– Dr. Bisong Guo
Bathing is not just a matter of cleaning the skin. The skin is much more than the body’s covering, for it is intimately related to the meridians. The pores of the skin not only open and close on account of sweating but at a subtle level, they also regulate the flow of qi. It is helpful to remember this when you wash and care for your skin.
When you get up in the morning, wash your face with cold water. Better still, take a cold shower. This brings several benefits. It directly stimulates the elastin in the skin to contract, reducing bagginess and wrinkles and helping to maintain a glowing, youthful complexion. The pores of the skin close, preventing bacteria from entering that may cause spots and skin infections. Likewise, the body is protected against pathogenic qi when you go outside, especially when it is cold and windy. Cold water also stimulates the circulatory and nervous systems and activates the immune system.
This approach runs counter to modern cultures in which hot showers or baths are frequently taken in the morning, often including washing the hair. This is not desirable, for since the morning is yang time, the heat causes the body to lose yang qi just when it is being built up for tackling the tasks of the day ahead. Another drawback is that the heat brings the blood to the surface of the body, and it is then unavailable to the stomach and bowel for digestion of breakfast.
We can see how easily a harmful chain of events arises. If baby yang has not been nourished during the night, we wake still tired and reluctant to get up. To console ourselves, we linger in a nice, warm bath, with the unfortunate result that more yang qi comes to the surface and is lost from the body. Then we rush to get breakfast in time. We eat hurriedly while hearing about the latest bad news on the radio, further disturbing body-qi. Finally, we are off into the cold with pores wide open, often traveling to work in crowded situations where pathogenic qi abounds. By midmorning, yang qi is running low, so we keep going on caffeine, burning up what little yang qi remains. No wonder so many people suffer from indigestion, catch colds, and battle weariness all day long.
If you do feel like a warm bath or shower after a long and tiring day, have a light snack first, since low blood sugar combining with the blood and qi rising to the surface of the body can cause faintness and weakness. Don’t eat too much, because the blood and qi needed internally to aid digestion will be in short supply. The bath or shower should be taken well before bedtime, and the water should be pleasantly warm but not so hot that you start sweating, which will cause a loss of qi. When you wash your hair, dry it thoroughly straight away and above all, don’t go to bed with it still damp or expose yourself to a chill, for if the meridians on the scalp are affected, it can result in headaches and dizziness, impair your hearing, and even cause hair loss. Wrap up well as soon as you get out and avoid draughts in order to protect the body from any chill.
After the bath or shower, drink a little boiled water to replace moisture lost from the skin and have something light to eat to replace leakage of qi. Since washing your hair can drain heart qi, a snack will protect you from night sweats or disturbing dreams.
The therapeutic effect of the shower or bath is to open and cleanse the pores and stimulate the circulation of the blood and qi so that the stale qi of the day can be dispersed, the bacteria on the skin washed away, and body and mind helped to relax in preparation for sleep.
There is what qigong practitioners call air baths, sunbaths, moon baths, and forest baths. These baths don’t need water, for you can bathe directly in qi! When taking an air bath, it is best to stand with the feet parallel and apart, the width of your shoulders. Next close your eyes. Bend the knees slightly and imagine that your buttocks are resting on the edge of a high stool with your weight evenly distributed on your feet. Gently bring your lips together, the tip of the tongue touching the roof of the mouth behind the front teeth. Let your arms hang down by your side, palms forward, slightly away from the body so that air can circulate under the arms. Now picture yourself standing between earth and sky, suspended from the heavens with your feet held by the earth so that your spine is being gently stretched. Become aware of the vast expanse and depth of the cosmos all around you. Spend a minute or two gently practicing abdominal breathing. Now visualize all the pores of your skin opening like a thousand windows, so that the fresh qi of the cosmos flows into your body. You may feel yourself becoming light, warm, or having tingling sensations. If so, you are simply experiencing the flow of qi. clasped above your head, and open your eyes. The immune system will be strengthened, the central nervous system vitalized by the absorption of ions, and all metabolic processes stimulated by the replenishment of qi.
The sunbath is a regular part of qigong practice. It should be taken in the morning during yang time and is best done at sunrise and when wearing loose clothing. Prepare as for the air bath, with the same posture and facing the sun with your eyes closed. (If it is cloudy, face where the sun would be.) This time, picture opening a thousand windows to the light of the sun as it pours into you. You may notice after a while that it is getting very bright behind your closed eyelids, and on a cloudy day it may seem to you that the sun has started shining. It can be a surprise to open your eyes and find it is still just as cloudy outside! What has happened is that the yang qi of the sun has lighted you up from within.
Natural light is composed of colors of many different wavelengths mixing together to produce “white” light. The many beneficial effects of taking a sunbath are due to this wide range of frequencies of light being absorbed by the body, from infrared through all the colors of the rainbow to ultraviolet. Sunlight is anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory, and antiallergenic. It irradiates the skin, converting sterols formed by food products to vitamin D which is essential for bone formation. It regulates the production of melatonin by the pineal gland, now recognized to govern a whole range of hormonal biorhythms. TCM holds that these beneficial effects, including the immune response, resulting from the strengthening of yang qi.
As a health warning, we should note that the sunbath is not to be confused with the recreational pursuit of sunbathing. Prolonged exposure to the sun has been shown to cause premature aging of the skin and increases the likelihood of skin cancer.
When taking a moon bath, first let the moonlight pour in through your eyes. Then gently close them, while continuing to visualize the moon and absorbing its qi. Let the cool light trickle down to the middle dantian and experience the silvery light shining within the middle dantian, expanding to fill the whole body from within. Moon bathing will strengthen body yin, helping you to remain calm and serene at all times, and will promote deep and restful sleep. To sound one note of caution, as we have remarked earlier, an excess of either yin or yang will turn into its opposite. This is why at full moon yin qi can become an activating force (indeed, some people find it hard to sleep on those nights), so bathing too long in the light of the full moon may leave you wide awake.
Last, there is the forest bath. While walking among trees or in a forest, relax and open yourself to the nourishing yin qi given off by the trees. Let it bathe you from head to foot. You may experience a smell of perfume as you absorb the qi. Try standing by different trees. You may find you can sense a variation in the strength and quality of the qi that allows you to select the place of your choice. According to qigong, young, healthy trees will cleanse and freshen your qi. For strengthening your qi, choose a strong and mature tree. (In China, yigong practitioners give the same regard to trees as to human beings. Ancient trees such as pines or ginkgoes, both of which can grow to more than a thousand years old, are not used for their yi. Instead, such a tree is honored with the greatest respect.) Forest baths are good for producing deep relaxation and happiness, cleansing and strengthening body-qi, and vitalizing the heart, lungs, and immune system.