Fighting Parkinson’s, and the Recipe in-depth 2015, part 3

I intend to take each part of the Recipe, physical, mental, and spiritual, and explain why it is in the Recipe and what it is doing for you in your recovery, deeply drilling down to the how and why it is helping you recover from Parkinson’s. Today is the third part: Medical Qigong for the Kidneys and Medical Qigong Sound for Kidney Health.

For those of you new to the blog, when I say “the Recipe,” I am talking about the Parkinson’s Recipe for Recovery®. Click here to review the full version of the Recipe.

Medical Qigong for the kidneys.

Elevating:
1. Stand with feet shoulder-width apart.
2. Place hands overlapping over the Dantian.
3. Take a deep inhale.
4. On the exhale, squeeze your anus and visualize that you are pumping energy from the kidneys to the brain.
5. Repeat for a total of 20 inhalations and 20 exhalations.

Strengthening:
1. Sit in a chair and slide toward the front, back straight and feet flat on the ground.
2. Put your palms lightly on your thighs or knees.
3. Inhale and visualize your inhale filling your Dantian.
4. Exhale and squeeze your anus while visualizing the energy going from your Dantian to your coccyx to your Mingmen (approximately your 4th vertebrae). Once it reaches the Mingmen, bring it around your waist on both sides to your navel).
5. Repeat for a total of 10 inhalations and 10 exhalations.

Medical Qigong Sound for Kidney Health.

1. Stand with feet shoulder-width apart.
2. Bring the backs of your hands across the kidneys and around to the front so that the backs of your hands are facing each other in front of your navel.
3. Raise your arms up in this position until the backs of your hand reach chin level.
4. Rotate you elbows down so your palms are facing each other like holding a small ball in front of your chin.
5. Exhale and squat down while saying Chui. (it is pronounced chew).
6. Stand back up out of the squatting position.
7. Repeat for a total of 6 inhalations and 6 exhalations.

Click here for a graphic of the kidney meridian.

Medical Qigong for the kidneys.

Elevating:
1. Stand with feet shoulder-width apart.
You are centering yourself.

2. Place hands overlapping over the Dantian.
The Dantian is an energy center about one inch below the navel and two inches inward from there inside your body. This creates a concentration of energy, and your intention focuses inward.

3. Take a deep inhale.
This opens up your body and starts feeding fresh oxygen throughout your body.

4. On the exhale, squeeze your anus and visualize that you are pumping energy from the kidneys to the brain.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the kidneys are viewed as the storehouse of your innate energy, or jing. The jing in your kidneys is brought up to your brain and converted to life energy, or qi. With Parkinson’s, there is low brain energy, so you use this Qigong exercise to assist your kidneys in bringing energy to your brain. Squeezing the anus helps direct energy in an upward direction toward the brain. The visualization assists the kidneys in moving the energy up to the brain. The kidneys are situated on either side of the spine in the lower back area.

I have told people who have a difficult time with visualization to picture the kidneys as turkey basters, and you are squeezing the juice up to your brain. For those who completely feel they cannot perform a visualization, here is what I have recommended. At the beginning of the Qigong, close your eyes and say, “Dear my Higher Power, I am about to do this Qigong exercise. Please direct the energy where it needs to go for my health and recovery. Thank you.” This brings your intention inward, and it helps your kidneys because it removes the fear that if you cannot do the visualizations in the Recipe, you cannot recover. Please know, everything in the Recipe can be modified for you…you have nothing to fear!

Fear negatively impacts the kidneys…as you heal your kidneys, you release fear…as you release fear, you heal your kidneys.

5. Repeat for a total of 20 inhalations and 20 exhalations.
The brain is low on energy, so this is what it takes.

Strengthening:
1. Sit in a chair and slide toward the front, back straight and feet flat on the ground.
This gets you centered and grounded for the Qigong.

2. Put your palms lightly on your thighs or knees.
This keeps your body in a stationary position so the energy movement is concentrated around the kidneys with little or no external movement.

3. Inhale and visualize your inhale filling your Dantian.
This is to build internal energy to best strengthen your kidneys.

