Brainwaves and Qigong: what the EEG really shows

Author: Raymond Hackland · Last reviewed: 28 October 2026 · Reading time: about 14 minutes

In short

What this is: A popular post says that most of us “live in beta” brainwaves and that Qigong helps the mind “downshift” into calmer alpha and theta. I went looking for the research behind that line.

What the evidence says: Studies of Qigong and similar practices often, but not always, find more alpha activity, and sometimes more theta [1–4]. The studies are small, their results depend on timing and method, and some find no change or the opposite [2, 5, 6]. Theta is read in this literature as a sign of concentration as much as calm [7, 8]. On “coherence”, the evidence conflicts [1, 8, 9]. No study I found shows an effect that is specific to Qigong.

What it means for your practice: An EEG can show that the brain’s electrical rhythm changes while people practise. It can’t tell you how you feel. If practice feels quiet to you, that experience stands on its own; a brainwave label wouldn’t prove it.

The post that made me curious

Label for this section: 🟠 Speculative (the post’s claim, as worded).

Recently I came across a Qigong post on Instagram. It said: “Most of us live in BETA brainwaves: fast, busy, thinking mode. Great for problem-solving, but it can also feel restless and anxious. Qigong helps your mind ‘downshift’ from beta into calmer alpha and theta waves” [10]. The caption added that in the book The Way of Qigong, the author describes an EEG study of Qigong practitioners that found more alpha, more theta and “greater Coherence (brain waves syncing across different areas of the brain)” [10].

It’s a lovely, simple picture, passed on from a well-known book. But it’s a claim about science, so it deserves to be checked like one.

When I first saw the post, my thought was: that’s interesting. I know a little about entrainment, and the idea that brain rhythms fall into step with an outside rhythm, and I also know how crowded that field is, with “brainwave music” promising to help you sleep, focus or stay calm. I wasn’t sceptical, exactly. It’s quite a statement, and without knowing the experiments it sounded believable to me, because it matched what I’ve felt in practice and what participants in my Immersions describe. That’s exactly why I wanted to check it.

I like to think of this kind of question as a coin. On one side is the science: what the measurements actually show. On the other side is experience: what practitioners, including me, notice when we practise. I stand in the middle and try to keep both sides in view without letting one pretend to be the other. This article spends most of its time on the science side, and comes back to experience at the end.

“Downshift” is the post’s own word. It doesn’t appear in any of the studies I read, or in the passages from the book’s author that I could check, so I keep it in quotation marks.

Brainwaves in plain words

Label for this section: 🟡 Early evidence (how the bands are used in this research).

An EEG (electroencephalogram) records very small, changing voltages through electrodes placed on the scalp. Two of the studies below, for example, analysed signals from 15 and from 19 electrodes [6, 9]. Researchers split the recording into frequency bands, from slow to fast: delta, theta, alpha, beta and gamma, sometimes with sub-bands (one study below used eight bands in all) [9]. Definitions vary a little between labs. In one of the Taijiquan (太极拳, Tàijíquán) trials below, for example, theta was 4–7.5 Hz and alpha 7.5–12.5 Hz [6]. Three points matter for everything that follows.

• Bands are not states. The brain doesn’t switch bands like a radio changing stations. A recording always contains all the bands at once; studies report the power in each band, at particular places on the head.
• The comparison is everything. “More alpha” means more than something: eyes-closed rest, before the session, or a control group. A result can flip with the comparison.
• The meaning is an interpretation. A change in band power is a correlate. By itself it says nothing about how anyone feels, and researchers don’t always agree on how to read it.

Where the claim comes from

Label for this section: 🟡 Early evidence (the older studies) · 📜 Documented history (who studied what, and when).

The book behind the post

The book the post mentions is The Way of Qigong by Kenneth Cohen, published in 1997 [11]. In an interview with Russell E. DiCarlo (republished on healthy.net), Cohen says that Qigong causes “a slowing of the brain waves, going from the usual distracted beta state, towards… alpha and theta”, and that there is “a tendency towards brain wave synchronization” [12]. So the post is close to what Cohen says in this interview. He also mentions a study of brainwave synchronicity between a healer and a group of patients, which is a different question again [12].

