Living in Harmony with Your 24-Hour Chi Cycle

Learn how you can increase your health and vitality by living in harmony with the cyclic flow of chi through your body. This post from UpLift helps you understand the 24-hour chi cycle.

How to live in Harmony with the Flow of Chi through your Body

The ancient Chinese have a super sophisticated traditional medicine system that supports health and vitality. Part of this system is a Chi Cycle that charts the flow of chi or energy through your body over a 24-hour period, showing the journey of the chi or life force which rests in different organs at specific times of the day. Chinese medicine suggests that by following this pattern of the chi voyage through the organs and matching your activities to relate to the qualities of the organs, you will always be in a flow with life.  In fact by following the natural flow of your body’s energy cycles, you will create radiant health, abundant energy and even enhance your life purpose.

So what is Chi? Chi is the ultimate source of energy. It is the life force or cosmic energy and it flows through all of life; through our bodies, igniting our minds, our hearts and through the plants, animals, trees, rivers and the wind. The ancient sages of Taoism mapped out life patterns by spending time observing how the stars, seasons and the natural world moved. They discovered that chi flows through the cosmos from the largest of planets to the tiniest molecules in a rhythmical cycle which is the chi cycle. Actually chi is energy, information and consciousness, not the simple one dimensional Western translation of “energy.” To be in harmony with this tremendous force is revolutionary for your life. You can move from wandering around in a random trajectory, and can catapult yourself directly into alignment with Life itself.

Acupuncturist, chi cycle expert and author of The Perfect Day Plan, Jost Sauer, says Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) developed a lifestyle in which everything we do, from eating to sleeping to sex, builds chi and creates health.

“The ultimate aim of Taoism and Chinese medicine is to reorganise our consciousness and put us on a path that enables us to develop from ordinary people into cosmic beings. Chi is the secret ingredient in this and you could say the chi-cycle, the 24-hour flow of cosmic energy, is the recipe. The Taoists understood that the universe is a massive chi-matrix, a web of interconnectivity, and that following the chi-cycle is the means by which we can link into it. Once we do this, our destiny becomes clear and the impossible becomes possible.”  – Jost Sauer.

What is the Chi Cycle?

Chi courses through us in the same endless 24 hour cycle. In Chinese Traditional Medicine, energy flows through our 12 main meridians or energetic pathways, in two hour blocks. It spends two hours in each of our organs and there are certain things we can do at specific times to catch the cosmic momentum and thereby increase our health and happiness. By moving in tune with the cosmic flow rather than against it, you are not exploiting your own resources which separate yin and yang, or unbalancing them.

“A happy life is one of movement and rhythm and I think of these eight segments as an eight-bar beat, a pulse, an endlessly engaging trance rhythm which creates the foundation for limitless complex harmonies. Doing the same things at the same time and in the same order every day creates the beat. So if you usually wake up at 8am, for example, start your routine then. Focus on establishing rhythm then slowly shift the entire routine to start earlier. This scheduled lifestyle might be sounding very un-mystical but, having researched the chi-cycle extensively and lived in harmony with it for years, I know that, over time, this repetition creates the foundation for a life that feels totally spontaneous. Also, one that allows you to fulfil your destiny.” – Jost Sauer.

One of the keys of the chi cycle is waking earlier, and the rituals we engage in during this more introspective and transformative time of the day. It is a time when we are open to Divine guidance and inspiration. So by working in harmony with our chi cycle we can create more inspiration and clarity in our lives.

“Also resist the temptation to wake and immediately check messages, emails or Facebook on your phone or some other communication device. The moment you do this (or read the paper, listen to the radio or watch TV) you are affirming that the mundane affairs of the physical world are more important than your purpose and destiny. You are confirming to the universe that other people’s ideas and /or gossip have priority over the evolution of your soul. You’ll feel scattered and off-path for the day ahead and drift away from happiness and towards misery.”

The Connection Between the Organs and the Emotions

In Chinese medicine each organ in our body is related to a particular element and emotion. The emotions are considered the major internal causes of disease in TCM. A normal internal physiological response to external stimuli is fine, but when emotions become overly powerful and endure for some time, it impacts our health. See our article on What are the Seven Emotions for more information. Western health practitioners tend to emphasize the psychological effects of the emotions on our health, but TCM practitioners emphasise the pathological damage to the internal organs.

In Chinese medicine your organs have emotional attributes as well as physical functions, and with a harmonious lifestyle your lungs can generate feelings of freedom; your liver, happiness; your spleen, concentration; your kidneys, power; and your heart, love. According to Sauer, tuning in with this lifestyle not only provides a natural 24-hour detox, but makes you feel supported, empowered and ready to go forth on your mission to find your cosmic self.

It is possible to have more energy by changing when you do things. The 24 hour chi cycle is a template for optimising your day according to the ancient Chinese chi cycle. By choosing to perform activities at the time that they will be best supported, we can amplify our influence in the world and be more conscious about the way we live. This leads to great vitality, creativity, and flow in our lives. Working smart in this way, you can maximise your efforts and gain great results. Basically we are harmonizing with the forces of nature, rising when the sun rises, winding down when the sun sets and living life in harmony with the needs of our inner organs and the flow of chi.

Experimenting with designing your perfect day around your chi cycle and your needs, can have a tremendous impact on your life.

“Everything we do is also cosmically aligned so we can access the matrix and achieve the greatness we are all destined for. The chi-cycle is an amazing lifestyle. It takes care of everything from the practical ‘what to do when’, to the profound ‘what am I here for’. And even though it is ancient, it is still the most effective ‘happiness system’ I’ve come across.” – Jost Sauer

Source: Understanding the 24 hour Chi Cycle