Insights & Practice
From Reactivity to Responsiveness: What Qigong Can Teach Us About Returning to Balance
Dr Jar - Apex Tai Chi - South Wales, Swansea
Why the Ability to Recover Matters as Much as the Ability to Respond
Stress is not necessarily a sign that something has gone wrong.
The human body is designed to respond to challenge.
When something demands our attention, whether that is a difficult conversation, an urgent deadline, pain, uncertainty or the need to protect somebody we care about, the nervous system changes the way the body operates. Attention sharpens, heart rate and breathing may change, muscles prepare for action, and resources are redirected towards dealing with what is happening.
That response is useful.
The more interesting question is what happens afterwards.
What if the conversation ends, but your chest still feels tight?
What if the difficult period is over, yet you continue sleeping lightly?
What if you finally sit down at the end of the day, but your body still feels as though it is waiting for the next demand?
What if?…….
This is where the distinction between reactivity and responsiveness becomes useful.
Responsiveness is not the absence of a stress response. It is the capacity to respond when necessary and then adapt again when circumstances change.
That ability to return may be one of the most important, and most neglected, aspects of self-regulation.
The Nervous System Is Not Supposed to Be Calm All the Time
The popular language around nervous-system regulation can sometimes give the impression that calm is the ideal state and activation is something to eliminate.
Biologically, that makes little sense.
We need activation to think clearly under pressure, respond quickly, exercise, concentrate, solve problems and deal with danger. The autonomic nervous system helps coordinate many of these changes without conscious effort.
Stress researchers often describe this process through the concept of allostasis: the body adjusting its internal systems in response to changing demands. Problems can arise when these adjustments become prolonged, repeatedly activated or poorly resolved.
Over time, accumulated physiological strain is sometimes described as allostatic load.
So the goal is not permanent relaxation.
It is flexibility.
A healthy system must be able to mobilise and recover.
That distinction matters because many people become very good at the first half.
Modern life gives us endless opportunities to switch on. Emails, phones, work pressures, caring responsibilities, financial worries and constant streams of information repeatedly ask for attention and response.
We get considerably less practice at recognising when the demand has ended.
Why the Body Can Continue Carrying an Old State
A stressful experience is not confined to thought.
The stress response involves communication between the brain and body through autonomic, endocrine and other physiological systems.
Research on interoception, our perception of internal bodily signals, also shows that stress and bodily awareness are closely linked through this brain-body communication.
This helps explain a familiar experience.
We may intellectually understand that everything is fine while the body tells a different story.
The shoulders remain elevated.
The jaw stays tight.
Breathing remains shallow or hurried.
The stomach feels unsettled.
Attention continues scanning for the next problem.
The person is no longer responding to the original event alone. They may also be responding to the physiological state that the event helped create.
This is one reason simply telling ourselves to “relax” is often spectacularly ineffective.
Regulation is not purely cognitive because stress is not purely cognitive.
Qigong Begins With Body, Breath and Attention
Traditional Qigong offers an unusually practical framework for understanding this.
A foundational principle is: 调身、调息、调心Tiáo shēn, tiáo xī, tiáo xīn
This can broadly be understood as regulating or harmonising:
the body
the breath
the mind or attention
These are not three unrelated exercises.
They influence one another.
If the body is hurried and tense, breathing often changes.
If breathing becomes disturbed, that can influence how the body feels.
If attention remains completely captured by an external problem, we may barely notice what is happening internally.
Qigong practice brings these processes back into relationship.
The movements are usually slow enough for us to detect unnecessary effort.
Breathing is given space rather than aggressively controlled.
Attention returns towards sensation, posture, weight and movement.
The point is not to manufacture a particular feeling.
It is to create conditions in which the body has an opportunity to change state.
Why Breathing Matters, but Should Not Become Another Performance
Breathing is frequently presented as a quick route to calming the nervous system, and there is physiological evidence behind some forms of slow breathing.
A major review of slow breathing research found associations with changes in cardiovascular regulation, heart-rate variability, respiratory efficiency and autonomic function in healthy adults.
But this does not mean everybody needs to count breaths, achieve a particular rate or turn breathing into another task to perform correctly.
Traditional Qigong often takes a more gradual approach.
First remove interference.
Let the chest soften.
Allow the abdomen and ribs to move more freely.
Reduce unnecessary muscular holding.
Then notice whether the breathing begins to settle by itself.
For someone already feeling pressured, this distinction can be important. Trying to “breathe properly” can simply become another demand.
Sometimes the more useful question is: What am I doing that is preventing the breath from being easy?
The Skill of Noticing Before Changing
One of the most useful aspects of Qigong is that it teaches us to notice our state before attempting to alter it.
