Episode 109: Using Qi Gong to Create A Sustainable Practice of Self-Care with Dr. Kate DeVarney
In this episode, I’m joined by Dr. Kate DeVarney, a Neuroscientist, Holistic Wellness Coach, and Qigong teacher. You’ll hear Kate share:
What Qi Gong is and the different kinds of Qi Gong practices
How she was introduced to Qi Gong during treatment for breast cancer and the difference its made in her healing
How her daily practice of Qi Gong helps her in managing the daily pressures in her full-time corporate job
And she even walks us through her step-by-step practice of it
In Kate’s words: “The incredible practice of Qigong, together with important lifestyle changes, and the support I received through creating a healing community, helped me transform my stress, pain, and trauma into a sense of peace, healing, and renewed energy. I discovered the strength and the life-changing tools I needed to finish treatment, thrive, and create a life I truly love.”
Now, Kate’s mission is to coach other women living with cancer in this powerful, comprehensive system of self-care, that teaches how to integrate simple, mind and body practices into a sustainable self-healing lifestyle.
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“Good energy is good energy. And when you can convert energy that is no longer serving you into good energy, everybody benefits from that.”
Read the Episode Transcript...
Naomi Nakamura: Hello my friend and welcome back to the Live FAB Life Podcast. I am your host, Naomi Nakamura, and we are in for a treat, because in this episode, I am joined by Dr. Kate DeVarney. Kate is a neuroscientist and a holistic wellness coach and we talk about how she marries those two things together. Kate is also a Qi Gong teacher, which is really the topic that we get into in our discussion. As you will hear, Qi Gong was actually recommended to me by my acupuncturist well over three years ago, but admittedly I never really took the time to learn more about it, which is why when I was introduced to Kate, I'm very intrigued by the work that she does and thought this is my opportunity to learn more.
In this episode, you will hear Kate share what is Qi Gong and how she was introduced to it during her treatment for breast cancer. She'll talk about the different kinds of methods of Qi Gong that there are, and she'll also share quite vulnerably the difference it has made in her healing journey. She even shares what her daily practice looks like and how it helps her not only during treatment, but also in managing the daily pressures that she faces and her corporate job. And, this is what I loved, she even walks us through an exercise, a step-by-step practice of how to practice Qi Gong.
In Kate's words, she says, "The incredible practice of Qi Gong together with important lifestyle changes and the support I received through creating a healing community helped me transform my stress, my pain, and my trauma into a sense of peace, healing and renewed energy. I discovered the strength and the life changing tools I needed to finish treatment to thrive and to create a life that I truly love." Now, Kate's mission is to coach other women living with cancer and this powerful comprehensive system of self-care that teaches how to integrate simple mind, body, and practice into a sustainable self-healing lifestyle.
Now, I don't know about you, but that sounds quite lovely. And if you're listening to this podcast, if you're a regular listener, then I know that this is something that you aspire to as well. With that, let's get to the show.
Hi Kate, welcome to the show.
Kate DeVarney: Hi Naomi. Thank you so much for having me.
Naomi Nakamura: I am so excited to have you on this show. And for listeners, this is actually the first time we're meeting. Other than exchanging a few emails, we've actually never had a live conversation before. This is ... I'm excited. For those who don't know who you are, can you introduce yourself and tell us who you are and what it is that you do?
Kate DeVarney: Yeah, absolutely. Well, my name is Kate DeVarney and I am a Bay Area based neuroscientist. I've worked in the neuroscience, pharmaceutical research and development here for many, many years, but I'm also a medical Qi Gong teacher and coach, lifestyle coach, and I work primarily with women and I have a specialty in working with women who have breast and ovarian cancer. But really I work with a large group of people teaching them how to be less stressed and more energized, because that's really what the essence of this practice is all about. It's like a moving meditation and it has completely transformed my life and my health.
Naomi Nakamura: Well, we both live in the Bay Area, so we know all about the need to manage stress just with the ...
Kate DeVarney: Yeah.
