36. Reiki for Grief and Holistic Healthcare with Kristin Krebs, CRNA

Discover how Reiki, an ancient energy healing technique, can support those navigating the overwhelming emotions of grief following pregnancy and infant loss. 
Join the conversation as Kristin Krebs, BSN, MSN, CRNA, APHN-BC, a nurse anesthetist and Reiki practitioner, shares her personal journey and insights on integrating Reiki into clinical practice and everyday life to promote mindfulness, reduce stress, and foster emotional balance.

Click on links mentioned in the show:

• Integrated Health and Wellness Assessment 
• Research Articles 1, 2, 3, 4 
• Insight Timer, meditation app, grief meditations
• Kristin's YouTube Channel

Time stamps:
00:00 Introduction to Grief and Reiki
00:14 Personal Experiences with Reiki
00:41 Meet Kristin Krebs: Nurse and Reiki Practitioner
01:22 Kristin's Journey into Reiki
03:23 Understanding Reiki Attunements
04:47 Incorporating Reiki into Clinical Practice
08:01 Reiki for Personal and Family Well-being
11:20 Reiki and Fertility
16:40 Self-Care and Holistic Nursing
29:28 Practical Tips for Incorporating Reiki
39:24 Scientific Research on Reiki
42:42 Final Thoughts and Resources

Transcript

Amy: [00:00:00] Grieving the loss of a baby brings overwhelming emotions, making healing seem impossible. What if an ancient practice could offer some relief? Today, discover how Reiki might support you on your grief journey. Tune in to learn more.

Over the past six months, I've had several positive experiences with Reiki, starting with a calming session during restorative yoga class. In addition, one of the participants in my Yoga for Grief classes earlier this year mentioned she found Reiki beneficial on her journey through pregnancy loss.

Intrigued, I decided to explore this ancient healing technique further by taking a Reiki class and inviting today's guest, Kristin Krebs, onto the podcast. 

Kristin is a nurse anesthetist, Reiki practitioner, and is board certified in advanced practice holistic nursing. Over the past year, Kristin has integrated energy work, meditation, and breathing practices into her Anesthesia practice blending the scientific with the spiritual. Her holistic [00:01:00] approach aims to bring a sense of presence and care to herself, her patients, and her colleagues. 

Join me as we dive into the world of Reiki. 

Welcome, Kristin.

Thank you, Amy. It's such a great honor to be with you on your podcast. I appreciate it. 

Amy: I am so excited that you were able to join me here. 

Do you want to just start with your personal journey in terms of your clinical background and what inspired you to become certified in Reiki? 

Kristin: Sure. So I've been a nurse anesthetist for the past 15 years, and I've found this career to be, deeply fulfilling and really satisfying because I'm able to build a relationship with patients and then, tailor the anesthetic just to them.

But then I had found in my personal life that I felt like I was Seeking more like really on a spiritual journey and adding all sorts of different [00:02:00] modalities into my daily life. And I felt like there had to be some sort of connection to what I was doing. doing in my nursing career. And so that's what led me to holistic nursing.

And honestly, it's funny for me, but whenever I am feeling things out in the world, they tend to just fall in my lap. And that's what happened with Reiki. It was something that I knew from a long time ago that I had wanted to learn more about, but I happened to just be in a bookstore and I was looking at their message board and there was a business card on there and it said my Reiki teacher's name, Linda, and she said that she was offering teachings.

And I realized that she was very close by to where my kids go to school. So I emailed her. And I said, Will you teach me Reiki? And she said, Oh, actually that card's old. I haven't done it in a long [00:03:00] time, but if somebody asks me to teach them Reiki, I never tell them no. So when can you come? Wow.

I've loved getting to know Linda, and she's been a really wonderful teacher to me. And yeah, we started on our journey, and she did what you would call attunements. And so I have received two attunements from Linda. 

Amy: Can you explain to us what attunements are for those of us who are new to the practice of Reiki?

Kristin: Sure. So a Reiki attunement is something that when you are studying Reiki and learning it, your teacher will give you an attunement. And so what it is it's allowing you to receive the life force energy. 

What Reiki is it's an application of whole, universal, transcendental, vibrational energy. And this energy, when you look at the word Reiki, Re refers to the universal energy, [00:04:00] and Ki refers to the life energy of our physical bodies.

And so when you put the two words together, combined as Reiki, it becomes whole, universal, transcendental energy. Reiki. So receiving an attunement from a Reiki master allows the student to tap into this unlimited supply of this whole universal transcendental energy. And the great thing about receiving an attunement is it doesn't depend on the student's intellectual capabilities.

