‘Hot girls regulate their Qi’: How to start your morning off the TCM way

We explore how noticing and feeding qi can aid a more productive day, and why online users are employing Traditional Chinese Medicine practices to nurture their vital life energy.

Thousands of years of Traditional Chinese Medicine have yielded a comprehensive system for nourishing your holistic health and wellbeing. As we explore this week, TikTok and online users are utilising this broader cultural narrative and combining it with westernised practices. This has resulted in a new wave of hybrid health tips permeating our feeds. Some call themselves ‘Qi baddies’, others share tips on how ‘hot girls regulate their qi’. But what does it all mean? And how did Traditional Chinese Medicine end up in our ‘morning routine’ videos?

Instead of targeting a single ailment, this new use of applications looks at the body and mind holistically and harmoniously, with the aim of creating ultimate balance. But you can’t just start drinking hot water in the morning and investing in percutaneous time without understanding the whole picture. After all, these are holistic practices, and each is designed to be a cog in the wider machine of your body.

It’s all based on the simple principle that any system in harmony tends to health and wellbeing, and disharmony tends to illness and disease. A system is everything that creates and sustains, so all parts must be in harmony, and a disturbance of one thing could cause a ripple through the whole system. A system can be anything from the body of a human being to a family, a community, or the environment.

What is Qi?

There are also two fundamental concepts that form the roots of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Qi (translated to vital energy) and yin and yang (the harmony of all the opposite elements and forces that make up existence). A lot of what is being explored online centres around Qi – and it's not just a buzzword. Traditional Chinese Medicine uses many practices to nurture, restore, and strengthen Qi.

Qi is energy (as a concept); it is universal, and it embraces all forms of energy (from the earth to light to emotions to the screen you read this on). Life is a gathering of qi, and to be fulfilled, you must have a harmonious mixture of different aspects in a continuous flow.

Traditional Chinese Medicine employs both yin and yang and qi to sustain health and wellbeing.

Why is it important to have a morning routine that nurtures qi?

By employing your vital life force energy in your morning routine, you properly wake up your body, clear your stagnant energy from sleepiness, and build a fresh and vibrant energy for a productive day ahead. Here, we lay out the importance of gentle movement (qigong), conscious breathing, and mindful hydration.

1. Wake up and activate

In the first 10 minutes of waking up, you need a gentle awakening. One method in Traditional Chinese Medicine that can help is toe tapping. So whilst lying in bed, you tap your toes together to activate energy in the legs and hips. This can help with stiffness and conscious movement.

Another method, which you have probably seen a lot of on your feed, is shaking the body. So, sitting on the edge of your bed, you shake your head from side to side, along with your shoulders and arms. This is supposed to help with rain fog and activate your brain waves by releasing tension from the night before.

Another tapping method can also be employed, but this time in the abdomen (about two fingers below your belly button) to help create warmth for digestion. Once this has warmed, you can drink a large glass of warm water (preferably with lemon) to hydrate, aid digestion, and wake up the kidneys.

2. Qigong

Pronounced “chee gong”, this practice combines slow movement, deep breathing and meditation. One method is vertical swinging, so standing with feet hip-width apart and knees slightly bent, you swing your arms back and forth to loosen the shoulders and back. Then a side-to-side twist with the torso whilst the arms are still swinging to wake up the spine.

To awaken your qi, you must slowly inhale as you raise your arms in front of you to shoulder height, then exhale as they go down. Do this 10-15 times to connect your mind to your body as you awaken. Then there is ‘plate balancing’, which is holding your palms to the ceiling and moving them in circles to open your shoulders.

3. Mindful breathing

As part of qigong, you can move on to intentional breathing practices like deep nasal breaths. Focusing on the nose, employ diaphragmatic breaths to increase your oxygen intake and nourish your personal energy. Alongside this, set an intention for the day directed at your qi. For example, “I release any tension or stress that may be held in my body” or “I let my Qi flow smoothly”.

4. Breakfast!

From around 7 am to 9 am, you should be looking to start making a nourishing breakfast. The Chinese Body Clock states the stomach is most active between those times. The morning is a warming time in Traditional Chinese Medicine, where you should slowly be waking your body up.

By eating a warm breakfast – think porridge, cooked grains, eggs, or congee( a savoury rice porridge popular across Asia). These are easier to digest than cold foods like smoothies or iced drinks, which can exhaust your digestive energy before the day has even started.

5. Pro-Tip

You shouldn’t be checking social media or emails during this time – especially if you have just immediately woken up. It is believed in Traditional Chinese Medicine that this causes mental agitation and can lead to a stagnation in your liver qi.