5 Wellness Traditions That Began in Ancient China

Throughout history, most traditional Chinese remedies were either consumed as tea or soup, Venit-Shelton says. This made them particularly easy to adapt to the Western palate. “We have to go back to the era of Marco Polo,” to trace the history of Chinese herbal teas in the West, she adds, noting that the teas and other remedies brought back by the first European traders were instantly popular.

“In the colonial [American] period, it would be very, very common to import Chinese medicines through London-based apothecaries to American apothecaries. They would be sold by itinerant peddlers, and you could buy them through catalogs,” Venit-Shelton explains, highlighting that the earliest documented merchant who claimed Chinese ancestry in the United States specialized in selling teas and other remedies in 1799.

Chinese herbal remedies became even more accessible as the number of Chinese doctors and healers in the United States grew. In the 1800s and early 1900s, Chinese enclaves and Chinatowns popped up around the country, drawing clientele from both the Chinese immigrant community and the general population, says Venit-Shelton.

Qigong (pronounced "chee-gong") is a coordinated system of meditative breathing, movement and exercise that originated in ancient China. Its earliest recorded references date back to the Zhou dynasty (1100–770 B.C.), though the practice itself is believed to have developed even earlier as part of Chinese philosophy and healing traditions. The name of the exercise is derived from the ancient concept of qi, the vital energy believed to flow through the human body.

“Qigong is like meditative breathing paired with light stretching,” Venit-Shelton says. While she is often asked if early Chinese immigrants like the workers who played an integral role in building the Transcontinental Railroad engaged in traditional practices like qigong, Venit-Shelton notes that the historical record is unclear. “There’s so much we don’t know, not just about Chinese railroad workers but about the timber workers, miners and [all of the people] who were part of the earliest waves of immigration,” she says. “But we do know they were bringing medicine and medical manuals with them to do self-care.”

Like qigong, tai chi incorporates breathwork, movement and meditation. It traces its history to at least the 15th century. Tai chi walking, the slow, deliberate steps and hand gestures that ground a tai chi practice, are typically the first movements practitioners learn while adopting the exercise. 

Although it is considered an ancient martial art, it was the Brooklyn-born dancer Sophia Delza who introduced tai chi to American audiences. She studied tai chi extensively under master teacher Ma Yueliang while living in Shanghai after World War II. Upon her return to New York City, she opened the Delza School of Tai Chi Chuan at Carnegie Hall in 1954. That same year, Delza gave what is believed to be the first public tai chi demonstration in the United States at the Museum of Modern Art.

Delza wrote and spoke about the health benefits of tai chi for the rest of her life, noting in the introduction of her 1961 book T’ai-Chi Ch’uan: Body and Mind in Harmony that her goal was a simple one. She wished to draw attention to tai chi as a “masterpiece of health exercise…supremely suitable in these modern times.”

As diplomatic relations between China and the United States evolved in the mid-20th century, so did treatments like acupuncture, Venit-Shelton says. “Acupuncture in China was [historically] street surgery,” she explains. “Up until the early 1900s, acupuncture was more like minor surgery, little scalpels, little retractors. The purpose of acupuncture was actually to allow blood to flow and qi to flow.” 

After the Communist Revolution ended in 1949, Mao Zedong invested in standardizing and expanding acupuncture education across China.

“Acupuncture got kind of reinvented and simplified, and that’s the form that then got exported to the United States,” Venit-Shelton says. Diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1972 helped pave the way for that exchange.

The ancient concept of yangsheng—which translates to “nourishing life”—is a self-guided health management system that focuses on aligning one’s eating, exercise and other habits with the seasons.

Yangsheng traces its roots to Daoism, a Chinese philosophical and religious tradition that emphasizes living in harmony with the dao, or the natural order of the universe. It dates back to at least the Three Kingdoms era from A.D. 220–280. Over the centuries, the practice has evolved to place greater emphasis on mental health and self-care.

Long associated with community elders, yangsheng has found a new audience among younger people in China and beyond through a trend known as “punk yangsheng.” The movement blends traditional wellness principles with modern lifestyles, inspiring habits such as drinking goji berry lattes, swapping iced drinks for hot water and prioritizing meditation and work-life balance. Its growing popularity reflects a broader desire among young people to manage stress and improve their health while navigating the pressures of fast-paced modern life.