I was born in a doctor's family. I heard from my Mom that I was born pre-maturely and was destined to be very weak physically from my infancy. She told me that I even had the chicken pox one more time than normal. The second time I had chicken pox, my eyes could not move. Due to the fact that my father was a doctor, I was rescued in time. Otherwise, I would have lost my life.
Under the influence and education of my father, I have always enjoyed taking part in physical exercises. Ever since primary school, I enjoyed running and playing basketball. I kept up this habit for years. As a result, during my school years, I did pretty well in my physical education classes. However, I did very poorly in the activities that required strength and endurance. I looked very thin and my appetite was poor. When studying, I lacked energy. In 1959 when I was set to take the entrance examination for college, I started suffering from neurasthenia insomnia. It was a heavy burden that I carried for 38 years. After finishing my university studies, I continued to keep up the physical exercises. Since I was young, I could still manage to handle the heavy workload from my studies. Throughout all of this though, I was unable to shake the insomnia.
In 1964, when I was waiting to graduate and be assigned a work unit, every day I went to the swimming pool in my school to swim for 1,000 meters. I understood that since I had a poor constitution, I had to work hard to have a strong body. After I went to work, I paid close attention to nutrition, and I also kept up the physical exercises. However, having a strong body that was full of energy was something that remained out of reach for me.
In 1970 when I went to the Wuqi Cadre School located at Xichan, besides playing basketball, I swam during the winter. I remembered that it was snowing heavily when I went to swim. My schoolmates at the Wuqi Cadre School came out to have a look. I swam for almost 100 meters before I came ashore. I felt proud of my accomplishment and went back with a smile. I was able to play two basketball games back to back, so I felt pretty good about myself. However, the severe insomnia came back to haunt me. I again lacked the energy and appetite that a young person should have.
In 1971, I returned to the factory and got married. My insomnia became worse after having two children and an increased load at work. I was in my 30's, and I could still survive with a low dosage of sleeping pills to get the rest needed for work and study. I then decided to try out Taichi instead of the usual physical exercises, and I continued doing it for more than twenty years.
However, the persistent insomnia got worse with the passage of time.
Before I retired in September of 1997, in order to have a good sleep, I had to take five sleeping pills and drink a bottle of beer at lunch. It was like this almost every day. The beer and the tablets were damaging my liver and heart. When I was young, I had chronic hepatitis, which was cured. However, my liver functioned very poorly for a long time. My energy level was so poor that if I slept a little bit less in the evening, I would get bad headaches the next day. I also had digestive problems and would have trouble going back to sleep if I woke up during the night. It seemed like any disruption at all in my routine would prevent me from sleeping. At that point, I had tried so many different treatments to no avail, and I was only 57 years old. I thought that after I retired, the only thing left to try was Qigong [traditional Chinese exercises for cultivating "qi" or "vital energy".]
In September of 1997, when I learnt that I could retire early, I filled out the application. At this time, my cousin and her husband had started practicing Falun Gong. After learning that I had retired, they invited me to go to the practice site of the 930 Factory to do the exercises. At the beginning, I only did the exercises at night, and later we went to the practice site at Jinhua Park. This was during the Spring Festival, and I took on amazing changes after practicing Falun Gong for only three months. I did not need to take the sleeping pills that I had relied on for decades. I suddenly possessed the energy that I only dreamt about in my youth. Once I went to the railway station to pick up my niece, and because the train was delayed, I slept for only three hours that night. The next day, I felt perfectly fine and practiced the five Falun Gong exercises and studied the Falun Gong teachings with no problem. This would never have been possible before I started practicing Falun Gong.
After being weak and unhappy for decades, my life changed completely. I felt so much better and could eat all kinds of foods that I dared not eat before. My wife remarked over and over on how much better I looked. When I rode my bike to my brother's place, I did not feel as tired as I was before. On the next day, I could still ride my bike to go to my other brother's place. My face turned a ruddy colour, and my weight also increased to a healthy level. Everyone around me was amazed by my dramatic improvement. When one co-worker met me on the street, she was surprised and said, "If you did not say something to me, I wouldn't have recognised you." She said that I was a completely new person.
I am one of many, many cases in which Falun Gong changed the lives of its practitioners. Because of the amazing benefits that I have personally experienced, I will never stop practicing Falun Gong.
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