The Art of Healing

Discover the Healing Touch of Reiki for Mental Health

• Charlyce Davis MD Reiki Practitioner

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Have you ever felt the healing touch of Reiki wash over you, soothing your anxieties and lifting your mood? This episode takes you on a journey into the heart of Japanese energy healing and its remarkable benefits for mental health. Discover how Reiki can be a beacon of light in the darkness of stress and anxiety, enhancing your overall well-being with each session. We'll share not just the joys of receiving Reiki but also the transformative power of becoming a practitioner yourself. With Mental Health and Wellness Awareness Month in focus, our in-depth conversation is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking solace or looking to support others.

Join me for the Live Event-  Toolkit for Mental Health and Wellness
Saturday, May 25th 2024 at Noon CST
Find your local time here: Time Zone Converter


As we unpack the intricacies of energy and functional medicine, join us for an engaging exploration filled with practical advice and compelling stories. In the coming weeks, our live Zoom gatherings will dissect my mental health wellness toolkit and delve into the heart chakra, with a special guest adding a unique perspective. For those hungry for knowledge, the episode is brimming with downloadable resources and fresh insights. Your questions and feedback are the lifeblood of these discussions, so don't hesitate to reach out via email (charlyce@healingartshealthandwellness.com).
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References In This Podcast:
Reiki for Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Reiki for Depression

Effect of Reiki therapy on pain and anxiety in adults: an in-depth literature review of randomized trials with effect size calculations


Reiki for depression and anxiety






Welcome to the Art of Healing Podcast community.  This podcast is devoted to helping you find what works on your journey to health and wellness.  This podcast is devoted to providing information on many healing modalities.  Learn more about:

  • Reiki
  • Functional Medicine
  • Meditation
  • Energy Healing

and more!

Learn more about Dr. Charlyce here. 

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Speaker 1:

Welcome back to the Art of Healing podcast. This is Dr Charlize, and thank you for joining me for this week's episode where we are going to discuss the benefits of Reiki for maintaining and improving even optimizing our mental health. Before we get into this podcast, if you are listening before the date May 25th 2024, we have a chance to connect live. I will be holding a live Zoom meeting call in which you can dial in or join by video and we're going to discuss my mental health wellness toolkit gathering of my recommendations to maintain and improve your mental health, even if you're dealing with serious diagnosis such as anxiety and depression. In your show notes I'll put the link so if you want to join that meeting live or you'd like a copy of the recording, also wanted a plug that we'll be doing a meeting similar to this every month. The next topic for June will be the heart chakra and there'll be more information coming about that because that will be a collaboration between me and a dear friend of mine. We'll discuss the heart chakra in detail and then July's meeting is to be determined. So check your show notes if you want to join live or if you want a copy of the recording. This will be a great meeting, a great takeaway Even if you're not dealing with any mental health issues, you can help those that you love. May is Mental Health and Wellness Awareness Month, so it's a great chance for us to talk about what is mental health, what is mental wellness? What do we do to maintain our mental health and wellness? It's also a great time for us to have a look at how our mental landscape affects our physical body and that really they are one in the same. So throughout this month we've been discussing anxiety, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder. In the last podcast, we reviewed a functional medicine approach to dealing with these diseases. That included looking at your nutrition and your relationships, and stress management, sleep. But for this one, I wanted to cover how the energy medicine technique, reiki, can help with maintaining mental health, and during the live meeting we'll actually practice some of these techniques.

Speaker 1:

You may be familiar with Reiki, but if you're not, reiki is a healing technique that originates from Japan. It's over a hundred years old and it was discovered by the first Reiki master after he spent several weeks in high meditation and fasting in which he was channeled this form of energy healing. The basis of Reiki healing is that it's not actually new. It's just been rediscovered and the practice of Reiki is in a format that those of us here on earth can easily learn, become attuned to and can use in our daily lives. The important thing to know about Reiki is it is channeling energy from a source that we consider higher, a healing intention, so that it can't do any harm and it can be used on people. It can be used on pets. It can be used on pets. It can be used on objects. Reiki can also be used on events. It can be sent into the future or into the past. Reiki can be sent to other locations, but the main idea with Reiki is you set a healing intention or intention to help or improve or aid in some way, and then you channel energy. So, even if you're not a Reiki healer, you can actually do that. You don't really have to be certified in Reiki. However, I do plug that becoming a Reiki practitioner is therapeutic and it's a tool that you can use on yourself simply and have your own healing sanctuary at home. So I'll make sure I included the show notes, my online course, become Reiki One certified. And while we're discussing it, I would like to start offering live Reiki classes and the available formats can be in person, if you're local, or by Zoom. So I'm going to put a sign up sheet if you would be interested in learning about either one of those doing a live course this summer for Reiki one Reiki, rather, if it's going to a Reiki practitioner and having a formal session, or Reiki in which you are treating yourself if you are in the process of learning.

