Building and Maintaining Chi/Vital Force; Members Journal Upcoming Topics & More!
13 Jan, 2025
Hello Everyone,
Chi is the fundamental energy which sustains life and is present in the vibratory, biological processes of every cell. Chi is not synonymous with the metabolically generated energy derived from the oxidation of glucose. Rather, it is the force that animates the metabolic processes that ultimately yield caloric energy. Chi differentiates life from death; it circulates through channels, or meridians, throughout the body.
In traditional naturopathy and classical Chinese medicine, much of the practitioner’s focus is directed toward the preservation and building of vital force or Chi. So today this article will make a few important suggestions:
Aspire to provide the fundamental elements of life and health to the body on a daily basis.
Human life is dependent upon the presence of certain fundamental conditions: proper diet; pure water; fresh air; sunlight; adequate exercise, warmth, rest and sleep; emotional harmony; proper posture.
As a human being, you have an inherent relationship with these fundamental elements–disease is an outgrowth of a deficiency or excess of one or more of them. Restoration of health in the ill person is accomplished through the same means of sustaining life and preserving health in the well person. Each of the fundamental elements of life and health listed above are essential to the absorption and circulation of vital force.
Diet
A central dietary principle of my Natural Health Science System (NHSS) is: Eat a diet dominated by fresh, whole, high water-content foods. A high water-content diet consists predominantly of fresh fruits and vegetables with smaller amounts of a choice of whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, brown eggs, fowl and fish. Ideally, every meal should emphasize water-rich foods.
Fresh fruits and vegetables (eaten at separate meals) are alkalizing and rich in vitamins, minerals, fiber and organic water. When possible, use organically grown (and thus non-genetically modified) fruits and vegetables which, having been grown without pesticides, are more nutritious and do not contribute synthetic chemicals to the body’s toxic load.
The body is two-thirds water, and our “fluid organization” must be constantly nurtured and replenished. It is important to bear in mind that vital force must be absorbed into the body’s fluid organization (i.e., blood, lymph and extracellular fluids) in order to act efficiently within the body. When chi bypasses the fluid organization and engages directly with tissue, it gives rise to spasm and pain. We can refer to this circumstance as “reckless chi.”
Also, the alkalizing effect of a diet dominated by fresh fruits and vegetable is crucial to maintaining the alkaline pH and purity of the blood. It should be borne in mind that according to Chinese medicine, chi moves the blood and, in turn, blood nourishes chi. Therefore, if the blood is insufficiently alkaline or otherwise impure, it cannot effectively nourish chi.
Dr. Berkowsky’s Vital Chi Skin-Brushing System: The Skin and Vital Chi Flow
Being an essential matrix for the chi channels, the skin is a crucial medium for chi movement. The places at which the various channels and vessels reach the skin surface are the “acupoints” used in acupuncture and acupressure. Chi-flow can be accessed through these points, which are usually located in tissue depressions and differ in “feel” and electrical resistance from surrounding tissue.
Zhao Jin-Xiang, who developed the internal exercise system known as Soaring Crane Chi Kung, writes: “Every point is an orifice similar to the visible ones such as the eyes, ears, nose and mouth. The opening of a point is identical to the establishment of a connection between the body and the environment. The spent and diseased chi will be expelled from the body through this connection, while the healthy chi needed by the body will be taken in.”
My Vital Chi Skin-Brushing System is so named because one of its primary features is that it is designed to strengthen the chi-circulation throughout the body. This helps explain why one of the initial effects people report experiencing after a Vital Chi Skin-Brushing System session is increased stamina and vitality. The practice of Vital Chi Skin-Brushing on a daily, or every-other-day, basis provides powerful support for vital force/chi.
Students and clients have reported that the Alternate Warm and Cool Shower forms a particularly powerful synergy with Vital Chi Skin-Brushing.
While this shower therapy has been used to treat specific health conditions, it has also served well as a general chi tonic procedure. Of all the various hydrotherapies, this “unequal periods” Alternate Warm and Cool Shower (with the emphasis on the former) is one I suggest most commonly as an overall tonic treatment. It’s an invigorating procedure which vitalizes chi, circulatory, endocrine, immune, lymphatic, nerve and skin functions.
As noted above, according to the Chinese, chi moves the blood and, in turn, blood nourishes chi. Therefore the circulatory tonic effects of this shower procedure will also indirectly enhance the integrity of the body’s chi flow.
The Alternate Warm and Cool Shower (preceded by your Vital Chi Skin-Brushing routine) employed three to four times weekly has proven to be wonderfully restorative.
Many of you are probably aware that deep psycho-spiritual work with essential oils is one of the main focuses of my work. Essential oils can also be used to help support the integrity of chi within the body.