He doesn’t name the study in the passages I could check, and we could not search the book itself. If a paper copy’s notes settle it, I’ll update this article.

The Chinese laboratories of the 1980s

Cohen’s description fits a body of Chinese research from the 1980s. These studies are candidates only. Nothing I found shows that he cited any of them.

• Beidaihe, 1984. A team from the Institute of Biophysics and the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences worked with the Beidaihe Qigong Sanatorium to record the EEG of 78 adults aged 32 to 72 during the Qigong quiet state, 气功入静 (qìgōng rùjìng, “entering stillness in Qigong”) [1]. The frontal area showed less delta and more alpha, and coherence between frontal and back-of-the-head (occipital) areas rose “at definite frequencies” [1]. The authors’ “quietness index” was higher during Qigong than at rest and lower during sleep, and did not differ between the three methods compared: Neiyang gong (内养功, nèiyǎng gōng), Qiangzhuang gong (强壮功, qiángzhuàng gōng) and Xuming gong (虚明功, xūmíng gōng) [1]. One co-author was Liu Guizhen, the central figure in our article The making of modern Qigong: Liu Guizhen, Tangshan and Beidaihe. The three methods studied, among them Liu Guizhen’s Neiyang gong, come from the sanatorium-based clinical Qigong of the 1950s, which belongs to the Medical root (see The Six Roots of Qigong).
• 1988, computer mapping. Early computerised EEG mapping showed alpha concentrated towards the front of the head during the Qigong state, with a slower alpha peak than at rest [13]. The abstract doesn’t give the number of people.
• 1988, a conference abstract. A Beijing group claims that, compared “with a healthy person”, alpha increased, moved towards the front and was “synchronized” during Qigong, and that emitted qi and infrasound affected other people’s EEG [14]. These are claims, not tested findings: a conference abstract with no evidence of peer review and an unclear comparison group.
• 1997, a study that cuts the other way. A Japanese team recorded nine Qigong masters and found no significant difference between Qigong and rest, with large differences from one person to the next [5].

These were serious attempts with the tools of their time. But the samples were small or unclear, nothing was randomised, and the coherence methods of the day couldn’t separate two brain areas genuinely working together from two electrodes simply picking up the same signal (volume conduction).

What tradition says

Label for this section: 🔵 Tradition only (classical texts, not measurements).

Chinese texts have their own words for a quiet mind. They describe it from the inside, as something cultivated rather than measured. That is a different kind of description from an EEG, and I don’t read either as confirming the other. The translations are my own working translations.

• Stillness, 静 (jìng). Chapter 16 of the Daodejing (道德经, Dàodéjīng), a classic of the Daoist root, opens, in the received Wang Bi text: “致虛極，守靜篤” [28]. In my words: reach emptiness to the utmost, hold to stillness steadfastly. The same chapter, in that text, says that returning to the root is called stillness (歸根曰靜) [28].
• Fasting of the heart, 心斋 (xīnzhāi). In chapter 4 of the Zhuangzi (庄子, Zhuāngzǐ), Confucius tells Yan Hui to listen not with the ears, and not even with the heart (心, xīn, the seat of both feeling and thought), but with qi. He ends: “唯道集虛。虛者，心齋也” [29]: only the Way gathers in emptiness, and emptiness is the fasting of the heart. The chapter also warns against “sitting while racing” (坐馳, zuòchí): the body still, the mind running [29].
• Sitting and forgetting, 坐忘 (zuòwàng). In chapter 6, Yan Hui describes letting go of body, perception and knowledge until he is “同於大通”, one with the great pervasion: “此謂坐忘”, this is called sitting and forgetting [30].
• The Medical root. The first chapter of the Suwen (素问, Sùwèn) says the sages of high antiquity urged people to be “恬惔虛無”, calm, plain and empty, with essence and spirit kept within (精神內守) [31]. The chapter links this way of living to reaching a full span of years. That is the text’s own traditional claim, not a finding, and not one I make. In modern clinical Qigong this quiet state is called 入静 (rùjìng, “entering stillness”); the 1984 Beidaihe study uses the term [1].