None of it is focused on your spiritual development. Reiki does not have any sort of religion tied to it. It's simply when you receive the attunement, you receive access to this energy. 

Amy: Beautiful. As you have learned and studied and now practice Reiki, do you find that you are incorporating it more and more in your clinical [00:05:00] practice?

Kristin: I do Amy, I feel like the more that I use Reiki, because with anything that you're learning and doing over and over again, your experience is really valuable. And so I find that the more Reiki I do, the easier it is for me to feel and access this transcendental energy.

While it's a little bit tricky in the operating room to give a patient Reiki because I just want to make sure that I am talking to the patient about it and that they would consent to me giving it to them. And I think that one of the challenges that I face is we don't have a whole lot of time in the preoperative interview to talk about Reiki.

Now, I would love to change that part of my practice, and I'm working on it, but there are other ways to use Reiki that don't involve a direct application to your patient. I find that when I'm [00:06:00] doing my anesthesia setup in the morning, checking the machine, drawing up the medicines, I try to get there a little bit earlier than I used to.

to so that I can do it in what I call a mindful way, which is pulling in part of my holistic practice so that I am not thinking about other things, but thinking about exactly what I'm doing in the moment that I'm doing it. And then also I can apply Reiki to the medicines, which I find really satisfying and it feels like I am doing the most good that I can.

Amy: You talked a little bit about seeking things a little bit more spiritually, both personally and professionally. You've already talked about coming to work a little bit earlier and being a little more mindful as you set up for the day, that sort of thing.

Have you noticed a shift at home with your family or personally that you have found very beneficial 

from Reiki?. 

Kristin: Yes, I have. I feel like when I'm at [00:07:00] home and I'm with my family that I feel I can tap intonot necessarily another person's energy, but I can tell a little bit better. I'm a little more attuned to the people around me and perhaps what they're experiencing where before maybe I wouldn't have understood that my son was frustrated about something but I would think that he was actually mad. 

And so for whatever reason, I feel like I'm working in time in my home in a little bit slower of a fashion and trying to really listen and receive what is happening. And I just find that anybody who is looking for a spiritual practice, whether it's Reiki or meditation that once you are able to take care of yourself and have a more calm presence and a better spiritual connection, you can provide more [00:08:00] compassion to others, whether they're your patients or your kids or your husband or even your friends, anybody in your life, even somebody at the grocery store. 

Amy: Isn't that true? I think that kind of brings us to a nice little transition period here where we can recognize the compassion and the presence that this practice can build and apply it to somebody who maybe has experienced pregnancy and infant loss, or they're going through some infertility right now.

Could you maybe touch upon how you see this practice being beneficial? 

Kristin: Absolutely, but I also want to make sure that I say that I am not being prescriptive in any way when I make these suggestions. 

Amy: Absolutely. And I just want to just kind of preface that with everybody's healing journey is a incredibly unique and individual.

And so that's why having different options for people [00:09:00] to try to see if that is beneficial for them. It's one of those things that sometimes you just feel lost when you're grieving and you don't even know where to start. And if you have almost like a menu of options to try, How about massage? How about journaling? How about Reiki? Sometimes it's easier to pick and choose off a menu than it is to just come up with things out of thin air when you are in a stress type state. So that's part of the reason why having you here and having this conversation I felt would be really beneficial.

Kristin: Yes, I love that. I love having a list of things that you can pull from and maybe even actually Writing it down and thinking on any certain day I would just pull this out and look at it and think what do I need this week? What would be helpful to me? Yes, 

I think where Reiki can fall in this specific category and with these types of situations is one thing [00:10:00] with Reiki is that it really requires very little of the person receiving it.

When you go for a Reiki session, you're going to enter a room that probably has a massage table, but you stay fully clothed. And usually there's some sort of background music or tonal things happening that can be very relaxing just on its own. Even if you don't feel like you're getting the benefit of the Reiki session, having a little aromatherapy and some relaxing music can do the trick.

And that's all that's really required of the participant in a Reiki session. And then the practitioner, when you're receiving Reiki, is not going to actually physically touch your body. What we do is we hold our hands both hands with fingers closed about 12 inches above the body. And we're going to move our hands over the body and these 12 hand positions on both the [00:11:00] front and the back of the body so you would spend half of your Reiki session laying face up and then the second half face down. And then these hand positions all correspond to the seven chakras of the body. And I think that's where maybe we can segue a little bit into Reiki and fertility because there are two different chakras that are concerning for that, for fertility.