The olfactory nerves: nerves related to the sense of smell are directly connected to cerebral centers, including the hypothalamus: a crucial portion of the brain stem. The hypothalamus, along with portions of the cerebral cortex, comprise a complex called the limbic system, which can modify the way a person acts because it functions to produce emotional feelings, such as fear, anger, pleasure and sorrow. In this way, the limbic system guides the person into appropriate behavioral responses to daily survival challenges.
The hypothalamus plays a pivotal role in maintaining physiological homeostasis and by serving as the link between the nervous and endocrine (hormonal) systems. Essential oils also contain hormone precursors and other very active biochemical components which can be used to positively influence various systems of the body.
Some of the essential oils to consider in this reference include: bitter orange, carrot seed, cedarwood, Douglas-fir, elemi, eucalyptus, frankincense, geranium, lemon, lemon grass, palo santo, pine, rosemary, spikenard and thyme.
One of my personally formulated blends called ImmunEssence is specifically designed to support the flow and vibrancy of chi.
To use either the individual essential oils or ImmunEssence, you may want to consider the following particularly invigorating method:
Follow-Up Lemon Juice/Essential Oil Rub: This is best performed after Vital Chi Skin-Brushing and the alternate warm and cool shower. Do not dry completely. The skin must be moist for this procedure.
Squeeze the juice of ½ of a large lemon or 1 small lemon (preferably organically grown) into a small cup. Add to the juice: 4 to 5 drops of one or more of the oils listed above–whether using one or more oils, the total amount of oil should not exceed 5-dropsto avoid potential skin-irritation – or 3 to 4 drops of ImmunEssence. Next, stir with your finger or plastic spoon. Now, using bare hands, rub the mixture into moist skin until completely absorbed. This is a wonderfully invigorating experience.
Daily Airbath
An Airbath involves exposure of the undressed body to the currents of moving air. Though deceptively simple, it’s actually helps restore vitality and balanced nerve activity. I have recommended the Airbath to young mothers for their babies as a daily relaxant measure; it’s also beneficial for those (of any age) who are hyperactive.
Benjamin Franklin was notably fond of taking Airbaths, especially during his workday, claiming it enabled him to “think more clearly.”
In The Practice of Nature-Cure, a great early 20th century naturopath Henry Lindlahr, M.D. writes: “Who would think of keeping plants or animals covered up, away from the air and light? We know they would wither and waste away before long…Civilized human beings have for ages hidden their bodies most carefully from sun and air, which are so necessary to their well-being…the human skin has become so enervated that often it has lost the power to perform freely and efficiently…Undoubtedly, this has much to do with the prevalence of various types of ill health.”
His son, Victor Lindlahr, M.D., is also a noted physician; he remarks in The Natural Way To Health: “The action of the skin can be stimulated by three simple procedures: sunbaths, water applications and airbaths. And, strangely enough, the most imposing results are obtained by the simplest of all—the airbath.”
Air is to humans what water is to fish. It’s not enough to breathe-in air through the nostrils while wholly neglecting the skin’s breathing function. Like the lungs, the skin takes-in oxygen and throws-off carbon dioxide. Hiding the body under synthetic and/or heavy, tight-fitting clothing seals-off the skin from the life-stimulating influence of air. Since the skin is the primary organ involved in the regulation of blood-flow through the capillaries, some scientists feel it does as much work toward the proper circulation of blood as does the heart. The skin capillaries have approximately 800-times the combined cross-section area of the aorta, the largest artery in the body.
To learn more about the airbath, click on the following link: Airbath Article
Rest and Sleep
Adequate rest and sleep are absolutely essential for the maintenance of a robust flow of vital force within the body. Sleep affords the body’s chi reserves the opportunity to be reconstituted each day. Also, much of the body’s detoxification efforts take place at night while the body is in sleep mode. The accrual of toxins in the body beyond the body’s threshold of tolerance is referred to as autotoxemia. When the body is in an autotoxemic state, the blood, lymph and extracellular fluids are less pure and much more vital force is required to effect physiological activities in face of the resistance offered by stored toxins.
Rest is a conservative measure, in that it conserves vital force expenditure. Ideally, one’s daily routine should always feature rest periods (e.g., a nap, sitting in the park during lunch hour, etc.). This not only conserves vital force but also allows it regularly scheduled periods to reorganize between stress challenges.
Adequate rest and sleep help sustain a pattern of activity/rest rhythmicity in one’s life. There is a very close relationship between rhythmicity and the flow of chi. To read more about the importance of rhythmicity in one’s life, click on the following link. Health vs. Disease: A Matter of Rhythm
Exercise Coordinated with Breathing
One of the central characteristics of vital force/chi is movement. It is this movement that enables the movement and other kinetic physiological actions of the body. Thus, exercise attracts and supports the flow of chi and sedentary behavior offers resistance to it.
As discussed above, breathing is one of the two pathways by which chi enters the body. Modern human beings, especially urban dwellers, because of sedentary behavior, emotional stress and air pollution, among other factors, tend to breathe shallowly, using only a portion of the surface area of the lungs.