Speaker 1:

Reiki is beneficial for anxiety, just naturally, because for one, when you are in the state of Reiki and transmitting Reiki, you're automatically in a state of mindfulness. Your mind and brain will automatically begin to slow down, and the nature of Reiki is that letting go of worry thoughts is simple. It comes very easy. According to the International Association of Reiki Professionals, reiki can help generalized anxiety by lowering stress levels, by promoting relaxations, because for those that are living with anxiety, a lot of times it's being fueled by not having the time or the space to relax or simply not being able to engage in anything that's relaxing. Reiki can help by improving the overall mood. So when you're having a living with anxiety, if your mood's being worsened by just any number of events, that will worsen your anxiety, and then, of course, improving sleep, because individuals living with anxiety often have poor sleep quality and I'll put a link in the show notes.

Speaker 1:

The authors have posted some evidence-based research about how Reiki which, when it's studied, can be one of the more difficult healing modalities of study In evidence-based medicine you often need some kind of blinding, so you need to have a group of people that are just alike One get the treatment, one don't, but they shouldn't know it and then you have something you can track to see how they improve. So that can be difficult to do in a healing modality like Reiki, but they have pulled a few research articles concerning Reiki's and its scientific benefits. As far as anxiety, there is a published article in the journal Pain Management Nursing, which you'll find a link in your show notes that gives an overview. The researchers did a type of study in which they reviewed several clinical trials and pulled the data together. So that helps, because I mentioned that Reiki was beneficial with pain and anxiety and it does appear that these nurses saw improvement clinical improvement in pain and anxiety in adults that were undergoing breast biopsy, as well as in adults living in the community living with chronic pain. And when it comes to something like Reiki, because it's low risk, it's definitely worth trying.

Speaker 1:

For anxiety. Really, your biggest risk, I'll tell my clients, is you may fall asleep during the session, but if you had anxiety you probably need to sleep anyway. There was another study in which the authors looked at comparative data to see if Reiki was beneficial for depression, anxiety, and this article is really nice because it gives us a fair and balanced conclusion, which is that the authors here did not necessarily find that Reiki was beneficial, but they didn't find that it was harmful. So these authors I think we're looking at individuals suffering from cancer, but the authors are open to disclosing that the data was hard to gather. They had to rely just on stories and anecdotal information. So, in terms of knowing if it was beneficial, this study tells us that maybe so, maybe not, but I think the conclusion we can take is that if you're wanting to work with your anxiety, naturally trying Reiki at least once won't hurt.

Speaker 1:

Spending some time and devoting yourself to learning Reiki on a regular basis could indeed help. When I'm working with my own clients that are dealing with anxiety, the biggest benefit that comes is the time they get to relax, and when we're in a Reiki session, that's a sacred space where we really block out the world so that allows them to go deep within themselves. And what I found is really helping recently with clients is that I described to them the energy shifts and blockages. I go ahead and just tell them during the session and the realization I'm seeing is really moving them forward as far as releasing what they've been hanging on to. And, depending on where you are in your life, that may not be lecture you have, especially if you've been very busy or overwhelmed. Having a moment or two just to focus on yourself and realizing what's happening in your body on a physical level, on a spiritual level, on an energetic level, can be really beneficial.

Speaker 1:

Major depressive disorder is characterized for many people living with it, with an element of severe fatigue and what's called apathy, lack of feeling, emotions. Also can go with this are the physical symptoms, such as pain that can't be alleviated with most treatments and just an overall feeling of unwellness most treatments and just an overall feeling of unwellness. Reiki can help with most elements of depression. Doing some research on it, it's similar data. As far as Reiki can be helpful when it's studied in a clinical setting, there are some studies that show that it's helpful, some studies that show that it wasn't necessarily harmful when I'm dealing with someone who, a patient who has depression. Reiki can absolutely be helpful In those individuals.

