Case Report

Psychophysiological reactions associated with Qigong therapy

Xu Shenghan 徐声汉

Qigong is a traditional Chinese modality for promoting health and curing diseases. Qigong as part of traditional Chinese medicine is similar to western “meditation”, Indian “Yoga” or Japanese “Zen”, which can all be included in the category of traditional psychotherapy.

A series of physiological and psychological effects occur in the course of   Qigong training, which is somewhat similar in nature to biofeedback and some behavioral treatment in modern medicine. Inappropriate training can lead to physical and mental disturbances. More and more importance has been attached to the role of Qigong therapy in phychosomatic medicine. This article, from the viewpoints of medicine and psychology, deals with the role of Qigong therapy in physical and mental health problems.

Traditional Chinese medicine believes that Qigong is a self-training “spirit(精)”， “vital energy(气)”, “mind(神)” of the human body, which balances Yin and Yang (negative and positive), circulating the vital energy and the blood, coordinates internal organs, clears and activates the main and collateral channels, so as to adjust physical and mental state.

Physiological Effects

The research in modern science proves that Qigong training has extensive effects and influences on various systems of the human body. It includes the changes in EEG, electromyogram EMG, respiratory movement as well as the declining of such physiological indices as heart rate, skin potential. Skin temperature and finger tip volume, which reflects the changes of physiological functions, functional changes of autonomic, especially sympathetic nerve systems. During Qigong training, there exhibit a lot of physiological effects such as improvement of stomach and intestine function and the changes in metabolism, endocrine and immunity functioning.

These effects represent an integration of multidimensional functions of the physiological systems in a special state of consciousness induced by Qigong. The integrated effects appear to have close correlation and synchronism with the activities of human body systems. Qigong functional state produced by relaxation and meditation in a special state of consciousness provides favorable conditions to regulate the physiological functioning either in a single system or between various systems, so as to achieve proper synchronism and good equilibrium. Body oxygen consumption decreases in this Qigong state, which implies relaxation and meditation may help adjust the energy metabolism and decrease the energy expenditure, which is favorable to energy accumulation.

Psychological Effects

The state of “Rujing”(entering into the state of total calmness) in Qigong obtained through relaxation and meditation is a peculiar mental state. Through self-adjustment, the trainee finds himself in a functional state different from sleeping, waking or dreaming. During this time, the internal functions are supposed to be highly coordinated and in good order, which may exert `some changes on mental activities with the effect of dampening psychological stress.

The author reported the clinical phenomena during Qigong exercise, ie, (1) Motor phenomena: Jerking, twitching, tremulous and spontaneous movement; (2) perceptual changes: patients experienced warmness, chilliness, skin-itching, numbness, floating, dropping, enlargement or constriction of the body image, changing of the body image along with respiration, disappearance of body image, a sensation of rising to the sky, falling off, standing upside down, playing on the swing following respiration, loss of cognition of space-time continuum, circulation of the intrinsic Qi, electric shock sensation and formication during Qigong exercise. Some patients also had dreamland experience, feeling of unreality and some motor-sensory disturbances. Moreover, a variety of pseudo hallucination may occur. However, all these phenomena were transient and vanished as the exercise terminated.

Qigong healing modality can be regarded as a typical psychophysical therapy, and people will naturally consider applying it to the treatment of psychosomatic diseases. There have been many reports in this aspect including the treatment of hypertension, asthma, coronary heart disease, gastric and duodenal ulcer, and allergic colitis. Besides, therapeutic effects on insomnia, depression, anxiety, neurosis effects on insomnia, depression, anxiety, neurosis, and childhood attention deficiency syndrome have been reported.

(To be continued)