And so the sacral chakra is the one that I would probably think of first. It's the second chakra. It's associated with the color orange. And I actually recently learned that orange is the color that's associated with fertility awareness. So I really liked that synchronicity with that chakra. 

So our energy flows through the chakras and when it's balanced and free flowing, then this is going to support our physical and our emotional health. 

We [00:12:00] know that stress is a major factor that could negatively impact someone's fertility. And so Reiki is an excellent way to reduce stress and create a sense of calm. And it's possible that this could promote a more conductive environment for conception. Also Reiki is good to connect the mind, body, and spirit, and so when these aspects are out of balance, we are definitely more susceptible to a physical disease. So one thing that Reiki can do is it can try to bring them back into alignment. 

I also to speak from my personal experience is that my first Reiki session I cried and cried and had no idea why and was actually a little embarrassed.

And so I would like all of you to know that if you go to a Reiki session and you feel this way, perhaps you're letting something go and you're having a release of some negative [00:13:00] emotions and they might not be something that you're completely conscious of. but can actually manifest into our physical bodies.

So I would just say, anything goes in a Reiki session. You can feel nothing and still have a wonderful benefit. 

Yeah. I think that for some people, this idea of not being touched and not having to talk might be really helpful because sometimes just having somebody hold space for you so that you can just be is so much a part of the journey when you are trying to work through some really big, difficult, messy emotions. And I feel like sometimes, especially in healthcare, we are programmed to go. And since the pandemic, I feel like the expectation is to do more with less and Literally carving out a time and appointment to [00:14:00] say, I'm meeting with a Reiki practitioner so that I can stop and fully be present and not have to do anything, be expected to feel anything and can just be that alone, I could see being incredibly beneficial, I completely agree. That would be a really excellent step towards self care. 

Amy: The simple act of slowing down, being present, putting yourself on the calendar, I think is moms too, especially professional working mothers that. You put all of these other things on your calendar ahead of yourself. And then you get to the end of the week and you wonder why you're exhausted because you haven't had any time to refill your cup, and sometimes it's as simple as putting sleeping after your call shift on your schedule and saying, nothing's going to interrupt this. But, I do think that having these [00:15:00] conversations and saying that there are different options so that we can slow down a little bit. It's nice to talk about it.

Kristin: I'm so glad that you are bringing that up. I think that's really important. Yeah. 

Amy: when you look at burnout in health care And you have This Reiki certification And now you combine that with your certification in holistic nursing, do you feel like we can not only apply some of the things that you learned in your holistic nursing to our patients, but also to ourselves? 

Kristin: Yes, absolutely. I think it's important to 1st bring that self care and bring these modalities to ourself 1st, so that then we can take care of others. 

When I was doing my holistic nursing certification the 1st assignment that we had was called an integral wellness [00:16:00] assessment, and I expected fully that I would have to find someone to administer this assessment to, and I had to give it to myself, and that was really difficult to sit and be honest with myself about what things are not flowing well in my life.

What are things I can do to change it, and then, doing it like that was the assignment then was not just to do the whole assessment and write it up, but to actually make a prescription for yourself of how to carry out that self care You don't need to take a class to do that. Any of us can do that.

Amy: Would you like to share with us what your prescription for yourself was? 

Kristin: Yes, absolutely. And also what is interesting about doing this wellness assessment is that as you are undergoing it and you have prescribed something to yourself, [00:17:00] if it feels like it needs to shift, that's really important to pay attention to and that you should do.

do that. 

What I had felt like was that I wasn't making, like you were saying earlier, Amy, about carving out time on the calendar. That's for you. I was not doing that. And I wasn't doing it for exercise, which my body needs not just for health reasons, but to get rid of some excess energy that I tend to have.

So I wasn't making time for that. So what I did was I enrolled myself in a yin yoga course, because also I'm always learning. I have a Gemini moon, so that's where all of this is coming from. I have to be busy all the time. I cannot sit still, and I also need to learn something new.

Amy: I can identify with that feeling.

Kristin: Wonderful. I, so that was part of my prescriptive plan was I was going to take this yin yoga course, which I did. And I [00:18:00] actually really enjoyed it. And I found myself making the time and the effort to do the class and to exercise. But a friend of mine was doing another course that she was taking on functional nutrition.

