Reiki is a holistic, light-touch, energy-based healing method. Reiki attempts to reestablish the normal flow of ki (life force energy) throughout your entire body. When you balance this life force energy, you could also improve your body’s healing ability.
Reiki involves a series of hand positions used either directly on or just above the body. When you have a Reiki treatment, a practitioner lets the flow of energy from their own body enter yours. You then draw off the amount of energy that you need. Reiki is a simple but effective method for healing that could actually produce measurable results.
What can Reiki do for you?
Reiki could help you to feel more balanced, less stressed out, and more relaxed. Reiki might also give you more energy and help you to feel more creative and connected to the world. Reiki treatments could help you relax and heal old injuries.
Reiki could help lessen pain and improve your range of movement. Reiki has also been used in the treatment of sleep disorders. And Reiki has been used to treat those with weakened immune systems. In general, treatments should improve your overall sense of well-being.
The Research
In one clinical trial, researchers wanted to find out which would better help patients undergoing cancer treatment: bed rest or Reiki. Fatigue is a common side effect experienced during cancer treatment and recovery. In the clinical trial, researchers from the Department of Psychology at the University of Calgary gave 16 patients either Reiki treatments for five consecutive days or bed rest for one hour each day for five consecutive days.
In both cases, participants completed questionnaires investigating cancer-related fatigue and overall quality of life before and after all Reiki or resting sessions. They also completed a visual scale that monitored daily tiredness, pain, and anxiety before and after each session of Reiki or rest.
The researchers discovered that tiredness decreased in the Reiki group compared to the “resting” group. As well, participants receiving the Reiki treatments experienced significant improvements in quality of life compared to those assigned the one-hour resting periods.
And in one more clinical trial performed at the Institute of Neurological Sciences, Glasgow, a research team set out to record what nervous system changes happened in the body during Reiki treatments, if any. Forty-five subjects were randomly divided into three groups.
The first group received no treatment, the second group received a Reiki treatment from an experienced practitioner, and the third group received a placebo treatment from a person with no knowledge of Reiki and who mimicked the Reiki treatment.
Heart rate and other nervous system changes were recorded continuously during the treatments. The researchers found that heart rate and diastolic blood pressure decreased significantly in the Reiki group compared to both placebo and control groups.