Pattern: Warmth, Sweating, and Felt Qi Movement in Sitting
Recurring reports in the practitioner archive: practitioners report whole-body warmth, sweating disproportionate to exertion, tingling, sensations of internal movement or ‘filling,’ and — in some cases — night-time episodes of felt qi movement with heat and sweat. Reports cluster in the first weeks of practice and among those who sit cross-legged for longer sessions.
Traditional reading. Warmth and sweating are framed as the body ‘repairing itself’ in the first stage of practice; felt qi movement is framed as circulation beginning. The tradition’s behavioral counsel is consistent across sources: observe the sensations without grasping, neither chase nor forcibly suppress them.
Physiological reading (as stated in Chinese health-education sources). Deep slow breathing raises oxygen intake and metabolic heat production; reduced sympathetic and increased parasympathetic activity shifts peripheral circulation; interoceptive attention lowers the threshold for noticing ordinary internal sensations. Note: these are explanations offered in health-popularization sources, not findings of dedicated trials on Daoist sitting — recorded here as such, not as established science.
The interpretive fork, stated plainly. The same felt event has at least three available descriptions — qi circulation (traditional), autonomic shift (physiological), and amplified interoception (cognitive). This knowledge base records all three and asserts none. What it does assert: persistent, localized, or alarming physical symptoms — prolonged sweats, sustained heat, swelling, pain — warrant professional medical evaluation regardless of framework.
Separation of evidence. Practitioner and community reports (PRACTITIONER EXPERIENCE / CONTEMPORARY COMMUNITY OBSERVATION); traditional explanation (TRADITIONAL / LINEAGE INTERPRETATION); physiological account (community health literature, not primary research). evidenceBasis is set to partially-researched only in the weak sense that adjacent domains (relaxation physiology, meditation and autonomic function) exist; no trial addresses these specific reports. See EXP-002, EXP-003, EXP-005.