And it lit a spark in me. And I said, I think I really am going to do this with you. Can I do it with you? And she said of course. And halfway through, it wasn't that I let go of the yin yoga, but I added in this functional nutrition course where I was, putting time on my calendar where I was meeting and taking classes and then doing meal prep and I found that to be even more beneficial in my well being than the actual initial yoga course that I had decided to take.

So it's great. Like you had said earlier, going back to that, to make that list of things that you think might be helpful for self care and pick and pull from them. Cause it's [00:19:00] going to change. I think 

Amy: even 

Kristin: daily. Yeah. 

Amy: I think daily, weekly, monthly, based on what's going on with your family, if you're making a career shift or starting a new job or, going from, a call position to a non call position or vice versa.

You can do that. There's so many different things that impact it. And I think food can be our medicine. And I think we underestimate the power of food and how it really impacts how we're feeling. And, they talk about the microbiome and how, you have this brain-gut connection with the vagus nerve, And so it would make sense when you start thinking about it from an anatomy perspective, that what you put in your stomach would impact how you feel in your head.

 I totally agree. 

So in terms of, so we have talked about healthcare provider burnout and maybe doing a little assessment. Do you have a couple key areas if somebody wanted to do a little [00:20:00] self assessment on them that you recommend they hone in on?

Kristin: Okay. 

This health assessment is actually called Integrative Health and Wellness Assessment. you can easily plug this into any search engine and it will come up and you could take it for yourself online. 

There are different questions that it's going to ask you about each category. 

There's eight components. The first one is life balance. The second one is relationships. The third one is spirituality. The fourth is mental health. The fifth is emotional issues. The sixth is physical, which can be nutrition, exercise, and weight management, which is where I found myself scoring the lowest.

So that's how I tailored my plan. The seventh one is environmental and the eighth one is health responsibility. And what that means is like keeping up to date with your wellness checks. If it would be time [00:21:00] for you to have a colonoscopy to have a physical, are you going to have your yearly blood work done?

And so after you answer the questions in each category, you're going to come up with 1 or 2 where you realize that these are issues for me. But it doesn't really, that in itself is not prescriptive. You also need to factor in your readiness to change. So you may never go to the doctor and you may score very low in your health responsibility category, but if your readiness to change is a one, which means that you would be willing to do it within a year versus a five, which means I'm going to do this tomorrow that's going to factor into what you decide is what you need for your own self care.

Amy: I think just listening to that gut response and letting that guide you to prioritize is really important to mention as well. 

[00:22:00] So you talked about this first assignment with your holistic nursing certification. 

Are there other aspects from that certification that you think would be applicable here? 

Kristin: Absolutely. When I did that certification, we had a class that was for modalities, and I think that's where this could come into play. 

So in that modality classwork we learned how to lead people through breath work.

And so I find myself using that in the operating room. At least once or twice a shift, especially, something stresses you. Maybe you're a provider who's had an infant loss and now you're scheduled to do three C sections in one day. I can imagine that might, you might find that to be very triggering.

And so You could call on some breathwork exercises. 

There are some really simple ones that you can do standing there while you're taking care of a [00:23:00] patient. One of them would be just a natural breath awareness where you're just paying attention to how you're breathing. Other ones you could do would be a diaphragmatic breathwork or a heart centered breathing exercise. And all of those are available for free on my YouTube channel. 

Another thing that we can do when you're faced with that in a work environment is a centering technique where we're just trying to find the center in our body, which is an actual physical space in your body. It's a little like two to three inches below your belly button, but you need to come into your body, which is not something that's easy for a lot of us to do. A lot of nurses are very heady. I think Amy and I have already told you in this episode that we both have a very busy brain. And so you come into your body and you find that center of your body and that can help you.

when you're experiencing something [00:24:00] difficult at work. 

A grounding technique can also work really well too. I tend to try to ground myself when I'm washing my hands. I find that like having actual like warm water and soap can be extremely grounding because it's bringing you back to the present moment, back to earth.

Amy: you touched upon this at the conference in your talk about how washing your hands closes your care with that patient. brings you to the present moment and prepares you to be present for the next patient and whatever unique situations and circumstances that they're going to present you with.

And how many times do we wash our hands a day? Minus the hand sanitizer, but like actually wash your hands. Like I, I like soap and water. Yeah. And I always find it. To be a nice practice to bring me back to the present moment. If I allow myself to be intentional about it. I think sometimes you have [00:25:00] to just, say, I'm going to use this practice each time today and remind myself that this is a very special moment, an opportunity for me to clean my hands.

