One morning a dear friend of mine sent me this exercise. My friend told me that a well -known western trained physician advocates doing this exercises in newspapers and among her teaching classes. This Taiwanese physician used to have some type of cancer 30 years ago. After her illness had been treated and in remission, she evaluated her daily diet, reviewed her lifestyle and started this 9-minute exercise every morning before she gets out of bed. She has been doing it for years and she is now in her 90’s in Taiwan. The doctor firmly believed that the exercise is important for her (and everyone else) to keep herself from getting sick. From what I found out later, this physician used to teach in university medical school and practice in medical school related hospital. She also eats organic food and practice Qigong/Taiqi. Whether you believe that her better health and longevity is completely attributed to this morning routine or not, she really believes that everyone can benefit from executing this simple daily routine.

Each of the following exercises takes about one minute to do:

1. Head Massage – Using your finger tips (both hands), rub against your scalp from front to back, from top to down, and from side to back around your ears. First do it gently. Once you are accustomed to the routine, you can make it harder and deeper like massage into your bones. This can get the blood circulating better and help prevent headaches.
2. Massage the ear with two fingers. Acupuncturists frequently use ear needles to trigger movement of Qi. Rubbing can accomplish much!
3. Circulate your eyeballs clockwise first. Then counterclockwise next. Rub eye brows with your middle fingers. Find a slight dip at each of the beginning, the middle, and the end of the eye brow. Put more pressure on those three positions. Then lightly tap your eye lids, both the upper and lower ones. Next massage your muscles below your eyes from midline front (nose) to back (ears). This latter part can help reduce the bags below your eyes. Be careful not to overdo this. It takes time and patience to get results.
4. Rub the nose, up, down, and around. Around nose area, there is a microsystem presenting the general health of our organs.
5. Continue to rub the mouth all around. Tap on both lips. Use your tongue to tap on teeth and gums while exercise your tongue with circular movements as well as pushing and turning your tongue. Tongue is an important part of our body. It also needs exercises.
6. Massage around naval area and do a deep breathing. Feel the air comes into us, in and out. In traditional Chinese Medicine, breathing-in and breathing-out are controlled by two different systems. Breathing-in is related to kidneys and heart (their capability to pull or grasp the air) and breathing-out is related to lungs (respiratory). Make sure you can hear the sound of your breathing and listen to its quality and consistency. Imagine the air go down to your Dan-Tian right below your naval inflating it as you inhale. As you exhale, the balloon in your Dan-Tian should deflat.
7. Limb exercises. Wiggle all your fingers and toes. Swirl your wrists and ankles. Stretch your arms and feet. Find the deepest area in the middle of your sole and rub it deep with your thumb. Alternatively, use the right heel to rub the deepest sole of your left foot and next use the left heel to rub the deepest sole of your right foot.
8. Pelvic Floor Exercises (aka Kegel Exercises ). Squeeze your lower abdomen area as if you want to stop the flow of urine and let go. Repeat twenty times.
9. Raise both of your legs up with both knees bent. Swing the knees together to the right side of your body while both of your arms stretch out along side of your shoulder. Next, swing the knees to the opposite side (left) of your body while keeping everything else the same. (Alternatively you can swing both of your arms to the opposite direction of your knees at the same time. Switch each turn.)