These are philosophical and medical classics, not practice manuals or measurements. Our article Stillness and posture: sitting and standing practice in the internal traditions reads the two Zhuangzi passages more fully.

What science says

Label for this section: 🟡 Early evidence.

Liu Zi Jue and Wu Qin Xi

The only EEG study of Liu Zi Jue (六字诀, liù zì jué, the traditional Six Healing Sounds) I found is by Henz and Schöllhorn at the University of Mainz [2]. Twenty people with at least a year’s regular Qigong experience practised Liu Zi Jue and Wu Qin Xi (五禽戏, wǔ qín xì, the “five animals”) in 15-minute blocks, with resting EEG before and after each block [2]. Alpha fell after 15 minutes of Liu Zi Jue, then rose after 30, so a snapshot at 15 minutes would have told the opposite story from one at 30. Wu Qin Xi showed the same fall-then-rise pattern, but in theta [2]. The authors suggest that the different patterns may come from the different styles of attention and breathing in each form [2]. An earlier study by the same team had 25 people do Wu Qin Xi physically and as mental rehearsal, in randomised order: alpha rose at the back of the head after both, and theta results were mixed [15]. Neither study had a non-Qigong control group.

Taiji and Baduanjin

• Taiji, one small trial. One randomised trial, reported in two papers, analysed 45 college students (22 in Taiji, 23 controls who kept to their daily routines) over 12 weeks [3, 16]. The Taiji group showed more resting alpha, and more theta, than the controls [3, 16]. Because the controls did nothing new, the trial can’t separate Taiji from simply taking part in something regular and attentive.
• Taiji against an active control. A 2026 trial randomised 32 women who were inpatients in compulsory detoxification for amphetamine-type stimulant dependence to six months of Taiji or matched-intensity physical rehabilitation; 24 were analysed [6]. Resting alpha and theta fell in both groups [6].
• Baduanjin (八段锦, bāduànjǐn). One non-randomised comparison of 22 long-term and 21 short-term learners found that, after a set of the form, the long-term group showed a significant shift in frontal alpha asymmetry, which the authors call “left lateralization” [17]. This measures the balance between the two sides of the head, not the amount of alpha.
• Reviews. A 2018 review of Taiji in older adults found 11 studies, only four of them using EEG [18]. A 2026 scoping review of 22 Taiji studies concluded that this literature “does not yet support specific mechanisms” [19].

Other often-quoted studies are very small: one practitioner recorded decades apart [20], and two people, one of them a master [21]. Two source-imaging studies of experienced Qigong meditators asked where in the brain activity differed: one found resting differences from non-meditators in the delta band [22], the other, comparing two Qigong meditations, found differences in the alpha-2 and beta-1 bands [23]. Neither tells a simple alpha-and-theta story.

Meditation in general

Much of what is said about Qigong and brainwaves is borrowed from meditation research.

• A 2006 review described “overall slowing” of the EEG after meditation, with alpha and theta related to how practised people were [24].
• A 2015 review of 56 studies of mindfulness found that more alpha and theta, compared with eyes-closed rest, was the commonest finding, “although such outcomes were not uniformly reported”, and read it as a sign of “relaxed alertness” [4].
• A 2026 exploratory meta-analysis found significant positive pooled effects for alpha, beta and gamma, but not for theta, with substantial heterogeneity; the effect sizes mix different kinds of comparison, and the extra effect for meditation compared with rest was not robust [25]. The paper is closed access, so we couldn’t check the number of studies or the effect sizes (see Study types explained: from anecdote to meta-analysis on reading pooled results).

The coherence puzzle

Label for this section: 🟠 Speculative (conflicting evidence).

Coherence, the post’s “greater Coherence” [10], measures how closely the rhythms at two places rise and fall together. Here the evidence points both ways.

• Increases. The 1984 Beidaihe study reported more frontal–occipital coherence “at definite frequencies” [1]. A 2011 randomised trial of Shaolin dan tian (丹田, dāntián) breathing against progressive muscle relaxation, with 22 and 20 people analysed, found higher theta coherence after the active form of the breathing; the authors call theta coherence an index of “attention and alertness” [8].
• Decreases. The one study I found that used a volume-conduction-corrected coherence method recorded 71 experienced meditators from five traditions, 15 of them Qigong practitioners [9]. Its “lagged” coherence removes the inflation caused by volume conduction. Every significant change during meditation was a decrease, across all five traditions and in all eight frequency bands analysed [9]. It compared rest, meditation and rest within the same people, with no non-meditator control group.