4. Exhale and squeeze your anus while visualizing the energy going from your Dantian to your coccyx to your Mingmen (approximately your 4th vertebrae). Once it reaches the Mingmen, bring it around your waist on both sides to your navel).
This may be challenging, but it is absolutely worth the effort. You want to use your kidneys to energize your brain and bring more qi energy to your body. However, the kidneys are low on energy as well with Parkinson’s, so you have to strengthen the kidneys. I found it difficult to visualize the three movements on a single exhale, so here is what I did.

I did my single exhale with 3 separate pushes of air back-to-back, and I visualized each of the three movements with a push of air. On the exhale, push 1 saw the energy going down and back from my Dantian to my coccyx (tailbone). Push 2 saw the energy moving straight up my spine from the coccyx to the Mingmen (4th vertebrae). Push 3 saw the energy separating around my waist from my Mingmen to my navel. By then, I really needed another inhale, and the process started all over again.

If you look at where your kidneys are located, lower back on either side of the spine, you will see that you are strengthening your kidneys because your exhale energy movements encapsulate your kidneys with circulating energy.

5. Repeat for a total of 10 inhalations and 10 exhalations.
The kidneys are weak, so this is what it takes.

Medical Qigong Sound for Kidney Health.

1. Stand with feet shoulder-width apart.
You are centering yourself.

2. Bring the backs of your hands across the kidneys and around to the front so that the backs of your hands are facing each other in front of your navel.
You are gently stroking your kidneys and saying, “Hello kidneys, wake up, and let’s get ready for an energy boost.”

3. Raise your arms up in this position until the backs of your hand reach chin level.

4. Rotate you elbows down so your palms are facing each other like holding a small ball in front of your chin.
You are centering your thoughts and intention, and bringing yourself inward.

5. Exhale and squat down while saying Chui. (it is pronounced chew).
The squatting stimulates Kidney meridian point 1 (see graphic in link above), also known as the “bubbling springs.” This is a very powerful energy center in your body. The Chui sound calms and soothes the kidneys.

6. Stand back up out of the squatting position.
In the squatting (number 5) you have stimulated KD 1, and activated energy from KD 1. When you stand back up, the energy moves from KD 1 up the kidney meridian for kidney health and more energy for you.

7. Repeat for a total of 6 inhalations and 6 exhalations.
This is what it takes.

Additional point: Another thing you can do for your kidneys is drink more water. Lower back pain with Parkinson’s generally means kidney pain from not drinking enough water. Do you suffer from urgent urination and/or multiple trips to the bathroom to empty your bladder in the middle of the night? Yes, I know, people have told me it is counter-intuitive to drink more water when they are going to the bathroom so much already…they are incorrect. The frequent urination and multiple nighttime bathroom visits are because you are too toxic, and the kidneys are telling the bladder “get this toxic liquid out of the body NOW!!!”

Drinking more water dilutes the situation and solves the problem.

Click here to read more about drinking more water and solving urgent and frequent urination issues.

Finally, you do not have to take my word for it. Here is an excerpt from a comment posted by Debbie last year after a workshop I did in Seattle:
“I am happy to say that I only woke up once last night…At the workshop Howard suggested a solution for people who were having a problem with getting up 3 or 4 times a night to go to the bathroom. He said to drink a glass of water before you go to bed, and then fill a glass and put it on your nightstand. When you get up during the night and go to the bathroom, drink the glass of water. It worked. it is the first time in a long time that I haven’t got up 3 or 4 times to go.”

And, here is a comment posted by Bailey when I did a refresher of the basics post, listing drinking more water to relieve urgent urination as refresher number 1:
“Just gave myself the gift of re-reading some of those great posts! Good stuff! For those new to the blog, if #1 Water doesn’t make sense, give it a try! At one point I had to switch sides of the bed with hubby to be closer to the bathroom for the multiple, sometimes urgent, nightly visits. Then I began drinking a glass of water every night and voila! I now go 0-1 times a night! Thanks for the refreshers Howard!”

That’s it!

You are worth it!!!

I will be back soon.

All my best,

Howard

Please note: I will be posting a post per day for the remainder of the year. If you subscribe to receive email notifications when I post new blog posts and you would prefer to not receive those daily email notifications, simply send me an email at howard@fightingparkinsonsdrugfree.com, and let me know that you do not wish to receive a daily email with a link to each post. I will remove you from the list for the rest of the year, and add your email back to the list at the beginning of 2016. However, I still would recommend you checking the blog on a regular basis as it will contain very useful information for understanding and doing the Recipe more effectively.