How qigong helped me through autistic burnout: The movement practice that helped me be more present
Originally published on Medium
I wrote about the books and tools that helped me through autistic burnout last week. One of the tools I briefly mentioned that was (and still is) a big help was my qigong practice.
I found qigong on accident.
I was looking for a movement activity to loosen up my tight muscles. I had tried yoga before but it didn’t help much. I did it for about a year and my muscles remained stubbornly tense
I wanted to try something else. I’d heard about tai chi but the few videos I tried on YouTube were too hard to follow. I needed a version of tai chi that was for old people.
So I Googled “tai chi for old people”.
And that’s how I found out about qigong.
I found the YouTube channel Qigong for Vitality and did the videos, usually in the morning. I did the 5 minute Qigong warmup video almost daily and surprisingly that short video helped my tight muscles relax. I eventually bought the membership to access the 30+ minute videos.
The slow movements helped my mind reconnect to my arms and legs, hands and feet. Before, I had to literally put a hand on my limbs to feel them in space. With qigong, I eventually was able to sense them without touching them.
Like yoga, Qigong can be exercise but it’s more a meditative practice. Sitting quietly to meditate or pray usually required a huge effort from me to focus. Performing the slow qigong movements gave my mind something to focus on and it learned to be quiet. After a long time, I could quietly meditate and feel refreshed afterwards.
When explaining qigong to friends and family, I said it helped me calm my overstimulated mind and body. Later, I learned about polyvagal theory and realized that qigong was really helping my vagus nerve. A sign of vagal nerve stimulation is yawning and I yawned A LOT practicing qigong. Sometimes I yawned so much, my eyes were full of tears.
Qigong helped get my body out of flight, fight, and shutdown mode and be more present. Instead of mentally withdrawing in social situations, I was mentally present. I started to notice in real-time how I felt. And I started to notice how often I felt drained around certain people. I started to notice who my body didn’t like being around.
My body was talking to me and I could finally hear it.