That doesn’t make the older findings worthless, but “Qigong syncs your brain” can’t be stated as a fact, and none of the sources links coherence changes in Qigong to wellbeing.

Is it Qigong, or breathing and stillness?

Label for this section: 🟠 Speculative (any Qigong-specific effect).

No study I found compares Qigong with a matched non-Qigong practice on these EEG measures and finds a Qigong-specific effect. The Shaolin breathing trial used a relaxation comparison, but it measured asymmetry and coherence, not a shift from beta to alpha and theta [8]. The 1984 study shows only that three Qigong methods didn’t differ from one another [1].

Similar patterns turn up in meditation research [4, 24] and in research on slow breathing: a 2018 review of slow breathing (15 studies, only some of them with EEG) reported more alpha and less theta [26]. With the Mainz authors pointing to breathing and attention themselves [2], these are obvious candidates for part of what the EEG picks up (on the heart side, see Slow breathing and heart rate variability: what actually happens in your body).

Interpretation can also run ahead of the data. After a year of zhanzhuang (站桩, zhànzhuāng, standing practice), students’ alpha and beta indices at the right front and side of the head fell, yet the authors described brain activity moving from “active” to “harmonious” and “calm” [27]. That’s their reading; the data alone don’t say “calm”.

Where popular claims go beyond the evidence

Label for this section: 🟠 Speculative.

• “Most of us live in beta.” No source I read describes or measures a “living in beta” state, or treats beta on its own as a measure of anxiety. It’s a metaphor, not a finding.
• “Qigong makes your mind ‘downshift’ from beta into alpha and theta.” The research speaks of “overall slowing” [24] or band-power changes, not a gear change, and the changes aren’t consistent: in the Liu Zi Jue study alpha first fell, then rose [2]; the nine masters showed no significant change [5]; after a year of standing practice the alpha index fell [27]; the 2026 meta-analysis found pooled increases in beta too [25]; and the slow-breathing review found theta going down [26].
• “Alpha and theta mean a calmer mind.” Only partly. More alpha is often read as relaxation paired with attention, “a relaxed and attentive mind” [2] or “relaxed alertness” [4], but frontal theta is read as a marker of concentration [7], and theta coherence as “attention and alertness” [8].
• “Greater coherence means your brain is in sync, and that’s good for you.” The evidence conflicts, and the one study with a corrected method found decreases [9].
• “This is what Qigong does.” No study I found shows a Qigong-specific effect, and similar patterns appear with meditation and slow breathing [4, 26].

Our article Binaural beats: do brainwaves entrain? shows the same pattern: a neat story about steering your brain into a chosen band, resting on much messier research.

How this relates to the Six Healing Sounds, Qigong and neigong

Label for this section: 🟡 Early evidence (one EEG study of traditional Liu Zi Jue) · 🟠 Speculative (any link between my practice and brainwaves) · 🟣 Lived experience.

The Six Healing Sounds form I share is my own, a music-assisted practice inspired by Liu Zi Jue. The Mainz study tested the standard Health Qigong version of Liu Zi Jue, in experienced practitioners, without a non-Qigong control [2]. Its results can’t be moved across to my form. Nobody has put an EEG cap on people doing it, and I make no claims about what it does to brainwaves. Our article Six Sounds in the lab: what a 2026 brain study did and didn’t show (coming soon) looks at another brain study of the six sounds.

The other side of the coin

This is where I turn the coin over. What follows is experience, not measurement, and it is not a promise that you will notice the same.

What I notice is a deep calm. Busy thoughts and worries seem to dissolve as an Immersion goes on, and I end up very calm but also very focused. I find the same in Qigong generally, not only in the Six Healing Sounds.