Naomi Nakamura: Lifestyle of the majority of the folks who live here. I discovered you through our local Lululemon's store and you did an event for them and we'll get into more of that in a little bit, but I'm really curious about your background. You have a very science-based background. How did you come into the holistic wellness world? Because those are on opposite ends of the spectrum and a lot of people have difficulty marrying the two together.
Kate DeVarney: Yeah, that's a great question Naomi. And I think I really, when I consider that question in its gestalt, I think I really have always, through my entire career, believed in the power of integrating best practices in medicine, no matter what the situation or what the condition is. And I started my career as a clinical neuropsychologist, working in a hospital on a neurosurgery team, and just seeing how people were very much at the whim of standard Western medical practice and not having the kinds of support that could really help them recover faster and better. And it wasn't until years later, when I was undergoing treatment for breast cancer myself, back in 2020, and I was having such a hard time. I was depressed, I was anxious, I was worried all the time, and not resting very well. And I was in a lot of pain from the treatment that I was receiving.
And a friend of mine shared a DVD with me from a PBS special that had been created by a Qi Gong master named Lee Holden, who happens to be based in Santa Cruz. And my friend Ellen Blakeley, who's a local artist in Sonoma County, said, "Kate, you've got to try this Qi Gong stuff, because this is going to help you get through the rest of your treatment and it's going to help you get well." And I put the DVD in my TV and within 15 minutes, I felt a shift. I felt a shift, and I didn't really know what it was. I couldn't put my finger on it, because I had never felt this before. But all I knew is I felt better. I felt more relaxed, I felt calmer, and I kept doing this DVD over and over again for several months. It helped me get through the end of my radiation treatment and I really believe that it helped me recover at a much better and faster rate.
And then beyond that, it simply became my lifestyle. The kind of work that I do as my main business right now, my main job, is very stressful. I'm a pharmaceutical executive. I travel a lot. I have to interact with all kinds of different people, from the FDA to investors in the company, and it's really stressful. And so having this tool to use anywhere, anytime, even when I'm about to get on an airplane, I will do a 15-minute Qi Gong set that just gets me ready for a five hour or a 10 hour airplane flight. It's really effective and part of what I feel called to do now as I'm shifting my career is to really bring this to a larger community of people.
And I've been teaching at various cancer centers lately, the Bay Area Cancer Connection. I'm hopefully going to start teaching soon at Mills-Peninsula Hospital and I really want to bring this to a wider audience of women who I think will greatly benefit from the practice. Easy to learn and it's so transferable. You can do it anywhere and you can share it with your friends and even teach your friends just simple things that will help them feel empowered, feel more in the moment and balanced. And it also happens to be a really good workout.
Naomi Nakamura: This is actually how I came to discover Kate, is I noticed on Facebook that my local Lululemon's store posted an event and I always keep tabs of what events they have going on. And lately there's been a lot of running events and so that's not really something that I typically do in a group setting, but I did notice your class, that at the very last minute, I couldn't make it and I was so bummed about that. But I was very curious, because my acupuncturist back in 2016 had told me, "Naomi, you should really try Qi Gong." Did I pronounce it right?
Kate DeVarney: Qi Gong. Qi Gong.
Naomi Nakamura: Qi Gong.
Kate DeVarney: Like Cheetos and Gong.
Naomi Nakamura: Okay.
Kate DeVarney: Qi Gong. Yeah.
Naomi Nakamura: And she told me back in 2016, "Naomi, you really should try this out." And I was open to it, but I literally didn't know where to find the class. My ... Go to a gym. I know my gym didn't offer those classes. I didn't check the community classes. I should have. I don't know if they might've had one there, but typically those classes are during the day and I can't make them during the day. I didn't know where to go. It's just always been on the back burner, and other than doing a light search around, I didn't find anything and I just kind of never did anything about it. But when I saw your class at Lululemon, it brought that back to me and I thought, I kind of want to learn more about this. And so I looked up your website and reached out to you. For people who don't know what Qi Gong is, and myself included, can you explain to us exactly what it is? I mean, you talk about it being this great relaxer and stress management tool, but also a workout. My curiosity has piqued here.