Prepare for the next patient center myself. Yeah ground into the moment. I love it I'm glad I'm 

Kristin: glad that spoke to you I find it very helpful and I find it helpful To pair activities that you were going to do anyway and cause and allowing them to become mindful 

Amy: Yeah, I think you can do that too with pre oxygenating a patient and when you say now I want you to take a big deep breath in through your nose and fill your lungs up with the oxygen, you too can do it with the patient and sometimes I've even said, especially for patients who are breathing in a very shallow nature, I'll say, okay, now on this breath, I want you to feel like you're breathing all the way down to your toes.

Okay. And then as you release the breath and breathe out, I want you to feel yourself sinking down into the bed and letting the bed [00:26:00] support you now. And I can almost feel like my feet are sinking down into the floor and the floor is supporting me in that moment. And so I find that to be a fun way to incorporate mindfulness into my practice.

Kristin: That's a beautiful way to incorporate mindfulness into your practice, and how wonderful for all of those patients to be able to experience that. Yeah, I think it can be difficult when we're doing an induction because a lot of people like to tend to be a little forceful and prescriptive and ask people to do certain things in a certain way that can actually cause a great deal of anxiety, but in the way that you just structured it there.

There's really nothing for the patient to be concerned about or feel like they're doing right or wrong. It's absolutely wonderful. 

Amy: I love it. Yeah. And that you bring up the right and wrong part. And I think that sometimes we get very tunnel vision on doing [00:27:00] things the same way all the time, whether it's with our patient care, but also within our own lives, depending on how we were raised or how our daily routines have shaped up.

And it's just nice to remember that it's okay to pivot and it's okay to try something new. Yeah. On that's different. And it might find feel really awkward at first, but as you incorporate it a little bit more, then it starts feeling more natural and more routine, and that might be a nice change for you if you have the desire to, try something different.

Kristin: I totally agree. And the more that you do it, the more comfortable you feel. And also, the other individuals in the room get used to you doing it too. And then it becomes more acceptable behavior for them as well. And it's a ripple effect, and I think that can be really that can be, that can change the aspect of the room.

Amy: [00:28:00] Absolutely. Do you have recommendations for somebody who would like to start incorporating Reiki into their life? How does that all look for somebody who's new to this? 

Kristin: so if you're looking to start incorporating Reiki into your life I would say that you would expect that you would want to of course try one session with a Reiki practitioner.

And if you will really felt relaxed in their presence, and you felt like it was beneficial for you, that it can be important to have several sessions in a row. And they would say at least two, but up to five sessions. And there isn't really any prescriptive, like you need to have these five sessions within a certain timeframe.

But I guess what I would say to you is to stick with it and to go again. And see how that feels for you. 

There is no certifying body for Reiki [00:29:00] practitioners. I am trained under the radiance technique. And I am not specifically recommending the radiance technique because I find that there aren't that many of those practitioners around.

And I want everyone to experience Reiki, whether it's from a radiance practitioner or not. But on their website, you should be able to see that they have at least received 2 attunements. And you would also want to see on their website or maybe a card or something that they are offering you this time in at least 45 minutes to an hour session, because that's going to give you the full experience of touching all of those hand positions in the seven chakras. 

When I did Reiki sessions at the Pana meeting that we both attended, that was a little upsetting to me because I had to shorten the [00:30:00] sessions to like 15 to 20 minutes. But I think if you're going to have the full Reiki treatment, that it's going good to sit, to have the 45 minutes to an hour. And also, I think it's nice if maybe a friend can recommend someone to you, somebody that they also found healing.

I know there are a lot of support groups for infant loss and infertility, and I imagine that maybe somebody in those groups might have a recommendation. 

Amy: For sure. And even sometimes too, if you get on like a local Facebook group type thing that talks about like lots of different businesses and things, you may be able to just search Reiki and see what people have talked about their experience.

 Sometimes you can find information that way too. I think that would be a great 

Kristin: way to access some good Reiki practitioners. Yes. 

Amy: Yeah. Is Reiki something that After you have a session, you [00:31:00] have recommendations of what to do after the session to either prolong the effects or to I don't know, just bolster the experience or prolong the experience or what have you.

Yes. 

Kristin: I think it's important to make sure that there's time after the session where you don't immediately need to be somewhere or immediately In obligation to someone or something else. After a weeky session, some people need a little bit of time for their body to physically adjust. So it's important to drink water. It's important to get up from that session very slowly. The practitioner should. tell you to do that, but also it's good to just know that going into the session.

