Cooling Down

[phil]

I've got times where my chi produces to much heat resulting in swaety palms/foots, lower self-esteem, restless sleep, too much thougts etc. 

What helps me quite a bit is shaking, tapping the body here and there and directing the chi to ming-men and the foot area and storing it in LDT. But it seems to me that directing chi with the mind in itself produces some kind of heat. So my question is: Are there any exercises/meditations or herbs/foods or other things that are able to cool down the body?

I am practicing Flying Phoenix Chi Kung a lot, which produces a cooling energy and it helps a lot, but maybe you guys know some other stuff which helps to decrease the heat.

:-)

[beingnature]

Long cold showers really helped me with this.try to relax while doing it is the key.

[dwai]

You can try draining.

The practice is to stand in preparation stance (feet shoulder width apart, toes pointing straight ahead or slightly toed in). Bent the knees, alignments, suspend the crown, tuck the tail etc (you seem to know these already).

 

Let your hands be out, down and around 45 degrees away from your body, palms facing the body such that the fingers point to the ground. Relax and as your breath in, let the qi sink into the ground from your finger tips. As you exhale, just let your mind rest in the LDT. Stand like this for as long as you can. Don't pull any qi in. 

 

Be like a wet mop, and let the heavy stuff just drip into the ground. With each exhalation into your LDT, the clean stuff will fill you up, little by little.

[Rocky Lionmouth]

Have a couple cold drinks of water with ice. Cooling showers are good too but not cold ones, just not warm if you get my point?

 

I also suggest rubbing or scratching your skin and sit around in your underwear for a while, sometimes opening pores up helps the skin dissipate heat better. Dont go sit in a cold draft or something, just strip a layer off and relax in your home.

And have a cold drink. Hard to beat cooling from the inside

[Rara]

My time with TCM and acupunture worked to a degree but realised it was the "same thought" that was trying to cure me (i.e me) and therefore was slowing down the progress.

 

I think your shaking will help because it allows your body to loosen up and there is little opportunity to think/worry and therefore create too much heat.

 

My heat comes from stress and tension. I get insomnia and migraines if I'm not careful but I have slowly learnt to "ease off" the accelerator. Train to do things slowly, perhaps Tai Chi lessons (this has been a blessing) Daily activities like household tasks, do slowly and mindfully (I use the term loosely - I actually feel that the mind is the biggest obstacle and that the head should be as empty as possible, always - us "yang people" get our heads filled up very easily and must not take the word "mindful" too literally)

 

Diet wise, reduce red meats, any fatty fried foods, coffee etc. And generally do things that are relaxing and make you laugh from the belly Laughter is the best medicine.

 

Keep us posted. I could always do with some more techniques too, so anything you find that helps would be nice to hear about.

[Rara]

If it's specifically heat from energy, Haritaki could help. Drinking cold things is generally a bad idea since it upsets yin-yang balance in a pretty big way.

 

To each their own, though.

Sometimes the cold drinks work for me. By that I mean water or coconut water.

 

But sure, white and green tea are also good as well as tulsi, peppermint and if you can find a green tea with goji berries in - wow!

[Stosh]

It kinda sounds like a stress reaction to me, and in that case temperature wouldn't really be the issue.

[phil]

It kinda sounds like a stress reaction to me, and in that case temperature wouldn't really be the issue.

I thought so too but I am not quite sure. To be a bit more precise:  When I've got this heat phenomena  I feel the energy moving from the head downwards and when it reaches the heart area this heat is produced. I thought that it might be caused by stress, but it often happens when I am just relaxing. It's like the more I am aware of the chi-movements in my body the more heat is generated. This then has stress-symptoms as a result, but I am not really sure if stress is really the cause. 

My  ex-teacher told me that I have very much Yang-Chi and it moves too fast. So I was guessing that when I am in a relaxed state the Yang-Chi starts to move more till it get's to a blockage where it can not more anymore and is kind of pressing against it which results in this heat? I also don't have this phenomena very often. Most of the time I feel grounded and clear-headed, but this changes then like a few days per month where I really feel my Yang-Chi, mostly in head/heart area (with some kind of pressure on the third eye). It is not that big of a deal though and no really qi deviation symptom or something and I can to what I normally do, but it's simply a bit stressing. 