Kate DeVarney: Yes, very, very good question. Let's break down the word Qi Gong, and I'm going to define what it means and then I'd like to share a little bit about the history of it with you, because I think that's really important to people's understanding about the power behind this forward exercise. Qi means life, energy, and breath. That's the first part of Qi Gong, life, energy and breath. And Gong means work or skill. When you put them together, it really means working with energy, with skill. This particular form of exercise is one of the oldest in recorded history. It's over 5,000 years old and it's practiced by more than a hundred million people globally. It was started as part of traditional Chinese medicine for the purpose of disease prevention or self-healing from injury or disease and really to enhance vitality and longevity, and there are currently over 7,000 different styles of Qi Gong, but they really fall into three main categories, spiritual, martial, and medical.
The kind of Qi Gong that I learned, that I am a certified teacher in and that I now practice myself every day, and then I teach to other people is in the medical Qi Gong category.
And the medical Qi Gong category really involves the use of the breath, slow, gentle stretches, gentle movements and meditation all together, to enhance your wellness again, for disease prevention, for recovering from injury, and generally to take you from stress mode to relaxation mode very quickly. It is ...
Naomi Nakamura: What are the differences with the other two?
Kate DeVarney: The other two ... So the spiritual is a practice that has to do more with, I would say not necessarily having such an exercise component to it, but really being connected to the energy of nature, for example. And the martial part of it, and martial Qi Gong, is very much like forms of Tai chi. People have seen martial artists in movies, for example, and perhaps you've seen people practicing Tai chi in parks and you can see that there is certainly a self defense component to it. That's really the martial side of Qi Gong.
Naomi Nakamura: Okay, interesting.
Kate DeVarney: Yeah, so this is a form of exercise that will really provide you with more energy and less stress and helps you feel in the moment. It helps you understand sort of what your own unique energy is, and by understanding your own energy, you can design the life that you want. You can design ways to build in this health practice into your daily routine, whether you do other forms of exercise.
Naomi, I know that you enjoy running. A lot of people have difficulty with meditation, seated meditation or lying down meditation, this is a way for people like that to incorporate movement with meditation to help them be more in the moment. And it's a wonderful self-care practice that people can really rely on when they need that kind of help. Puts you in the flow state or in the zone so that you really feel like you're in the present moment and you're energetically connected to yourself, to the people that you're with, and to the activity that you're doing.
Naomi Nakamura: How do you practice it?
Kate DeVarney: Well, generally, I practice every morning. I have a meditation space in my house where it's sort of my quiet area and I start with some breathing exercises, and I do breathing, deep abdominal breathing and other forms of breathing for the first 10 or 15 minutes, and that really gets me feeling centered and grounded. And then I start to incorporate gentle stretches. The reason for the stretches is that energy flows through the body through a system called the meridian system. And the meridian system is similar to our cardiovascular system or our respiratory system or endocrine system, nervous system. It's just something you can't see.
In traditional Chinese medicine, the meridian system is just as important as all of these other bioenergy systems, and energy flows through the body along the meridian serve-like rivers, and imagine, or another analogy is like the electrical system in your house, and if the electrical system is working well and you, all of your appliances are going to be working fine, your refrigerator, your heating system, your air conditioning, all of that's going to work great.
But if you have some kind of disruption of the energy system and electricity is not getting to your refrigerator, all the food in your refrigerator is going to go bad. Doing Qi Gong is a way of unblocking stuck energy in the body and restoring yourself to full wellness and health.
Naomi Nakamura: I was thinking about it, there's just stretching, getting up and stretching in the morning, it's just also just awakens the body and that is, you can feel the ... When you talk about the energy and the flow, that's exactly how it feels when you get up in the morning and you do that.
Kate DeVarney: Yes, the stretches are combined with slow, graceful movement that really puts you in a meditative state. And then the final component to this is that you need to direct your attention and your mind to the exercise itself. That's how you get into the meditative feature of it. Breathing, gentle stretching to unblock the stuck energy in the meridian system and putting your mind onto the flow of the energy, using visual imagery, et cetera, is that's where the magic happens.