This may sound trivial. It is not.
If you do not recognise that you are gripping the steering wheel, lifting your shoulders while typing or holding your breath during concentration, you have very little opportunity to change those patterns.
This is where internal awareness becomes practically useful.
During practice, you might notice:
how much effort the shoulders are using
whether the knees or hips are unnecessarily rigid
whether the breath changes when the movement becomes unfamiliar
whether attention rushes ahead of the body
whether you can soften without losing support
These observations build a more detailed internal map.
The body becomes something you can listen to rather than merely command.
Why “Less” Can Be a Form of Training
Many forms of exercise are built around adding something.
More resistance.
More repetitions.
More range.
More intensity.
Qigong often asks the opposite question: What can be removed without losing function?
Can the movement continue with 5% less tension?
Can the shoulders contribute less while the centre contributes more?
Can you remain upright without stiffening?
Can the breath continue without being managed?
This is not laziness disguised in linen trousers. It is a genuine motor-control problem.
The body still needs enough muscular activity to maintain balance and produce movement. The practice is learning to distinguish necessary effort from habitual effort.
That distinction is central to many traditional ideas of relaxation in Chinese internal practice.
Relaxation does not mean collapse.
It means reducing resistance that is not contributing to the task.
Qigong and Stress: What Does the Evidence Actually Say?
Research into Qigong and stress is promising, but it is important not to inflate it beyond what the evidence supports.
A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials found reductions in reported stress and anxiety among healthy adults practising Qigong, but the authors also noted the small number of studies and methodological limitations.
A more recent systematic review published in 2024 reached a similarly cautious conclusion. Some trials showed improvements in perceived stress and related psychological outcomes, but overall study quality was limited, and the authors concluded that stronger research is still needed before firm claims can be made.
That is a useful position to hold.
Qigong should not be presented as a magical switch for the nervous system.
Its value may lie in something more believable and, in my view, more interesting.
It gives us a structured way to practise movement, breathing and attention together.
Over time, that may improve our ability to recognise our state and change how we respond to it.
Regulation Is the Ability to Move Between States
This brings us back to the central idea.
Regulation is not remaining calm.
It is being able to move.
From activation towards recovery.
From gripping towards releasing.
From scattered attention towards embodied attention.
From readiness towards rest.
And, when required, back again.
That is why I prefer the word responsiveness.
A responsive system is not passive.
It can increase effort when necessary and reduce effort when it is no longer needed.
It can adapt.
A Simple Practice to Try During the Day
You do not need a full Qigong session to explore this.
The next time you notice yourself carrying tension after a demanding moment, try this:
First, do not immediately correct anything.
Notice your current state.
Feel your feet.
Notice your shoulders, jaw and hands.
Notice whether the breath feels restricted or easy.
Then ask: What effort is still useful, and what effort is no longer required?
Release only a little.
Perhaps 5%.
Allow the breath to continue naturally.
Stay for a few moments and notice whether anything changes.
The aim is not to force yourself into tranquillity.
The aim is to experience that your state has some movement within it.
Learning How to Return
Life will affect us.
That is not a failure of regulation.
Some events should disturb us. Some periods of life genuinely require effort, vigilance and endurance.
The deeper skill is recognising when the conditions have changed.
Qigong gives us a way to practise that recognition physically.
Through movement, breathing and attention, we begin to notice when the body is still organised around a demand that is no longer present.
Then we practise something surprisingly difficult.
We return.
Not to permanent calm.
Not to perfect control.
But towards a body that can respond when necessary and soften when it is safe to do so.
That may be one of the most valuable meanings of moving from reactivity to responsiveness.
References and Further Reading
Goldstein DS. Stress and the “extended” autonomic system. A detailed review of stress, autonomic regulation, allostasis and allostatic load.
Read the article on PubMed Central
Schulz A, Vögele C. Interoception and stress. A systematic review examining the two-way relationship between bodily perception and physiological stress systems.
Read the article on PubMed Central
Russo MA, Santarelli DM, O’Rourke D. The physiological effects of slow breathing in the healthy human. A review of respiratory, cardiovascular and autonomic effects associated with slow breathing. Read the article on PubMed Central
Wang CW et al. Managing stress and anxiety through Qigong exercise in healthy adults. Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials.
Read the systematic review
Qigong Therapy for Stress Management: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials. A more recent review highlighting both promising findings and the limitations of the current evidence base. Read the 2024 systematic review
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Any questions about anything in this blog, or about a specific practice, for a specific need… just reach out: drjar@apextaich.com
Be well & remain curious,
Dr Jar
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