Healing + Human Potential
Secrets for More Energy and Less Stress - with Lee Holden | EP 74
Tue, 04 Feb 2025
What if slowing down could actually make you more productive? In this episode, I sit down with Lee Holden, a master of Qigong, Tai Chi, and energy cultivation, to explore the power of slowing down. We talk about why so many of us feel stressed and burned out and how shifting into a more relaxed, focused state can actually help us get more done with less effort. Lee shares insights from Chinese medicine, breathwork, and movement practices that can help us increase energy, reduce stress, and move through life with more flow. We also dive into how our emotions, mind, and body are connected, how to develop our intuition as a skill, and how small shifts in our posture and breath can instantly change how we feel. Plus, Lee introduces sexual reflexology, an ancient practice that uses energy movement for health and deeper connection. If you’re looking for simple ways to manage stress, improve your energy, and feel more in sync with yourself, this episode is for you. === EPISODE TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 - Intro 02:13 - Slowing Down for Productivity and Energy Management 04:46 - Research Supporting Eastern Practices 08:01 - The Role of Intuition and Creativity in Life 10:33 - Exploring Energy Centers and Intuition 24:37 - The Role of Emotions and Energy in Health 34:04 - Practical Techniques for Energy Management 44:36 - The Concept of Sexual Reflexology 49:05 - Challenges in Integrating Physical, Mental, and Emotional Health === GUEST LINKS Instagram: @holdenqigongofficial Website: https://www.holdenqigong.com/ Get Lee Holden's new book 'Ready, Set, Slow': https://www.holdenqigong.com/p/ready-set-slow-book === Have you watched our previous episode with Aggie? Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/k5WiTjRyDMA ==== Alyssa Nobriga International, LLC - Disclaimer This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or any other qualified professional. We shall in no event be held liable to any party for any reason arising directly or indirectly for the use or interpretation of the information presented in this video. Copyright 2023, Alyssa Nobriga International, LLC - All rights reserved. === Website: alyssanobriga.com Instagram: @alyssanobriga TikTok - @alyssanobriga Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6b5s2xbA2d3pETSvYBZ9YR Apple Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healing-human-potential/id1705626495
Chapter 1: What role does stress play in our health?
89% of primary doctor visits are stress-related. So emotional stress causes pretty much 90% of the reason why people go to a doctor. I got a headache, I got digestive issues, my heart's acting funny. It's emotional stress that's causing it. And I don't know if you know this, Alyssa, but
The way the medicine was practiced, you would pay your Qigong doctor, your acupuncturist, your herbalist, as long as you were healthy. As soon as you got sick, you stopped paying. So they're like, oh, we're not doing our jobs because you got sick. Our job is to keep you healthy. It was health care, not sick care. And now we have a Western medicine that is all about sick care.
Now, if somebody is depressed, what are they going to do? Their body shape, the wind, the energy of the body, the chest sinks down, the face frowns, the chin goes down.
So if everybody wants to try something, if you look up and just take your body shape and look up and expand your chest, bring a little smile to your face, look at your ceiling and then say, I'm so depressed with a little smile on your face. You're gonna be like, wait a second, my body shape doesn't match that statement. Sexual reflexology was interesting because it was healing through pleasure.
Again, in the West, we have more of a model of healing through pain. You would go to the doctor and you say, oh, I got asthma. And the doctor would be like, okay, take out his prescription pad. You need to have sex five times a week in this position so that the chi goes into your lungs and starts creating this healing effect. And then everybody wants to go to the doctor.
Welcome back to the Healing and Human Potential podcast, where today we're going to be taking you through somatic practices that you can use to cultivate more energy and ease in your life. This is actually an embodied practice. We're joined by Lee Holden, who is a Mindvalley speaker, an author, an acupuncturist, and a renowned Qigong master.
Together, we're going to uncover simple yet powerful practices to support you in lining your body, your mind, and your emotions so that you reduce burnout, but then actually have more vitality. Let's dive in. Lee, I'm so happy to have you here on the podcast.
So happy to be here too.
And I want to kind of dive into what I know people are really wanting, which is more energy. They want to feel more alive. And with most of us in our modern day life, a lot of us can feel stressed out or have this endless to-do list. And so leading busy lives, it can lead to burnout. But I remember when I was getting my second master's degrees was in somatic psychotherapy.
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Chapter 2: How can slowing down improve productivity?
And my professor said something that just stopped me in my tracks. She said, if you want to go faster, slow down. And I know you're big. This is you. This is what you are about. I know you are big about the power of slowing down and how by slowing down, we can actually be more productive. And I think people want to believe this, but I would love for you to share more.
So talk to us about how this can actually be true in our lives.
Yeah, and this is one of the first principles of energy cultivation and energy management. When you slow down, you do all kinds of things in your nervous system. You know, going slower will put you into a parasympathetic state. It'll make you more efficient. It'll clarify your priorities. You're not frantic and scattered. You're much more focused.