Naomi Nakamura: When you say focus the mind on the exercise that you're doing, what are the exercises? Are they the gentle stretches or are there other exercises that you do?
Kate DeVarney: Let me first before, that's a great question, and I want you to be able to and your audience to be able to experience what Qi feels like.
Naomi Nakamura: Okay.
Kate DeVarney: And we can do this without being together. We can do this by simply doing a simple exercise. I want you to rub your fingernails together rapidly. Put your on knuckles together and rub your fingernails back and forth rapidly against each other for a few seconds, and just keep rubbing them back and forth, getting a letter of friction built up, keep doing it, rubbing your fingernails back and forth. And now just stop. And notice what you feel in your hands. You may feel some gentle tingling or some warmth or some sensations. What you're feeling is your own Qi. That is your own energy. And so the idea, when you practice Qi Gong, is that you want to activate your energy, you want to tap into it. You want to access it.
And the breathing is the gateway to starting to wake up your Qi and activate your Qi. Some of the other exercises are involved self acupressure. For example, a beautiful stretch that I love to do, because I sit a lot in my job, and my low back, by the end of the day, my lower back really hurts. I stand up and I put my thumbs into my low back and then I do a slow hip rotation pushing my thumbs into my low back as my body moves forward, and as my hips come around, I bend forward a little bit and my fingers release the tension and then as I push into my back again, my hips move forward. Try that and just see if you can feel that nice release of your low back by gentle acupressure. There are literally hundreds of acupressure points on the body that we access through the different Qi Gong exercises.
Naomi Nakamura: That's amazing. I can see why my acupuncturist recommended this to me even way back then.
Kate DeVarney: Yeah.
Naomi Nakamura: And I see her about every week or every other week and she always tells me how she sees my Qi is doing and if I'm having stagnation or not. I can see how this really builds up the strength of the Qi.
Kate DeVarney: Yeah, that is wonderful. And I know a lot of times I will work with acupuncturists or with medical doctors who have patients or clients that have specific issues and we'll design a prescription routine for that person that is going to help them unlock the energy, the stagnation that they have, and get that Qi flowing more rhythmically and more smoothly to restore them to the best health that they can have.
Naomi Nakamura: You do this every morning?
Kate DeVarney: I do it ... Actually, I do it multiple times a day, because ...
Naomi Nakamura: Okay. That's what I was kind of getting at. Kate DeVarney: Well, what works for me in my, sort of my working world and my lifestyle is I have a workout in the morning, usually a 30 to 45 minute Qi Gong set, and I may do some other things like ride my exercise cycle or go for a run or for a walk. But then throughout the day, as I'm noticing myself feeling stressed or being in a situation where I'm not having the amount of energy I want to have, instead of reaching for that third cup of coffee, I'll stand up and do five to 15 minutes or even seven minutes of this practice and it makes me feel really good and ready to move on to the next thing, and you can do it literally at the grocery store, during a meeting. Sometimes I invite my colleagues to do it with me and they love it.
Naomi Nakamura: That's awesome.
Kate DeVarney: It's really fun too.
Naomi Nakamura: I was going to say, especially since earlier this week I sat in on an eight hour remote meeting. It would've been great to do [crosstalk 00:19:09] that meeting.
Kate DeVarney: Oh boy. Oh boy. Well, if we have time, I'd love to share just a little story with you about ...
Naomi Nakamura: Of course.
Kate DeVarney: My experience right now. I'm in treatment for breast cancer right now, and in the course of going through radiation, and I go to my radiation appointment every day, the same time, and I get there 30 minutes early so that I can do a 30 minute Qi Gong practice to prepare my body for the radiation treatment.
I'm there in the waiting room, in my lovely hospital gown, and doing my Qi Gong breathing and my Qi Gong stretching, and about three weeks ago, a woman who was in the waiting room as well, said, "Hey, what are you doing? That looks like a lot of fun." She was also getting ready for treatments. And I told her about Qi Gong and she said, "Wow, can I practice that with you? Would that be all right?" And I said, "Of course you may."
