Qigong for Fibromyalgia: Learning to Trust the Body Again
Over the past few years, I have noticed that more and more people living with fibromyalgia have found their way to my classes.
At first, I simply supported them as I would anyone living with a long-term health condition. We slowed things down. We focused on nourishment rather than achievement, on moving with kindness rather than pushing through. I knew how to adapt movements and encourage people to work within their own capacity. But I also sensed that what was needed went beyond changing the choreography.
As the months and years passed, I began to notice certain qualities that would often arrive with people, even though their symptoms and experiences were so different.
Sometimes there was resignation. Sometimes worry. Often there was a kind of hypervigilance, a body that no longer felt entirely safe or predictable. Many people seemed to have lost trust in what their bodies were telling them. Occasionally there was a quiet desperation to find something, anything, that might help.
And yet there was something else too. There was sincerity. Again and again, I met people who weren't looking for miracles. They wanted something much simpler: to feel at home in their own bodies again.
That observation changed the way I thought about teaching. Rather than asking, What exercise might help?, I found myself asking a different question.
What does a body that has stopped trusting itself need first?
The answer wasn't more effort. It was space. Space to breathe a little more freely. Space to move without fear of getting it wrong. Space to notice what the body could do, rather than grieving what it couldn't.
For some people, that may begin with five minutes of unhurried movement, a few moments of conscious breathing, or simply noticing how the body feels today. It doesn't need to be dramatic to be meaningful. Small moments of attention can be the beginning of rebuilding trust.
Space before change
This is one of the reasons I value qigong. It doesn't ask us to fight the body we have today in pursuit of the body we had yesterday. Instead, it invites us to become curious again, to notice, to move at ease, to practise within today's capacity, whether that is one third, two thirds or simply sitting and breathing. The practice adapts to the person, not the other way round.
Over the years, one thing has stayed with me. Time and again, I witness a softening. It is rarely dramatic. More often it is almost imperceptible. A shoulder drops. A jaw unclenches. The breath settles a little lower. Someone who arrived moving cautiously discovers they can move with just a little more ease. That is the moment I have come to value most, because trust has begun to return.
Why begin with Wood?
Chinese medicine doesn't view fibromyalgia as a single condition, and different practitioners may understand the same person through different patterns. I want to be clear that what follows is one lens among several, not a claim about what fibromyalgia "really" is, but it's the lens that shapes how I teach.
In Chinese medicine, the Liver is associated with the smooth movement of qi, while the Spleen is associated with nourishment and steady energy. You cannot properly nourish a system that still feels under pressure, so when working with groups with fibromyalgia I often begin with the Wood element, linked to the Liver, because creating movement before nourishment feels like the most thoughtful place to start.
We begin with movements that invite rather than demand: space through the ribs, softness through the shoulders, release through the neck, a breath that's allowed to settle. Nothing here is about stretching further or working harder. It's simply about letting what feels held begin to soften.
Only then do we turn towards the Earth element. The practice becomes quieter. We work through the centre of the body, drawing attention to steadiness, grounding and nourishment. We gather rather than push, and finish in stillness, allowing the body time to absorb the practice rather than rushing onto the next thing.
It would have been easy to build a class that tried to touch every system said to be involved in fibromyalgia. I chose not to. Working deeply with one relationship felt more thoughtful than working superficially with several.
What the research says
Research into qigong for fibromyalgia is still developing, and it's important to say that clearly. The studies are relatively small, and researchers describe the evidence as promising rather than conclusive. There is encouraging evidence that qigong may support pain, sleep and quality of life, but we are still learning.
One thing that interests me is the importance of consistency. Many people living with long-term health conditions have gradually come to believe that movement is something they either can or cannot do. Qigong offers another way of thinking. It is not about pushing through pain or pretending symptoms aren't there. It's about developing a relationship with your body based on attention rather than fear. Like learning a language, tending a garden or playing an instrument, its benefits often emerge gradually through regular practice.
An offering, not exercise
I don't teach qigong as exercise. For me, it is closer to an art form: something practised with attention rather than performed with effort. Nobody needs to get a movement right. Nobody needs to keep pace with anyone else. The body is simply invited to notice, to release what it can and to receive what it needs.
Every person living with fibromyalgia brings a different story. There is no single pattern and no single answer. But if qigong offers one thing, perhaps it is this: the opportunity to move with curiosity rather than fear and, over time, to rediscover what it feels like to be at home in your own body.
This work has also made me reflect on how valuable it can be to have space for a more individual exploration of qigong, since each person's experience is unique. I am interested in exploring ways of offering more personalised support, through small group or one-to-one work, for people living with fibromyalgia and other long-term health conditions in the future.
If you'd like to read more around the ideas behind this piece, these two sources offer further context:
Qigong for Fibromyalgia: Randomized Controlled Trials and Beyond — a review of the emerging research into qigong for fibromyalgia and the challenges of studying a practice-based approach.
Traditional Chinese Medicine and Fibromyalgia — an exploration of fibromyalgia through a Chinese medicine lens, including pattern-based approaches.
Photo by Myles Bloomfield on Unsplash