And so it is a counterintuitive approach that really works. So the ancient master said, slow down and relax to tune into effortless power because nature moves with effortless power, with effortless ease. There's no stress in a river moving down the mountain, even though at the top of the mountain, there's lots of boulders in the way.
The river is not like, oh my God, how am I going to get around all those boulders and get really neurotic about it? No, it's just, It just flows, and I think what I like to teach people is how to bring more of that flow, that natural rhythm into your life, because slow is a strategy that is a useful tool.
You don't always have to go slow, but strategically going slow gets you in tune with your priorities, gets you calm and relaxed, gets you focused, brings more energy into your system, and then you can really go. So it is really the practice of Qigong and it's the practice of Tai Chi to bring this effortless ease into your life.
And I think people want to have more elevated moments throughout their day, more moments where they feel deeply connected to each other, to nature, to an experience. In order to have more moments of high energy, slowing down can be a key concept.
Yeah, and I think about it from, if I'm creating the pattern of frantic doing, then I'm just further creating that pattern. Even if I hit the goal, then I have this more deeply ingrained and I'm not as happy. And I think there's also research that shares around you have less dopamine when you're multitasking.
I don't know if that's true, but share with us some of the research, because I do think people are like, I want to believe this, but Leigh, tell me more. Where are we at in terms of proving this?
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Chapter 3: What research supports Eastern practices?
But when you weight lift slowly, you don't have to lift as heavy so you don't get as hurt. You don't have to do as many sets because you fatigue the muscles. Quicker, you'd only have to do one or two sets of weightlifting as opposed to five sets. And you only have to work out twice a week, maybe for a half an hour rather than an hour three or four times a week.
So by going slowly, you actually save yourself time and you get very similar results.
I love that.
I love that. So we can say, okay, take a Qigong principle of slow body movement and apply it to weightlifting, apply it to eating, and you get really good results. So part of what people are seeing here in Silicon Valley, there is slow productivity, where that means if you're slowing down, you're going to get better results.
Like slow down and you get that view from the top of the mountain rather than just being right in the forest and you have clarity. You don't waste as much time and energy.
You can also hear more of those intuitive downloads, that wisdom that comes through when you're fully focused and present and you hold it lightly and then it may guide you in a direction that you didn't think to go instead of just grinding from more of like bottom of the mountain versus top of the mountain.
And just think about what feels better, grinding and stress and being rushed and hurried or being intuitive, insightful, creative and inspired. And creative inspiration comes when we slow down and give ourselves a moment.
Some of the research even is showing like for children, if we let them slow down and don't keep throwing task after task in front of them, if we actually let them get bored, their creativity and their imagination becomes sharpened. And those people, those kids that have been able, allowed to have that spaciousness to be bored become the most creative thinkers.
And it's healthier for us. And so I think a lot of us want it, but then we're, and I can hear people saying inside myself, like, well, I won't be as productive. So you're saying slow productivity. Tell me more about that concept. I'm curious.
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Chapter 4: How are emotions connected to energy and health?
Chapter 5: What is the concept of sexual reflexology?
Welcome back to the Healing and Human Potential podcast, where today we're going to be taking you through somatic practices that you can use to cultivate more energy and ease in your life. This is actually an embodied practice. We're joined by Lee Holden, who is a Mindvalley speaker, an author, an acupuncturist, and a renowned Qigong master.
Together, we're going to uncover simple yet powerful practices to support you in lining your body, your mind, and your emotions so that you reduce burnout, but then actually have more vitality. Let's dive in. Lee, I'm so happy to have you here on the podcast.
So happy to be here too.
And I want to kind of dive into what I know people are really wanting, which is more energy. They want to feel more alive. And with most of us in our modern day life, a lot of us can feel stressed out or have this endless to-do list. And so leading busy lives, it can lead to burnout. But I remember when I was getting my second master's degrees was in somatic psychotherapy.
And my professor said something that just stopped me in my tracks. She said, if you want to go faster, slow down. And I know you're big. This is you. This is what you are about. I know you are big about the power of slowing down and how by slowing down, we can actually be more productive. And I think people want to believe this, but I would love for you to share more.
So talk to us about how this can actually be true in our lives.
Yeah, and this is one of the first principles of energy cultivation and energy management. When you slow down, you do all kinds of things in your nervous system. You know, going slower will put you into a parasympathetic state. It'll make you more efficient. It'll clarify your priorities. You're not frantic and scattered. You're much more focused.
And so it is a counterintuitive approach that really works. So the ancient master said, slow down and relax to tune into effortless power because nature moves with effortless power, with effortless ease. There's no stress in a river moving down the mountain, even though at the top of the mountain, there's lots of boulders in the way.
The river is not like, oh my God, how am I going to get around all those boulders and get really neurotic about it? No, it's just, It just flows, and I think what I like to teach people is how to bring more of that flow, that natural rhythm into your life, because slow is a strategy that is a useful tool.
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Chapter 6: How does intuition relate to the body's energy centers?
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