If you’re on the right side of the internet, chances are that you’re going through a ‘very Chinese time in your life’. Now if this holds true in its most authentic sense – Congratulations! You may have finally committed to the ultimate path of self-healing.

Yes it’s cool and all to adopt ‘Chinese’ rituals into your daily routines, but there’s a very simple reason the TCM (short for traditional Chinese medicine) craze is solidifying itself into mainstream conscience – it works. And a central concept in its workings happens to be ‘Qi’, literally translating to one’s ‘vital energy’ and ‘life force’. One’s own Qi is representative of their flow of natural energy that keeps the body healthy and alive.

While the science of the body obviously ties into once holistic well being, the practice of keeping your Qi balanced and bubbling involves routines that women have had a long history of ignoring. Well, it’s time for a re-pivot. Holistic female health and TCM expert, Chiara, shows exactly how.

This holds true, even if years of giving in and complying have conditioned you to believe otherwise. Sometimes, we can’t choose who drains us and who repletes us. And even if you aren’t spiritually aligned, your body will tell you who falls in which category. If conversations with said person, no matter the history, is just a repeat telecast of you justifying yourself, over-apologising and shrinking yourself to keep the equation alive, your Qi is suffering.

Contrary to perception, these equations or conversations don’t need to be aggressive or manipulative – you could be laughing and smiling right through only to collapse within yourself once its over. Listen to your body, it’s a sign your Qi is draining out.

If you’re somebody who’s rather mindful about what they put into their body, it may be routine to wait for your stomach to growl before you reach for your meal. Stop that. If that nauseating feeling of starvation is something you’ve normalised feeling everyday before you finally ‘allow’ your body some food, know that you are depleting your Spleen Qi, which generates your daily energy. Forget the feeling of starvation, it isn’t normal.

It’s a simple equation to keep in mind really: you don’t have to work yourself to the bone every day to earn down time. Irrespective of if whether you believe it or not, that’s a fact. It’s well and good to have daily goals, even better if you have a burning desire to wrap it all up before you hit the bed for the night. But dragging your feet to finish your steps after dinner or working out at 2 am in the morning because you couldn’t through the day, is doing more harm than good – necessarily. Learn to listen to your body when it says its getting tired, and turn off. Immediately.

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In your food, in your drinks, in your environment, in your heart – all of it. Building and maintaining good, sturdy Qi almost necessarily involved shirking the cold. There’s a simple science equation at play here: the colder the forces your body is exposed to, the harder it needs to work to maintain baseline temperature. And what we’re trying to do here is unburden the body as much as we can, so everything cold should ideally be an easy pass.

Sometimes the depletion doesn’t just come from other people. Often we ourselves are the culprit. Chiara lists noise, screens, brainrot, doom-scrolling, too many inputs and too many people as an onslaught on your nervous system. Remember, all of this is fine on occasion, if you’re functioning from a space of a fully functional Qi. But if you’re trying to heal it – intentional and restorative silence and calm is your nervous system’s best friend, even if it feels boring at first. In the same breath, “pleasure, sunlight, nature and laughter are not optional by the way,” she clears.

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The bottom line of this is simple: choose yourself. Your body knows the route to take, even if your mind doesn’t.

Disclaimer: This article is based on popular beliefs. Times Now is not responsible for the accuracy or completeness of the information and facts provided here.