The diaphragm is a dome-shaped muscle that separates the chest from the abdomen. It plays a major role in breathing, as its downward contraction increases the volume of the chest, thus allowing for inflation of the lungs. Obesity tends to restrict the full motion of the diaphragm and this further inhibits the expansion of the lungs.
Breathing is the body’s most essential function. Without the continuous intake of vital force and meeting of air and blood, life would end immediately. We can live without food for weeks, without water for several days, but without oxygen, survival is limited to only a few minutes.
My Flow, Motion and Power Exercise Workout, which derives from my many years of eclectic training in both Western and Eastern exercise disciplines, integrates movement, flexibility and breathing in equal measure. Importantly, all the exercise movements are coordinated with breathing. Thus, the system strengthens vital force both through movement and breathing.
The complete system is very extensive but the basic routine described in this fully illustrated booklet powerfully demonstrates its fundamental dynamics.
So there you have it! Some of my best resources to help you develop and balance your Vital-Chi.
For more in-depth work with me that includes workshops and classes, please do join the NHSS/SPE Membership Program. The 2025 classes are starting early February.
As always, please feel free to write to me if you have any questions. I look forward to your comments anf feedback.
The first 2025 issue of the Member’s Journal will feature a recording I am making about the Spikenard Oil and the Theme of Inner Rhythmicity. The second issue will be devoted to Frankincense Oil and Tendonitis. If you have ever experienced tendonitis, you know how difficult it is to treat.
Tendons and ligaments have a very poor blood supply in that that they do not have any blood vessels that course through them. On one hand, this renders them very strong and stretch-resistant. On the other hand, this explains why, due to a lack of a direct blood supply, the do not heal quickly. The materials that they need to heal, supplied to body tissues via the blood, are first transferred to the tissues thru the fluid that leaves the blood via pores in blood vessel walls. As they do not have a direct blood supply, tendons need to be continuously “bathed” with this fluid.
Much more detail about tendons and tendonitis in that upcoming issue to be available in the member zone.
NHSS/Tong Ren Basic Protocol Video & Resource
Tong Ren is an energy healing therapy developed by chi gong master and acupuncturist Tom Tam as an integral part of his Tom Tam Healing System. Tam’s theory of health and disease holds that illness is related to blockages, in chi, blood, nerve force, and hormonal regulation.
According to Tam, Tong Ren acts by using the “collective unconscious” as an energy source and conduit to remotely transmit chi to remove blockages and restore the body’s natural ability to heal.
Because no physical contact is necessarily involved, Tong Ren is often practiced as remote healing. Members can watch the video lecture and download the reference guide and begin working directly from it. The reference guide will provide the list and locations of the acupoints, vertebra involved, the specific color light selections for each point, and SPE essential oil blend suggestions.
Learn with Dr. Berkowsky on a higher level. Receive regular member’s only articles and participate in classes and workshops with Dr. Berkowsky in 2025!
Spiritual PhytoEssencing Repertory of Essential Oils
Dr. Berkowsky’s Spiritual PhytoEssencing (SPE) Repertory of Essential Oils is a reference manual used help a blender identify potentially relevant essential oils for inclusion in a customized essential oil blend. The Repertory is an index of constitutional archetypes and qualities, reactional tendencies, mental, emotional and physical symptoms, dreams and more.
Dr. Bruce Berkowsky (N.M.D., H.M.C., M.H.) has devoted himself as a teacher and practitioner of the art and science of natural healing for over 40 years. He has constructed a dynamic system of health creation from a synthesis of the complementary aspects of traditional naturopathy, classical homeopathy, western science, traditional eastern healing arts and anthroposophical science. He applies modern physiological and biochemical knowledge into a context that acknowledges the unity of human life with the fundamental elements and rhythms of nature. And for the past 25 years Dr. Berkowsky has devoted much of his attention to the development of the art of Spiritual PhytoEssencing (SPE), a system of deep, soul-level healing work with essential oils.
Do join us on Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to get learn daily with Dr. BB. Enquiries for sponsorships, speaker, and guest posting are welcome. Simply contact us with any questions and we’ll get back to you asap!
DISCLAIMER: All content is intended as an educational tool, and not as a prescription. Readers are advised to seek the advice of their healthcare providers before discontinuing any medication and/or trying any new remedy or technique.
Dr. Bruce Berkowsky is the founder/teacher of the Natural Health Science System™ which he has developed over the course of his 40+ years of research and private practice, and includes: traditional naturopathy (N.M.D., MRN, CTN); herbology (M.H.); nutrition (Ph.D.); homeopathy (DHM, H.M.C.); massage and bodywork (NCTMB); aromatherapy (cert.); constitutional iridology (cert.) as well as East/West healing arts/exercises/bodywork.
Dr. Berkowsky, a registered naturopath, master herbalist and classical homeopath, is the founder/teacher of Spiritual PhytoEssencing and the Natural Health Science System which he designed following many years of research and clinical practice.
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