Speaker 1:

One thing I might bring up is considering more than one session because of the nature of depression and the energy stagnation that goes with it. Getting repeated sessions can be beneficial Also for those people. Sometimes I'll recommend a shorter sessions that they don't necessarily need to do the full hour and a half session. They may benefit from a 15 or 30 minute session, and the reason why I will recommend that just from what I've noticed working with my own clients, is that when you're living with depression, the stagnation that can come with it brings a physical heaviness and sometimes, when it's released, there's a detox that goes with it in order to help that healing process along, not to do it so dramatically. So shorter sessions, maybe doing them a little bit more frequently.

Speaker 1:

The International Association of Reiki Professionals do cite several articles that show Reiki is beneficial and of course, the risk with patients and similar to anxiety, is that you just may be very tired during or afterward, although clients seem to feel an uplift in their energy after a Reiki session, and then the risk of it simply may not work for you. The caveat with that is that sometimes when you think it doesn't work, it's just you don't feel the effect. But I've had clients come back even a few weeks afterward and tell me that in fact they did notice something. It just wasn't right away. It gets mysterious and sometimes it's best not to get too much into. Oh, did that work? Did it not work?

Speaker 1:

What I encourage people is that when you seek something like Reiki, you should be proud of yourself that you took a proactive step to heal yourself. You did something. You're doing something good. If nothing else, you should be proud of yourself for taking the effort. And when you're living with depression, that's huge. People with major depressive disorder often don't have energy or the drive to pursue things in terms of their healing, to pursue things in terms of their healing. Don't forget, if you're interested in hearing more about this or want to meet up live and you want to meet me and meet the Art of Healing podcast community and your show notes, join us May 25th at noon, central Standard Time. Central standard time.

Speaker 1:

Beyond the diagnostic parts of mental health, there's an aspect of mental health that we can think about improving or augmenting or adding to. So when we think of mental health we want to think of, like our clarity, our focus, even things like our intuition, even things like if we have empathic abilities, if we want to develop those. So something like a tool like Energy Medicine. Reiki is a fantastic way that, if you're actually in a good place but you're curious and want to take yourself a little further, this is a great starter tool is Reiki. One of the things that many folks are seeking is to improve their intuition or to strengthen their third eye. That's a great place is working.

Speaker 1:

With Reiki you can improve your clarity, improve your focus, you can calm your mind and it's a powerful way to improve your intuition. When you practice Reiki, you're practicing using a healing intention. You can also do that with compassion. So practicing self-compassion is a great way and then, when you've done that enough, extending your compassion to others. That's similar to a meditation technique that's studied quite a bit, the Metta meditation technique, in which you extend feelings of goodwill and compassion from yourself to others and in a way that's just like Reiki, where you're channeling good healing energy. That is a fantastic way, not only to help yourself but to help others and to take yourself beyond where you are now. So if you're in a good place but you're wanting to figure out how to help others, but you're not sure how to. Sometimes doing a meta meditation or compassion meditation can guide you on what you could do to help others.

Speaker 1:

If you feel you took away a few tips for how Reiki can help with mental health, don't forget that if you want to connect live in May, in your show notes you can sign up for our monthly meeting.

Speaker 1:

Even if you can't, but you would like to learn more about healing arts the art of healing podcast. In your show notes you'll see a way that you can sign up for the newsletter and receive each podcast in your inbox every Friday. You can simply download it and listen at your own leisure, and you'll also see some of my other resources. I have a few downloadables related to mental health. So in your show notes there'll be ways to connect. Even if you aren't able to or don't feel ready to attend the next live meeting, there will be opportunities coming up. Also, if you have questions concerning energy medicine, functional medicine, that you would like me to address in the podcast or my weekly newsletter, shoot me an email. I'll put my email address, charlize at healing arts, health and wellnesscom, in the show notes. So great to connect with you today and look forward to hearing more from you and hope that this podcast was helpful. Please share with others if it was. Thank you, and we'll chat next week.

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Dr. Charlyce

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