Reiki

Just curious if anyone has tried Reiki and if you have how did it work out for you?

 

It's considered to be a form of pseudoscience/quackery. Any benefit is derived from the placebo effect and it's usually transient. The answers are within us and not in the alternative world which is often expensive and rife with scams and con artists. It's never about treating symptoms and always about discovering the psychological cause so we can eliminate the tms strategy.

 

I’m a trained reiki practitioner, although I’ve never used it on anyone but myself and my pets. You are right that its main benefit is relaxation, although I believe that we are made of energy and practices such as reiki and qi gong that help direct energy can be useful as a tool in mind/body healing.
To each their own!

 

I do agree that energy work can be a somatic form of therapy to calm down the brain, but my concern is that people view it as some kind of "cure" and not simply a "tool". If it helps a person relax, there is nothing wrong with that but "buyer beware"...I have been down the road of acupuncture, sound therapy, chiropractors, nonsensical Lyme labs etc. and they were all a colossal waste of money and time. I also went down the alternative rabbit holes with my son's autism...homeoepathy,, supplements, special diets, sound therapy, DAN doctors etc. and they were all scams preying on desperate parents imo. I think meditation, yoga, walks in nature, journaling, Qi gong are great modalities because they only require yourself and they are free.

 

I’ve been down that expensive rabbit hole, too! It’s mostly a waste of time and money.

I agree that things one can do for oneself and are free is best. I spent thousands of dollars just trying to get to the point that I felt like I had a decent quality of life. Expensive lesson: it’s all within us.

 

Thanks for your reply. I’m mostly using it as a form or stress release and I’m pairing it with yoga . I think it’s to be able to Go into a deeper mindset of setting intentions and trying to relax my busy mind .

 

Here's my 2 cents: if you and the reiki practitioner both understand that the "laying on of hands" produces what can be a powerful placebo effect, I say go for it. Anything that consciously helps relax the nervous system, calms the fearful brain, and allows the brain to focus on desirable outcomes is valuable - but it's not a mystery. It absolutely can be done on your own - but just like therapy, sometimes it's beneficial, or simply enjoyable, to have a guide who understand where you're at, and knows where you need to be.

I use the placebo effect to focus my mind on a specific goal, and, in common with almost everyone at one time or another, I have done this for years without knowing it. A typical example is taking Vitamin C and echinacea when people around me are getting sick. While I was still working, I did this for two decades during the two weeks before April 15, so that I would never (again) get really sick just before the tax deadline, when I was working twelve hours a day seven days a week. And it totally worked, even though everyone agrees that Vitamin C does little to nothing for the immune system. After I started doing this work in 2011, I realized that the conscious act of taking the Vitamin C focused my brain on boosting my immune system with a specific goal of avoiding whatever bug was going around - which is how the placebo effect must work.

There are researchers studying how the placebo effect can be used to consistently achieve the positive results they are seeing - results that are achieved even when patients are made fully aware that they are receiving a placebo. No funding from Big Pharma for such studies, however...

Anyway, it's all about mindfully partnering with your brain so that you are consciously in control of your physiology.

~Jan

 

I've been considering giving it a shot. As Sarno has said, your intention is important when going into something like this. As with massage, if you go into it for the relaxation benefits, it will be beneficial. If you go into it with the expectation that it will "heal" you, it may do more harm than good.