The Benefits of Reiki for Mental Health
Have you experienced the mental health benefits of Reiki?
How is your mental health today? Reiki is a powerful tool for your mental health, helping you to release stress, anxiety and find spiritual clarity.
In this blog, I will share with you some of the emerging scholarly research on the mental health benefits of Reiki. The good news is that research on Reiki is increasingly positive, demonstrating that Reiki can offer a wide range of benefits to improve mental health and quality of life. It is also easy to administer and implement in mental health and addiction recovery facilities and can be used as an overall strategy to improve health outcomes and treatment quality.
Beyond the research on mental health and Reiki, I would also love to share with you little more about the “why.” Why is Reiki so beneficial for your mental health?
In this blog, I have narrowed down my five top reasons why Reiki can enhance your mental health. The content of this article is based on my experience of working with Reiki my own life, providing Reiki treatments to thousands of Reiki clients, training hundreds of people in Reiki courses and studying Reiki from a variety of diverse lineages in order to more fully understand the underlying mechanism of why Reiki works.
Before I elaborate below, I want to be clear that Reiki should never be used as a replacement for necessary psychological care. It is designed to provide a compliment not a replacement to traditional psychotherapy or psychiatry.
Recent scholarly research on the benefit of Reiki for mental health:
Reiki for mental health care is gaining popularity in mental health facilities. Reiki can be a way to improve health outcomes and treatment quality (Source).
The evidence to date suggests that Reiki consistently demonstrates a greater therapeutic effect over placebo for some symptoms of mental health, including anxiety, depression, stress and burnout, as well as enhance overall quality of life (Source). Studies suggest that integrating Reiki therapy into holistic care can address the interconnectedness of body, mind, and soul, contributing to overall well-being (Source).
Given the current research on the benefit of Reiki, studies have concluded that incorporating Reiki as a complementary treatment to mainstream psychotherapy for depression, stress, and anxiety may be appropriate (Source).
Reiki is also increasingly being used as a holistic treatment in some addiction recovery treatment centers (Source).
Reiki offers holistic treatment that can be utilized in conjunction with evidence-based therapies to help mental health disorders (Source).
Why is Reiki helpful for your mental health?
Here are my top five reasons:
1) Reiki helps you process stuck emotions and thoughts.
The "ki" of Reiki means energy, life force, vitality, spirit or even mood. In Eastern traditions, your ki is thought to represent your quality of thought, emotion and bridges into your spiritual life. How you think and feel is expressed in your ki, your energy. Have you ever felt like you had emotions or thoughts running through your head like a song on repeat? Reiki can help you acknowledge, process and ultimately release emotions and thoughts. The result? Less feeling stuck and more mental and emotional clarity.
2) Reiki provides stress relief.
Whether you suffer from acute or long term mental health struggles, stress is undoubtedly a contributing factor. The most commonly reported benefit of Reiki is a reduction in stress. Studies have shown that Reiki lowers the stress response of the heart in both humans and animals. In clinical trials, people with mild depression and stress experienced significant reduction of their symptoms and the beneficial effects lasted for at least one year following treatment. Reiki research suggests that Reiki reduces stress, pain, depression and anxiety, and can help mild Alzheimer’s patients to overcome their cognitive impairment to some degree (Source).
3) Reiki raises your vibration.
While scientific studies on Reiki are incredibly useful, there are also intangible/metaphysical benefits of Reiki like an increased capacity for spiritual clarity, a mindset shift and a feeling of being enveloped in a blissful healing energy. In Chinese, the same two kanji that represent Reiki are calledling chi. Ling chi describes a type of highly refined spiritual energy that enhances your spiritual awareness and provides fuel for the highest level of spiritual work (International House of Reiki Shoden Manual). Reiki can help you release negative energy, resolve emotional turmoil, regain your balance and be energized and aligned around positive intention...amongst many other benefits! The vibe is high!
4) Reiki helps you to access your true self.
The Japanese language is beautiful and descriptive. Long before Reiki was Reiki as we know it today, the Japanese had a system for describing life energies. These life energies include tangible and intangible concepts like blood, one's innate constitution, relationships, ego, etc. The life energy that resides closest to the divine creative force is called Reiki, a "soul force" or "spiritual power" (Lubeck, Spirit of Reiki). This energy isn't something outside of yourself but who you really are on a deep spiritual, soulful level...your true self.
5) Reiki provides healing to the root cause.
Reiki is a system of healing that works with you on an energetic and spiritual level. In the Japanese worldview, our mind and heart is called the “kokoro” and when united it means your soul. There are two symbols that we work with in the system of Reiki that are learned in the second degree Reiki course that directly correlate to enhanced mental health.
First is the second Reiki symbol, abbreviated as SHK. This symbol is said to help you harmonize your mind and heart and to help you find a balance in the highs and lows of life. This symbol and the energy it represents is commonly understood to help heal bad habits, including addiction.
Secondly and perhaps most profoundly, the third Reiki symbol (abbreviated as HSZSN) can be translated from Japanese to English as "My original nature is a correct thought.” It is through this symbol and the energy it represents we begin to gain more clarity around our thoughts and begin to awaken to what they understand in Japanese as “correct consciousness” or thinking clearly.
Through the practice of Reiki we become more aware of the root cause of our dis-ease in our mind and heart. With knowledge comes power to rethink what is possible and transform our reality.
Healing isn't a silver bullet. True healing takes time. Through acceptance, compassion and deep love and care for oneself you can make tremendous progress in your mental health!!!
Ready to see if Reiki can enhance your mental health? Here are a few ways to get started:
Learn Reiki to bring Reiki into your life as a daily spiritual practice. Review my current Reiki courses on my events page or join the waitlist to be notified about my upcoming Reiki courses.
I have an upcoming Shoden: Reiki Level I course, the entry point into learning Reiki. There is still time to join us. Follow this link to learn more + register.
Sending my deep love and respect for you and for the importance of mental health!
In solidarity,
Carrie Varela
“True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.”
~ Brene Brown ~
