Meditation is a powerful tool for stress relief and restoring your mental and emotional equilibrium, as well as your physical health. Just a quick search on Pubmed, one of the most comprehensive online medical databases, turns up more than 4000 evidence-based research studies on meditation, many from world-class medical institutions.

The evidence is out there: meditation is good for you, in more ways than one—far beyond what one can measure using scientific instruments. So exactly how do you incorporate it into your daily routine, especially if you have trouble sitting still, much less “emptying” your busy mind?

Luckily, not all meditative practices involve cooling your heels on a cushion and harnessing your wild thoughts, which can seem pretty daunting to meditator-wanna-be’s. Qigong, an ancient energy practice and internal martial arts that’s been around for thousands of years, is a great way for novices to get a taste of the calming and healing effects of meditation. It’s a form of moving meditation that uses rhythmic, slow movements to enter a naturally meditative state, by way of realigning your energy with that of nature.

These deceptively straightforward postures work on many different levels to bring you to a blissfully peaceful equilibrium, connecting your conscious mind to that mysterious life-force which resides within all of nature’s beings. Otherwise known as Universal Qi, this consciousness-larger-than-consciousness embodies a profound wisdom we are born intuitively knowing: all is well, as all is as it should be. 

Every cell in your body, every heartbeat and neural firing, pulses with this message. When you practice Qigong, you open your heart and mind to that which your body’s wisdom, your deeper consciousness already knows; what nature, the birds and the bees know. Nature doesn’t worry or freak out, so tuning into nature puts you on a similarly peaceful wavelength, allowing your mind to relax, stop worrying, and simply enjoy the fundamental goodness of life.