Participants tend to describe the same thing. A well-known Qigong teacher once told me they could pick out the people who had been to one of my Immersions without being told, because of how calm they were: the way they moved, the way they talked, and how relaxed their eyes looked. That’s one person’s observation, not a measurement, but it stayed with me. An Immersion can also be emotional. Some people connect very strongly with the emotional journey through the six sounds, and that can feel heavy at times. Even then, people seem settled rather than tense.

People sometimes ask me whether their brain is “in alpha” during practice. Honestly, I don’t answer that one, because I can’t know what anyone’s brain is doing. What I ask instead is: how do you feel? If you feel calm, relaxed and focused, that’s your answer, and it’s one you can give yourself.

Both sides of the coin are real, but they answer different questions. The science side asks what changes in the brain’s electrical rhythm, and compared with what; so far, something often changes, in a direction that depends on timing and method, and nothing shows it’s unique to Qigong. The experience side asks what practice is like from the inside. Standing in the middle, I don’t need one side to prove the other. A quiet session is worth having whether or not an EEG would show more alpha, and a study that finds more alpha doesn’t tell me what anyone felt.

If you have a health condition, please read Who should be careful with breathing practices before you start.

Resonance Heritage Qi is a personal, music-assisted practice inspired by Liu Zi Jue: connected to it, not a replacement for the traditional form or for study with a teacher of that tradition. No study has tested it, and we make no claims about its effects. Where we use music, tuning forks or particular tones in sessions, these are aesthetic choices and an invitation to listen closely, not health claims.

Evidence labels at a glance

Claim	Label
Qigong practice is associated with EEG changes, often more alpha	🟡 Early evidence: small, inconsistent studies; results depend on timing
More theta during Qigong	🟡 Early evidence: read in the literature as focus or concentration as much as calm
“We live in beta” / “downshift from beta” (the post’s wording)	🟠 Speculative: a popular claim that goes beyond the evidence
Alpha and theta mean a calmer mind	🟠 Speculative
Greater coherence (syncing brain areas)	🟠 Speculative (conflicting evidence): older scalp-coherence studies (Sun 1984) and one RCT (Chan 2011, theta coherence) report increases; the one study with a corrected method (Lehmann 2012) found decreases
Coherence or brainwaves explain wellbeing	🟠 Speculative
Any of this is unique to Qigong	🟠 Speculative: no study I found shows Qigong-specific effects
Classical Chinese texts describe cultivating a still, quiet mind (静, 心斋, 坐忘)	🔵 Tradition only: what the texts say, not a measurement

Sources

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30. 庄子 Zhuangzi, chapter 6, 大宗师 Dazongshi. Chinese text, Wikisource edition, accessed 28 October 2026. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/莊子/大宗師
31. 黄帝内经素问 Huangdi neijing Suwen, chapter 1, 上古天真论 (Shanggu tianzhen lun). Chinese text, Wikisource edition (reads 恬淡; the traditional text, as quoted in the 古今图书集成 Gujin tushu jicheng, reads 恬惔), accessed 28 October 2026. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/黃帝內經/素問第一卷

Source quality note: [10] is a social media post, quoted only as an example of a common claim; we quote it from a screenshot taken on 27 October 2026 and don’t name the account. [12] is an interview with the author, excerpted from DiCarlo’s interview book and republished on a health website, used only for Cohen’s own description of the EEG findings; [11] is cited because the post names it, but we have not read it and could not search it. [1] is a Chinese journal paper, read in its bilingual abstract on the journal’s own site; [5] is a journal paper read as an abstract; [13], [7] and [27] are peer-reviewed studies read as abstracts ([27] is in Chinese, with an English abstract). [14] is a conference abstract with no evidence of peer review, used only to show what was being claimed in 1988. [2], [15], [3], [16] and [8] are peer-reviewed studies that we checked in their full texts; [3] and [16] report the same trial (registration ChiCTR2400081473). [6], [17], [9], [22], [23], [20] and [21] are peer-reviewed studies read as abstracts; [9]’s full text is closed, so we could not check its Qigong-only results. [24], [4], [26], [18] and [19] are peer-reviewed reviews; [25] is a peer-reviewed exploratory meta-analysis that we could read only as an abstract. [28]–[31] are primary Chinese texts read in Wikisource editions; the translations are our own working translations.