 

Thanks for all the tips, I am gonna give everything a try ;-)

Edited April 8, 2017 by phil48

[Aetherous]

It's not good for internal heat to be trapped within the body. Most qigong routines do a whole body self-massage at the end, which vents the heat out through the skin layer. Movement also helps the heat to not be trapped...such as going for walks, and some of the more physical qigong stuff like baduanjin...it's good to have movement in the warm up before the qigong session, like opening all of the joints with circular motions.

[Gerard]

Lie down on the grass or better: bare soil. Stay away from

any trees in this particular instance because they rise energy up to the Heart, Sun. Then relax and let go of everything making sure you are melting down into the earth. This will make you more yin.

 

Edited April 9, 2017 by Gerard

[Aeran]

I was having similar problems with excess heat, and it was recommended to me by an Ayurvedic healer (Eric Isen, if you've been following the Flying Phoenix thread) that I could work it out of my system with physical exercise.

 

It sounds a bit counterproductive on the surface, but I've started making sure I keep a minimum 1 - 1 ratio of time practicing Qigong/Taiji - time spent jogging on a treadmill, and this seems to vent the vast majority of any heat left over from practice. 

[[email protected]]

If body produces heat after or during your qi exercises then it is a sign that it resists somehow. This is possible when you might have blocks or tensions in the body, so the best way I think is to relax more ad find tensions in the body. And also to take advice from an instructor.

Rgrds, Ilya

[EmeraldHead]

Like Aeran pointed above distance running is a great chi eater (or should I say chi waster for this one). A good workout does the job too, slower but more healthy. 

 

Proper concentration practice like gazing at a candle flame for at least 30minutes or 1 hour a day will do the trick super nicely and you likely will find yourself dry of chi eventually. 

 

Jeff's system will eat some chi and help you to handle more, in a similar way to concentration training. 

 

These are the things I use to process lots of chi. I know a folk whose been celibate for 8 years. He mentioned roughly once, he would go in the park or somewhere and throw some chi to cool off. But he's aura is intensly strong...

[awaken]

Did you learn meditation from someone else?

 

If you did, he only teach you the half step.

 

Just as other posts in the thread, you are lack of Ying.

 

You only practice yang.

 

You didn't finish the whole meditation.

 

So that is why you have too much heat.

[Rocky Lionmouth]

If it's specifically heat from energy, Haritaki could help. Drinking cold things is generally a bad idea since it upsets yin-yang balance in a pretty big way.

 

To each their own, though.

If you're feeling hot from inside i've found drinking iced water slowly (not slamming a whole glass one after the other) you gradually direct the heat of thebody to warm the cool liquid back to body temp, it works best after exercising, an have a couple of glasses over a long time, sip by sip. But maybe thats not so good then?

You say it upsets the yin yang balance which i hadnt thought about, can you explain it a little more please? I dont want to give out dangerous advice in the future.

[phil]

Did you learn meditation from someone else?

 

If you did, he only teach you the half step.

 

Just as other posts in the thread, you are lack of Ying.

 

You only practice yang.

 

You didn't finish the whole meditation.

 

So that is why you have too much heat.

Are you talking about the state of half awake, half at sleep?

Letting go of consciousness while meditating?

[dwai]

you could also try this -- 

[opendao]

I've got times where my chi produces to much heat resulting in swaety palms/foots, lower self-esteem, restless sleep, too much thougts etc. 

What helps me quite a bit is shaking, tapping the body here and there and directing the chi to ming-men and the foot area and storing it in LDT. But it seems to me that directing chi with the mind in itself produces some kind of heat. So my question is: Are there any exercises/meditations or herbs/foods or other things that are able to cool down the body?

 

maybe, as an option, just to stop "directing chi with the mind"? especially, if it produces so much heat.

 

Proper chi movement shouldn't produce the heat as you describe. In contrast, thoughts have to calm down, sleep - improve and so on.

[awaken]

Are you talking about the state of half awake, half at sleep?

