Winter Mornings, Neuroplasticity, Breathwork, and Qi Gong (Part Four)

Neuroplasticity, Winter Mornings, and Your Kidneys

A quick review…,

In Traditional Chinese medicine, Winter relates to your Kidneys, which are (in TCM) also responsible for the health of your brain.

In Winter, your body is naturally lower in BDNF (a brain tissue growth factor), which can be challenging if you are getting older, or have experienced any form of injury (concussion), ingest inflammatory triggers (sugar, alcohol, hard drugs), or have a neurological medical condition.

Neuroplasticity, or the ability of your brain to grow, learn, and/or repair itself, can be stimulated throughout your life, and some of the best ways to do that are Complex Movement, Stillness, and Breathwork.

Especially in the morning.

As a long-time Qi Gong and Martial Arts teacher, I can attest to the value of a regular morning practice that includes any or all of the choices listed below. (If you have read the previous articles you will know that the more random your choices are, the more effective the Neuro-Boosting. If you have not read them, please check them out.)

Neuro-Boosting Options:

• Resistance Training
• Plyometrics (jumping)
• Structural Re-alignment
• Primitive Movement
• Balance Challenges
• Coordination Challenges
• Agility and Momentum Challenges
• Standing, Seated, Lying Stillness Practices
• Juggling
• Singing/Chanting/Humming
• Breathwork
• Embodied Trauma Release Practices
• State Shift and Shapeshifting Practices
• Hypnogogic and Flow States  Practices, and
• Conscious Self-Awareness Practices

Creating a Personal Morning Neuro-Boosting Session

After a lot of self-experimentation, I feel this is the best way to begin a morning Neuro-Boosting practice. I recommend aiming for a 20 to 30-minute session that is divided into several specific practices.

For example:

• 8 parts of 3 – minute practices.
• 6 parts of 4 – minute practices.
• 5 parts of 5 – minute practices.
• 8 parts of 3- minute practices.

Music is optional, but it will significantly improve the benefit of most of these choices. If you are choosing a 5-minute session of stillness, then silence will help the most for that part.

Breathwork

I like to start my Neuro-Boost days with a cold shower and then some intentional Breathwork.

If you have an established Breathwork practice, then go with your intuition. If you are new to Therapeutic Breathwork, then the best place to start is called Sensual Breathwork. We call it Sensual Breathwork because your focus is on feeling every possible sensual opportunity with each inhale and exhale.

Music is up to you. It can help keep the timing more sensual.

There is a link to a video to guide you through this Breathwork practice below.

Remember that your objective is to create and play with Mind/Body connections to invigorate your circulation and challenge your brain. The long-term goal is to wake up and establish a baseline state of coherence, adaptability, and presence.

Starting with intentional Breathwork will also get you ready for your next Neuro-Boosting challenge.

Resistance or Release

Now that you are charged up and full of Qi, it is time to decide what you want to explore next.

If I am going to spend the day in a chair talking with patients, I will usually activate my metabolism with some bodyweight resistance training.

If I am going to be physically active or be on my feet all day practicing Acupuncture, then I like to begin my day with some long and deep stretching.

A Deep Stretching Flow

If you are a veteran at deep stretching, congrats!

If you are new to this and want to avoid feeling beat up the next day, try this.

Sit on the floor with your legs straight, at about 90 degrees. If that is a stretch in itself, find a direction for your legs that is comfortable. If you cannot sit on the floor with your legs straight, sit on a pillow or three. If you can do the splits, cool! We are working on something else. About 90 degrees is enough.

Begin by elongating your spine and engaging your core. Gently tilt forward from the inside of your hips and pelvis. DO NOT allow your lower spine or neck to tilt or lean forward. Pretend you are doing a ‘Robot’ dance. As funny as that sounds, that can help you engage your core muscles. Then turn to the right, engage, elongate, and tilt – don’t lean. Then your left side.

After you are comfortable with that, add a gentle twist after you have tilted in each direction. Again, the robot dance will engage your core.

After that, turn your robot dance into a Belly Dance. Keep your spine elongated, but gyrate your diagram like you are putting on a show.

Stretching has profound benefits for your body and mind. Mostly, because chronic distress and Trauma can create holding patterns in your fascia. Learning to gradually release these patterns can be potentially life-changing.

This deep stretching flow can be practiced in almost any stretching position.

Resistance and Momentum

Nothing starts your day like as many push-ups, crunches, and chin-ups that you can do in a few minutes. If you have some free weights, exercise bands, or a Yoga ball, are comfortable jumping and leaping onto or over things, like juggling chainsaws (kidding), or any other kind of conditioning, you are set for hundreds of unique and random resistance sessions.

Any kind of resistance training or bodyweight training will also work. If you are not sure how to safely fill a 5-minute micro workout, that is ok. Learn from a professional.

Chronic stress is all about cortisol and the anticipation of conflict or erosive challenges. Starting your day with physical exertion will help you ‘burn off’ and regulate your daily cortisol levels – and it tells your nervous system you are a badass who loves a challenge!

