Anxiety can hurt your physical and mental health, making it extremely difficult to manage day-to-day tasks. It can be debilitating, preventing you from enjoying your life and living to your fullest potential.
While there are many traditional treatments for anxiety, such as medication, talk therapy, and lifestyle changes, another option has been gaining in popularity lately – Reiki.
In this article, we will discuss Reiki and how it can help with anxiety. We will also look at how anxiety can affect your body and mind and explain what happens during a Reiki session for anxiety. Let’s begin.
How Does Anxiety Influence Your Mind and Body?
Anxiety has both physical and mental implications. The brain sends warning signals to other body parts when you feel anxious, stressed, or scared. Some effects of anxiety on the body include:
Heart Problems and High Blood Pressure
The body constantly releases the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline when under pressure, which can cause an increase in heart rate and constriction of blood vessels. It’s only natural for your body to feel stress in some situations, but frequent pressure can negatively affect blood pressure.
Also, anxiety can take a toll on your heart health indirectly. You make less healthy lifestyle choices when you’re exhausted or sleep-deprived from anxious thoughts.
Insomnia
A good night’s sleep does wonders for your mental state. Unfortunately, stress can keep you up at night, and a lack of sleep will negatively affect your outlook.
Fatigue
If you suffer from anxiety, you likely experience insomnia because the feeling of panic can prevent restful sleep. As a result, you’re constantly tired because although you may be getting enough hours of sleep, they aren’t quality hours.
Headaches and migraines
Anxiety disorders can cause headaches, and people suffering from daily headaches are more likely to have an anxiety disorder.
Respiratory problems
Your mental health not only affects how you think and feel, but it can also be a trigger for physical reactions like asthma attacks. If you notice more asthma symptoms, stress or anxiety could be the underlying cause.
Digestive problems
Several problems can arise from poor gut health, including upset stomach, bloating, or indigestion. Your brain can affect your digestion and vice versa.
The gastrointestinal tract is lined with nerves communicating back and forth with the brain. Stress and anxiety are common triggers for functional digestive disorders like irritable bowel syndrome and Crohn’s disease.
Weight loss
Anxiety can also affect your appetite, especially if you’re feeling bloated and crampy from the gut-brain connection. It can result in drastic and harmful weight loss.
Low libido
Stress, anxiety, and other mental health issues can lower your sexual desire. Some adults with mood and anxiety disorders report being less satisfied with their sex life, while women with anxiety are more likely to experience pain or dryness during sex.
Dental issues
Anxiety is a common trigger for grinding teeth, leading to sore jaws or toothaches. Grinding your teeth is also connected to experiencing dull headaches. People with anxiety or depression were more likely to have bleeding gums and toothaches, regardless of their brushing and flossing habits.
How Can Reiki Help With Anxiety
Reiki is an energy healing modality that uses the practitioner’s palm chakras to channel life force energy. It can be transferred to areas of imbalance in the body with simple hand movements.
Reiki is a subtle yet powerful healing modality that stimulates the body’s natural ability to heal on all levels: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. Using a variety of hand positions on or just above the body, reiki practitioners work to increase energy levels in the body, restoring balance and health.
Reiki is a beneficial practice that helps you clear your mind and release stress. Focusing your energy on releasing negative thoughts allows your body to receive the balance it needs.
It’s also essential to mention (especially for the non-believers out there) that healing with Reiki is becoming more popular and accepted among healthcare practitioners. Hospitals and clinics across the world are accepting Reiki as a cost-effective method of improving patient care.
Let’s get back to the topic of how Reiki can help people who suffer from anxiety. Here are some of the benefits:
Lower stress levels
Reiki can help reduce the physical and mental effects of stress. Reiki helps to break up and release stress-causing thought patterns, allowing the body to relax. Reiki can help people relax and release tension with gentle touches. The energy transfer makes people feel lighter and more attuned to their inner selves, which can lead to a sense of peace.
Relaxation
Reiki helps reduce anxiety symptoms. If you are struggling with anxiety, you should try having Reiki sessions. The gentle energy healing practice and meditation music can help you relax during and after the session.
Balance the chakras
Reiki helps balance the chakras and energy centers throughout the body. Anxiety can cause some of these energies to become blocked, leading to physical and mental distress. Reiki helps restore harmony in your body’s energy channels.
Cleansing toxins
Reiki helps the body relax and enter a state of self-healing. In this state, the body can repair itself and cleanse itself of toxins. It supports the immune system and protects against burnout and illness. Reiki also promotes emotional cleansing, which can help remove toxins from the body via digestion.
Breaking energy blockades
If energy pathways are blocked, it causes adverse effects like anxiety, sadness, pain, and anger. Reiki exchanges positive universal energy with the body to clear out these blocks. A newly unblocked pathway of energy flow throughout the body resulted in increased mental clarity, happiness, and enhanced physical healing.
Improved mood
Though not every individual with an anxiety disorder experiences depression, the two issues often go hand-in-hand. Reiki helps people with depression feel better, and those who participate in regular Reiki sessions experience less depression than before therapy.
Better sleep
The relaxation effects of Reiki can help those suffering from anxiety find restful sleep, which is essential for proper physical, mental and emotional health. Reiki sessions may help reduce some of the causes of your sleeping problems.
Reiki Self-Treatment Tips
Remember that while Reiki is not meant to replace scientifically backed strategies prescribed by medical professionals, it can complement other healing practices. And although you cannot practice Reiki on yourself until after completing the level 1 training, these tips can still greatly benefit you.
Have a dedicated space
Create a space in your home that is only for meditating. It could look like setting up a special chair or spot in your room where you always go to meditate. Having this place ready and waiting for you will help make it easier to develop (and stick with) a consistent practice.
If you can’t find a completely silent area, try playing some relaxing background music to help keep your mind focused on the present moment.
Practice grounding meditation
Grounding yourself allows you to feel more secure and present in your body. After a yoga class or deep meditation, it is beneficial when your intuition is heightened. By slowly coming back “to earth,” you can develop a stronger connection with the world around you.
Take a few minutes each morning to meditate and ground yourself. It will help to center your body and mind, leaving you feeling clear-headed and ready to start the day.
Create your own Reiki box
It should include crystals, tarot cards, essential oil blends, and incense that you find calming. Use this to create the atmosphere for your meditation session.
Decide where to place your hands.
Move your hands to different positions on your body, or focus on the same area for 15-30 minutes. Change hand positions when you feel it’s time to move to the next position, and concentrate on your Hara (lower abdomen), head, shoulders, and heart energy center (located in the center of your chest).
Note the physical sensations in your hands
Although it is perfectly normal for your hands to remain at the same temperature and not feel hot when giving yourself Reiki, you should notice how you feel after practice.
Conclusion
Anxiety is a severe problem that can significantly impact your physical and mental health. While it is true that medical intervention is necessary, energy healing and meditation can also be beneficial.
Reiki can be a valuable complement to traditional treatments. By balancing chakras, cleansing toxins in your body, and practicing self-care tips, you can use Reiki to help improve the quality of sleep and reduce stress levels.
As with any healing practice, it is vital to listen to your body and consult a doctor for medical advice. If done consistently, Reiki can be an effective tool in managing stress and anxiety. Take the time to reconnect with yourself, and reap the rewards of Reiki as a powerful form of energy healing. We hope this guide was useful to you.