Letting go of consciousness while meditating?

You're right.

[[email protected]]

The one thing is to be controlled from my point of view - its important not to go asleep during practice while trying to calm down. Going asleep is a too yin condition which should be avoided. The difference between going asleep and just calm in down is that the spirit is also sleeps, and it is important to have it stable.

[phil]

maybe, as an option, just to stop "directing chi with the mind"? especially, if it produces so much heat.

 

Proper chi movement shouldn't produce the heat as you describe. In contrast, thoughts have to calm down, sleep - improve and so on.

Yes, thats why I don't do it (consciously) anymore. It's just that I sometimes feel the chi quite strong somewhere in my body, and then it's hard for me to not move it, because it instantly follows my mind or focus. Deep LDT-Breathing helps though. 

Nevertheless, from time to time I like to play with it a bit, like doing a (safe) form of MCO, or directing chi to ldt, mingmen, knees (I feel directing it to knees is really good for me to get rid of too much yang chi) and most of the time I feel relaxed, calm, peaceful. But as is said, this heat only rarely occurs, and with more practice it get's better. Like 2 years ago it happened much more often. 

 

 

I tried various exercises from this thread and bought Triphala, and it already helps a lot, thank you all 

Edited April 13, 2017 by phil48

[Ocean]

Hey Phil,

 

I've struggled with this massively over the years.  I'm a Yoga teacher and at the end of teaching I will always be the reddest one in the room, I sweat absolute buckets, and I blush purple if someone looks at me the wrong way.

 

Now, I'm still figuring it out, but making some headway finally so I'll share what I've learned.

 

Basically I went to a Five Elements Chinese Acupturist and she diagnosed what I have as a "deficient heat".  This was really interesting as most people have always just written it off by saying I had too much fire / Yang energy and needed to eat some seaweed.  Acutpunturists I'd been to before would often try to "funnel off" the excess heat.  But I never felt like I was Yang - I suffered from depression, had very low energy, and my body temperature vasciallated wildly from cold to hot. I felt like a cold creature who couldnt handle the heat, not a hot creature with too much energy.

 

However, the acupuncturist told me that the heat was arising because I was deficient in Earth energy.  The Five Elements create a cycle, which goes Water nourishes Wood, Wood nourishes Fire, Fire nourishes Earth, Earth nourishes Metal, Metal nourishes Water.

 

My Fire "levels" were actually normal, but because I was deficient in Earth the fire would run rampant over me... there was nothing to soak it up.

 

This also threw the Wood element out of whack, and lead to my liver (wood) attacking my spleen (earth).

 

I'm not saying that your diagnoses would be the same - you might not have deficient heat, but it's worth going to a Five Elements Acupuncturist and getting an assesment. 

 

I'm approaching the heat in my body in a few ways now:

 

1) Nourishing the Earth element with colour therapy, essential oils and, of course, food.

 

2) Understanding the elements as a metaphor for emotions.  In my case, I put pressure on myself be big, bright and shiney - basically to be fire.  But I don't have the grounding to support that kind of intensity, nor is my heart open enough (this will slowly dawning realisations).

 

3) Then, understanding how this emotional handling plays out energetically, and working on those energy currents.  So, in my case, working on grounding up (pulling energy up) and opening my heart.

 

Like I said, I'm still working on it, but I've noticed a big improvment quite quickly.  I hope this helps!

[Wu Ming Jen]

I would suggest opening up the descending channel, front center body. The heat / fire rises up spine and water / cool descending channel sinks use intention and a 5% tilt forward with posture to help stimulate energy moving downward with exhale.

 

Producing heat is a good sign but this needs to be balanced. Do not let the fire get too hot or too cold regulate the furnace.

 

Follow chi, observe, get out of the way. Some people can get raging headaches when they are TRYING to accomplish something. Let it be

[[email protected]]

I just heard another opinion about heat in the body from a qi gong instructor. Heat can be a result of body resistance for qi circulation due to a wrong route. In this case it can be even dangerous.

Rgrds, Ilya

[RiverSnake]

Practicing the Yin Orbit may be helpful.