Qigong has a long history in China. In ancient times, the contents of Qigong were usually called spitting, guiding, moving qi, convincing, alchemy, cultivation, meditation and so on. The word "Qigong" is rarely used in ancient books, and it is occasionally mentioned, and there is no complete explanation. Until the 1950s, Liu wrote in the book "The Practice of Qigong Therapy": "The word' Qi' here stands for breathing, and the word' Gong' is the practice of constantly adjusting breathing and posture ..." It is generally believed that the word "Qigong" has been confirmed and spread since then. Some foreign materials have translated Qigong into "deep breathing exercise", and some domestic reference books have also been copied. Obviously, the true meaning of Qigong has not been realized. In fact, qigong exercise includes three means: breathing, posture and mind, and each means has a variety of exercise methods. Deep breathing is just one of many breathing exercises. It can be seen that it is too one-sided to interpret the definition of Qigong as "deep breathing exercise".

If we define Qigong from the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine, Qigong is an exercise method that makes people's qi coordinate through self-exercise.

With the development of science, we can use the relevant knowledge of modern science to understand Qigong, which will further deepen our understanding of the nature of Qigong.

From the perspective of modern behavioral medicine, Qigong exercise is a behavioral therapy that studies and trains a benign behavior that is beneficial to physical and mental health through conditioned reflex and finally fixes it.

From the psychological and physiological process of Qigong's function, Qigong can be defined as a self-exercise method, which mainly uses self-suggestion as the core means to promote consciousness to enter a state of self-hypnosis, and adjust the balance of body and mind through the psychological-physiological-morphological self-adjustment mechanism to achieve the purpose of fitness and treatment.

We can also sum up the above knowledge in one sentence: Qigong is a kind of self-psychosomatic therapy with China national cultural characteristics. There are many kinds of psychosomatic therapies. Qigong is different from many other self-psychosomatic therapies in that it has the national cultural characteristics of China-a kind of practical activity that is unique to China people and guided by the theoretical content of "regulating the mind" of traditional Chinese medicine.