Move, Challenge, Stop

Complex Movement can be practiced in many ways. The more you add challenges like momentum, how deep you sink into your legs, how long you pause for, and how detailed your coordination becomes, the more you boost Neuroplasticity. You can also focus on simple repetitive gestures that drop you into a flow state. You can always be as intuitive or intentional with your movements as you choose.

Then there is Vitamin S – Stillness and Silence…, (see below)

Moving rapidly, fluidly, slowly, with dynamic tension, complete release, moving very slowly, and even standing, sitting, or lying still, are all of kinds Complex Movement. Feeling centered, finding your precise balance point, relaxing old patterns of tension, and moving through the embodied memories of Trauma or almost as challenging of technical rock climbing.

Adding new challenges will grow the tissue of your brain, releasing shock states from your nervous system, fascia, and muscles, which can free the inner structures of the trillions of neuronal connections in your brain to interact – completely.

The reason I center my Neuro Boosting practice around Qi Gong and its many predecessors is because they cover all of the options I have mentioned.

Conscious and Comples Movement Practices

• Tai Chi (5-Minutes)
• Qi Gong (Countless exercises, many forms to borrow 2-5 minutes  from, trauma release practices, breathwork, meditation, shape-shifting, seated, lying, and walking practices)
• Martial Arts Drills and conditions (hundreds of options – more if you have a Neuro-Boosting Budy)
• Yoga (many standing postures, breathwork, meditation, prayer, seated and lying practices)
• Choreographed Dance
• Freeform Movement and/or Ecstatic Dance
• All forms of resistance training
• Embracing yourself as potent, focused, coordinated, and present is a great way to start your day!

Intuitive Release or Choreographed Precision?

This morning practice is meant to maximize your Neuroplasticity. If there was a Yin and Yang to your Mind/Body opportunities it would be an intuitive movement for emotional release or something that has a lot of details and has to be done just right – in some way.

Intuitive Movement is just like it sounds. You can practice this sitting or standing or even walking. You can begin by getting very still or by moving around in some freeform way. If you begin with stillness, just feeling into your body and being for any tension or sensation, and then simply see where your body wants to go. Music sometimes gets things moving, sometimes it gets in the way.

Breathwork is a great way to play with stillness and momentum. When I practice this way, as I am releasing tension, I turn it into circular movements. If the music is good and I’m in a good mood, then I just dance for the rest of the 5-Minutes.

If you are more into starting with movement, then start by swaying side to side or pretending you are doing a freeform version of Tai Chi (taijiquan).

If you are more drawn to finding your Conscious Complex Movement through precision, then Tai Chi forms, Qi Gong forms, or other choreographed dance-like opportunities are great. Given that you are limited to 2-5 minutes, Neuro-Boosting adds another dimension of ‘speed dating’ something that usually resides in the space of patience.

Remember, this is all about challenging habitual behavior. 

Cardio – the Aerobic Muscle Engine

A daily Neuro-Boosting practice (designed properly) ensures that you enter an Aerobic Metabolic State every day. Technically speaking, if you maintain any activity, even standing still, for 20 minutes (or more), you will activate your Aerobic Muscle Engine.

This changes your base metabolism favorably for over 24 hours. The benefits build, day after day – until you hit your upper metabolic balance point. This is unique to you, and one of the most effective resources on any journey towards Healing or longevity.

Please remember, you do not have to be running or jumping until you are sweating blood to be doing Cardio – or receiving the benefits.

35 minutes is optimal for Cardio, especially when your focus is on healing and tissue growth. After 35 minutes of Aerobic exercise, some Catabolic (self-tissue consumption) activity reduces the Neuro-Boosting potential.

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So far, your morning practice has been about activating your physiology with breathwork, movement, state shift, and many other random challenges to your proprioception.

Become stillness.

Become a rock. If that is too still, then become a tree.

time to ask, ‘Who is the one who is going to experience today?’

Begin by sitting or standing. If you are at home and are OK with falling asleep again, then try this lying down.

Move around until you are comfortable and ready for a Deep Dive into the Void.

Breathe naturally and enjoy the sensual return to your breath/body/self-experience. Become so gentle with your breathing that you can barely feel your body moving.

Allow gravity to help find a perfect balance point for each and every bone in your body, Hang off of your connective tissues like you are a candle, melting slowly, everywhere at once.

This is the best way to end a Neuro-Boosting session. It gives your nervous system and brain some time to remember what you have learned from today’s practice. If you practice some dynamic challenges, you may find your body occasionally twitching.

If you have ever seen a dog come in from a game of ‘catch or fetch’, it will probably twitch while it is taking a nap. That is an example of Neuroplasticity as your puppy rewires its memory of how to jump or change direction suddenly.

Smile. Thank your brain.

Embody your day. If you know if you’re going to the gym later, embody the you that will be strong or competitive. If you are going to the Dentist, can you find the readiness and stillness to endure the discomfort?

You want to embody your day not plan your day…

Thank your Neuroplastic brain and body. Thank yourself for choosing a proactive and embodied life – instead of a reactive and complaining mind.

Smile with every cell that makes you possible.

You are well on your way to a more adaptable, enjoyable, and longer life.

In the final article in this series, I will share a fun way to make this practice even more personalized, more random, and more effective at moving towards your goals.

I will also share some collaborative opportunities that make this whole process even easier to engage in.