Our fast moving lives, hectic work schedules, increasing individualism and highly programmed lifestyles are pushing us into the hands of numerous psychological and mental disorders. Stress is a pretty common term in the modern society and even the school going kids are found to be in grip of it. Prolonged stress can lead to severe psychological traumas, such as depression, that may ultimately result into a nervous breakdown of the affected individual. Thus, we always keep searching for various mechanisms to cope with stress, in order to deal with the ghost of it, like the age old trusted coping techniques of meditation and Qigong.

Meditation and Qigong rest among the most trusted stress relieving methods that are serving mankind since ages past. They boast a wide applicability in modern era. Both methods involve somewhat the same procedures and serve almost the same purpose, and at times may appear similar to those of a lay man. However, the two terms have some noticeable differences between them that need to be cleared up in order to make full use of each concept.

What is Meditation?

Meditation primarily has Indo-European origin and is designed to help the individual in getting into deeper state of mental awareness. It also helps in reconditioning our thought processes. The technique has been a trademark of several religious activities and in Indian mythology. It is often seen as a way to set up linkages with god.

The concept is gaining wide applicability in the present scenario and has turned out to be an effective measure for minimizing various day-to-day strains and anxieties. This activity largely focuses on revitalizing mental processes; such as, increasing concentration levels, achieving high state of mental consciousness, improving creativity and analytical skills.

Conclusively, it helps in attaining a soothing frame of mind. Basically, the activity involves sitting quietly on a place with focus on some thought or object and it doesn't include any sort of physical exercises or movements. The traditional form involves chanting hymns or sentences; however, the contemporary meditation shifts from these complicated hymns to much simpler thoughts or laying focus on some physical objects.

What is Qigong?

On the other hand, Qigong is a Chinese concept that helps in collecting and distributing energy to different parts of the body. The concept is quite younger than meditation, and mainly deals with health maintenance issues. It is also gaining wide acceptance in China and other parts of the world for varied purposes, chiefly health maintenance, as a medical profession, or even as a form of spiritual exercise.

Although the technique primarily addresses physical health issues, some form of breathing exercises are also a part of highly evolved Qigong procedures. Qigong evens helps you in learning Chinese Martial Art skills, as it centres on the concept of optimization of energy channels within the human body and thereby helps you in maximizing the use of energy you possess.

Thus, it is clearly evident that the two concepts have basic differences in terms of application of the procedure. As meditation doesn't involve any sort of physical work-outs, neither it has an explicit effects over the health of individual; whereas Qigong mainly hops around the issue of health maintenance.