Reiki for Chronic Pain
Chronic pain affects the lifestyle of millions of people every day. The pain can last for months or even years. It may disappear and then return for no obvious reason, may be limited to a single part of the anatomy, or affect the entire body. Chronic pain may not even have a clear connection to a physical cause. Often the pain cannot be measured by conventional diagnostic tests, yet it is real and can be life altering.
Finding a practitioner who can successfully treat chronic pain can be frustrating. Many people go from doctor to doctor achieving only minimal relief. This is especially true when the cause of the pain cannot be attributed to a specific physical event, such as a broken bone or arthritis. Reiki is a system of healing that treats the entire person both mentally and physically. It is non-invasive and can be used alone or as a complementary therapy with other conventional or alternative therapies for chronic pain.
How Does Reiki Help Chronic Pain?
Chronic pain can arise from many sources, both physical and emotional. These include pain from stress; psychological, spiritual, and emotional distress; from injuries and physical overwork; and pain caused by disease.
By opening up a channel between healer and patient to transfer energy, a reiki healer restores the body both physically and mentally. Muscles are relaxed and energy flow is unblocked. This helps reduce physical tension and pain. Anxiety and stress also are reduced, helping to unblock and release emotional pain. Although the patient may not be completely pain free, he or she feels relaxed, refreshed, and is better able to cope with his or her condition.
Reiki for Cancer Pain and Fatigue
Pain and fatigue are almost universal side effects of cancer and cancer treatment. Beginning in the late 1990s, a number of studies found that reiki treatment significantly reduced the fatigue, pain, and anxiety, and improved the overall quality of life in cancer patients. Particularly striking was the reduction in fatigue. This is believed to be a result of the rebalancing of energy in areas of the body experiencing disease and discomfort. Reiki treatments allowed patients to better control their pain and reduce their dependence on conventional pain opiod medications.
Reiki for Lower Back Pain
Lower back pain is the most common type of chronic pain. Treatment of chronic lower back pain is often frustrating for conventional medical practitioners because the source of the pain is non-specific. Reiki treats lower back pain with a holistic approach. It goes beyond site-specific treatment by releasing and rebalancing energy flow and reducing the stress. It also opens emotional channels and releases stressful emotions that may be causing the body to assume physically painful defensive postures that result in lower back pain.
Reiki for Pain from Injuries
Pain from injuries, whether chronic, such as carpal tunnel syndrome and other repetitive stress injuries, or acute, such as a sports injury, can be alleviated or moderated through the use of reiki. The healer directs energy toward the site of the pain, stimulating healing. Reiki can be used either alone or in conjunction with other healing therapies to treat injuries.
Reiki for Emotional Pain
Reiki is extremely effective in healing pain caused by emotional tensions and psychological distress that has built up inside the body. Often disturbing emotions manifest themselves as physical tension. Reiki works on a physical level, rebalancing energy flow to relieve tension, but the channel it opens between healer and patient also allow it to work on a psychological and spiritual level to release traumatic emotions. The release of distressing thought helps the patient find mental peace and spiritual renewal.
What Happens During Reiki Healing?
A trained reiki master will conduct the reiki healing session. Sessions can take place in an office, clinic, or home and usually last from one to one-and-a-half hours. When beginning treatment, the patient often has three or four sessions on consecutive days, followed by less frequent sessions. Reiki sessions are often not covered by conventional medical insurance.
In order for reiki to be effective, the patient is asked to bring the correct attitude of acceptance, openness, and responsibility to the reiki session. The patient lies down fully clothed, usually on a massage table. Starting at the head, the reiki master places his or her hands on the body with the fingertips touching. Without applying any pressure, the healer uses concentrated mental visualization to send focused energy to the places where the patient needs it. The hands remain still to allow energy transfer. Hand positions are held for about five minutes, and then a new site is selected.
What is Reiki?
Reiki is a form of energy work based on unblocking and balancing the flow of universal life energy in order to bring about physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual healing.This healing system was developed by Dr. Mikao Usui (1865-1926), a Japanese scholar. Dr. Usui was fascinated by spiritual healing and intensively studied many ancient texts that dealt with the subject.
Reiki is based on the concept that every living thing has an energy field that must be balanced in order to maintain proper mental, physical, and spiritual health. Illness, including chronic pain, occurs when this energy field is either blocked or weakened. Reiki practitioners through special training can unblock universal energy or transfer it from themselves to someone whose energy field is weak, thus promoting healing. Normally, unblocking and energy transfer are done through touch. Advanced practitioners can perform reiki healing without touch, either by holding their hands close to the body or, if the patient is far away, through visualization.
About Reiki Practitioners
Reiki practitioners undergo a series of sessions under the direction of reiki masters in which they learn to tap into their own universal life energy and transfer it to others. These sessions are called attunements. The first level of training usually consists of four three-hour sessions during which the basic hand positions are taught. A second level of training is offered that allows practitioners to intensify their healing powers to the degree that they can perform long-distance healing through visualization.
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