And so she now meets me, we meet every day, 30 minutes before our appointment, and we do this Qi Gong practice together, and I'll tell you, it's helping me as much as it's helping her, because part of the power of this is sharing the energy with somebody, whether you're sharing it with them in person in the same room, we are talking to them over the phone or talking to or seeing them on a video. It's a shared energy and that's part of the power of this practice and part of the magic of it.
Naomi Nakamura: I don't know if you're able to, but I'm going to ask anyways, can you talk about the impact that it's had on your healing journey and your treatments?
Kate DeVarney: Of course. I'm delighted to talk about that and again, part of my mission is to bring this to women, but really to anybody who is going through a similar circumstance, whether it's cancer or whether it's any other kind of serious illness, I have personally found this to be an a lifesaver.
In the past, May, rediagnosed with breast cancer and leukemia, and I had a double mastectomy in July and had multiple other treatments since then. Right now, I'm in radiation treatment, nearing the end of radiation treatment, and for many people who've been through this or who know about it, radiation completely depletes your energy, in addition to just making you feel kind of sick all over, and doing Qi Gong every day and particularly doing it with people who are also going through the experience, has helped me tremendously. It's improved my energy. I think I will be a lot worse off if I wasn't doing this right now. And to say that it has changed my life would be really an understatement.
I mean, even the staff at the hospital, they see us doing this and they are really interested, because they're completely stressed out and part of my work is going to be to work with caregivers. Caregivers get so depleted when they are having to deal with a diagnosis with a loved one and their energy gets depleted and they are still trying to maintain their own lives and their own jobs, if they have them, and take care of this sick person, and Qi Gong is something that really helps caregivers as well.
Naomi Nakamura: Well, I was going to say, you can imagine what the energy in a hospital is like anyway.
Kate DeVarney: Yes.
Naomi Nakamura: And so that must really just lift things up, not just in yourself and in your friend that you're doing it with, but like you said, in just the other people who are there in proximity.
Kate DeVarney: Yes, absolutely agree. Good energy is good energy. And when you can convert energy that is no longer serving you into good energy, everybody benefits from that.
Naomi Nakamura: Yes. Most of my audience is not local to you and I, they're all over the country and all over the world, so if someone thinks, this is something that I kind of want to try, how can they go about and find a teacher who teaches this? Because like I said, I mean, I didn't know you are so close to me, but I'm like, I don't know where to find somebody. And my acupuncturist didn't really have an answer for me either, about where can I go to find somebody who can teach me this.
Kate DeVarney: Yes, yes. And I want to help connect anybody who wants to learn this, I would be delighted to help connect you to either an in-person teacher. I have a very large network of Qi Gong teachers and colleagues. I also teach people virtually, so anybody who's interested in learning more about my story or about how I teach is welcome to connect with me through my website, which is called hermoxie.com. That's H-E-R-M-O-X-I-E.com. Or they can reach me directly through my email, which is kate@hermoxie.com.
There's another really wonderful resource called the NationalQigongAssociation.org and they have a listing of state by state, and I think it's even international listing, of Qi Gong teachers. I also would encourage people to go on the website or just to Google Qi Gong classes in their local area. But again, if anybody has curiosity or interest in learning more, they're welcome to contact me and if they want a live teacher, I'm happy to help them, assist them, find somebody live.
Naomi Nakamura: And I will have links to all of these things including your website and your email on the show notes for this episode. Thank you so much for joining. I am so glad we had a chance to chat. I'm so happy to learn more about it and yeah, thank you for your time.
Kate DeVarney: Thanks Naomi. Thanks for the opportunity. Really appreciate it.
Naomi Nakamura is a Functional Nutrition Health Coach. She helps passionate, ambitious high-achievers who are being dragged down by fatigue, burnout, sugar cravings, poor sleep, unexplained weight issues, and hormonal challenges optimize health, find balance, and upgrade their energy so they can do big things in this world.
Through her weekly show, The Live FAB Live Podcast, programs, coaching, and services, she teaches women how to optimize their diet, support their gut health, reduce their toxic load, and improve their productivity, bringing work + wellness together.
Naomi resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can often be found exploring the area with her puppy girl, Coco Pop!
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