Whether you’ve studied Japanese martial arts, Reiki, Chi-gong, Tai chi, my Mind Power Training, pranayama, yoga or acupuncture you will have come across ch’i or prana. What is it and how can you harness it?

Prana (India), or ch’i (China) is, perhaps, best described as the universal energy of life. It flows into your body through your breath, the third eye (in the centre of your forehead), the top of your head and up through your feet. It flows around your body down the front, between the legs, up the spine and over your scalp, branching off to your fingertips and toes and returning to the main flow. Well, that’s what should be happening. 

What blocks the flow? Anxiety, tension in any part of the body, shallow breathing, mindlessness (aka TV, social media, computer games, etc.), outwardness, bad posture.

What opens up the flow? Deep relaxation, visualisation of the flow, listening to your breathing, tongue tip resting gently behind the upper teeth, inward focus.

So, how do we get to harness this ch’i and feel the (immediate) benefits?

1) Sit, palms up on thighs.

2) Straight, uplifted back, sternum, neck and head.

3) Tense each set of muscles in turn starting with your toes, finishing with your face. Relax the muscles before moving to the next set.

4) Rest the tip of your tongue gently behind the upper front teeth (this is the path through which the ch’i passes).

5) Smile gently, then relax the smile, holding just the slightest hint of it in your cheeks (this creates the “inner smile”).

6) Breath deeply, slowly and gently. Listen to your breath.

7) Imaging a single string of fairy lights looped through your body, from your head down the front to your perineum, from your perineum up your spine and over the top of your head. Imagine the lights “flowing” continuously as they do on a Christmas tree, down the front, under, up, over.

8) Imagine your outbreath pushes the moving lights, maintaining their flow (like pushing a swing), and your in-breath drawing in more ch’i through the four entry points mentioned already – breath, 3rd eye, top of head, feet.

9) Add the extra chi to the flow and expand it to more and more strings of lights, so that the band gets wider and wider.

10 Now add a branch from the main flow down each leg to pick up the ch’i from your feet and return to the main flow. Add a branch down each arm to the fingertips and back to the main flow.

11) Build the energy and enjoy!

12) To finish, turn your hands down, slowly open your eyes, stretch your arms out wide.

If you follow the above guide, you will immediately feel the benefits. You don’t have to practice, practice, practice, but you do need to focus. If random thoughts creep into your mind, don’t block them, simply get your focus back on your breath and let them go.