Friday, May 22, 2009

Healing Smile or Inner Smile Qigong

This is my Creative Health Tip for this week. You will want to visit Be Well, Create Health: The Mind-Body Connection to learn more about Creating Health!

I include the video here this week because it briefly describes the qigong practice of the Healing or Inner Smile. In this practice, you smile at each of your major organs while visualizing perfect health. Watch the video to see how it works:





Smiling does amazing things for your body!

I was at a business meeting Wednesday evening and the lady who spoke talked about reducing stress. She pointed out that when you smile, something in your body automatically changes. The levels of your stress-reducing hormones rise – your "feel-good" hormones – that we have that create good health. The levels of your stress hormones lowers or decreases.

Just through the act of smiling, you cannot feel sad, mad, depressed, down; you just can't!

So, get a little smiley-face sticker and put it on your keychain, your briefcase, your computer monitor, or wherever you're going to see it, and every time you do see it, Smile!

Chinese medicine has taken the practice of smiling one step further. There is a practice called the Healing Smile, or the Inner Smile. (It goes by several other names also.)

The purpose of this practice is to create healthy organs by smiling at them!

Start by taking a couple of nice deep, cleansing breaths, relax yourself into a nice, comfortable seated position . . .

And smile at your lungs. See your lungs as healthy. See them as working perfectly, exchanging air and carbon dioxide with the outer world.

Next, move on to your heart. See your heart pumping strongly. See it moving blood through your body perfectly. Be appreciative of these organs that work so hard to keep you alive.

After you spend a couple of minutes on your heart, move to your stomach and spleen. Envision a nice, healthy stomach that helps digest your food so that you can absorb the nutrients, and the spleen which helps to remove used and toxic materials from your body.

Next, move on to your kidneys. Envision healthy kidneys. . .use your imagination! Create health for these organs that support you in your life.

The final organ is the liver. Envision a healthy liver. See it working perfectly, see it healthy, see it filtering all the things out of your blood that you no longer need circulating through your body.

When you are done spending a minute or two just smiling at each of your major organs, seeing each as healthy, seeing it working properly, seeing it working perfectly, take two or three nice, deep, cleansing breaths, and relax, and know that you are Creating Health for yourself!

4 comments:

Alex said...

A very great advice...I agree with you about smiling...happiness is the key for health...I will tell this to all my family...keep smiling and stay healthy

Michelle Wood said...

Thanks for visiting and leaving a comment, Alex.

:-)

Pierre said...

Seruously? Smiling brings that great advantages? Well, I think I should smile more often from now on :))

Michelle Wood said...

Hi Pierre,

Yes, seriously, just the act of smiling actually changes your body chemistry, reduces stress hormones and increases healthy hormones.

By all means, Smile On! :)