used in formulas for anxiety and for insomnia and RI is something that is well studied for helping with uh overall fatigue as well as just calming the nervous system down the fifth herb is called goza or Goji goji berry so goji berry is one of those superfoods commonly used to improve the eyes in Chinese medicine Goji is also something that we call a liver and kidney Yin tonic most of the traditional tonic herbs uh fall into what we call kidney and liver Yin tonics Goji berries are something you can take food grade throw them in your oatmeal in the morning or they could be something that you take medical grade which is a much higher dosage like 9 G Plus per day so these are five traditional longevity tonic herbs that do have modern science backing up their traditional uses which is always really cool to see so that's what I have for you today guys five ways to improve your Chi or energy again don't forget I work with a limited number of new patients every month in my clinic in Los Angeles or virtually via tele medicine if you want to learn more there's info right below this video Clinic phone number email and booking link you can also just go to Dr alex.com Clinic as well that will have all the info there but before you go I have another great video on how to improve your energy with Chinese medicine right up here