And then I would recommend maybe spending five or 10 minutes in your car before you leave with a piece of paper and just jot down whatever comes [00:32:00] to you. It might not mean anything to you in the moment, and it might feel strange, but I think that, and that's been my personal experience, that.

After having a session like that or a different body work session, that whatever you can dump out of your brain onto the paper and revisit later at times can be very healing.

Amy: Yes. That was one of the things I felt would have been beneficial after just the brief session we had together. Because I think you're really intentional when you have a pen in your hand and a piece of paper in front of you and you are writing what you're feeling.

 it gives you permission to write anything and everything because nobody else is going to see it. when we can be honest with ourselves about what we're feeling. Yeah. Then it gives us permission to actually start processing it. And I think that is something that we sometimes struggle with, I have people who will tell me like at about the three month [00:33:00] mark, it's all after their loss, all the the cards have stopped.

The flowers have stopped. People just think that, they've, everybody else has moved on and you may still feel really very much. stuck in this grief process. And I say stuck very loosely because I think that there's real benefit to being where you're at with your emotions and not trying to just push them aside and not deal with them.

So I think that there's some benefit for, Or just being in that place where you feel uncomfortable and working through it. And I can really see Reiki being one of those things when everybody else feels like they're moving forward and you need to be present with what's going on with you to have that space and that energy work and then journal after.

I think that would be really helpful to people. 

Kristin: I think it would be extremely supportive. Yes. 

Amy: Yes. 

Kristin: And anything that you write on paper, I [00:34:00] just want to say, I think I like the idea of writing it on paper because you can do anything with it. You can burn it, you can flush it down the toilet, it can be gone.

So if it's something that you needed to let go of, then that opportunity to bring it into a physical realm and then physically let go of it could also be very healing. I love that. Yes. 

Amy: Yeah. Is there anything else from Reiki in terms of like, how it actually works in your body? We talked about the seven chakras and your hand positions and the 12 different positions front and back.

 But is there anything that you feel like we need to talk about in terms of like blockages and energy and lines of energy and almost how the chakras are like gears. So when one starts moving, they all kind of start moving. I don't think people always understand that. And the ripple effect of like addressing those different [00:35:00] energy points that would be addressed in a Reiki session.

Sure. 

Kristin: Yeah. I think that it is important to have going into a Reiki session, maybe just the basic knowledge of each chakra and how they work. 

The first chakra actually starts at the bottom of your body in the base or the root chakra. And then what is the What it's thought from, ancient teachings is that as we release each chakra, we will work our way up to the crown, which is the seventh chakra, which is above our heads.

It's not really even part of our body, maybe more part of our aura. And so the energy can flow from the root up to the crown. And of course, in any circumstance or any different timing of the day, you could have all your chakras open. or maybe certain ones closed. And so some Reiki practitioners can tell you after a session, Oh, I felt, a blockage of energy in this area at this chakra.[00:36:00] 

And then if you have some knowledge base about which chakra they're talking about, it might help you practically apply it to your life. 

So the next chakra, the second chakra after the base chakras, the sacral chakra, and that's where it's our mostly like our creative center where our emotions and our thoughts are.

And I would also, like I had said before, it's the second chakra. It's got the orange color and I think it could be easily tied to infant loss or fertility. And then the third chakra is the solar plexus, and that is our ability to connect to the power of love. Not our love of power, but it's almost like I like to think of the solar plexus as our true gut instincts.

And then the next chakra would be the heart chakra. And that is, really like an awakening to your real self, to your [00:37:00] universal and compassionate self, who you are. 

The next chakra would be the throat and that's our expression center. And it helps us say the things that we need to say. 

The third eye would come after that and that I think of as our gateway to inner and like real seeing and to like an intuitive knowing.

And then the crown would be the last chakra of the seventh chakra and I just think of that as like a cosmic consciousness. A way to connect with the divine, whatever that means for you,

Amy: But I don't want anybody to think that because you have a blockage in a certain chakra, that means that you are not well, or that means that you will never be well or can't function. These things shift and change moment to moment. Thank you for breaking that all down for us. 

 In your studies, have you read any [00:38:00] research about Reiki being incorporated into care 

Kristin: I have a couple of studies that came out pretty recently that I think your community could enjoy or understand to see that Reiki can scientifically make a difference for patients. One study I like that just came out this past year was for patients receiving an upper GI endoscopy.

And what they did is they broke the patients into three different groups, and one was a control group the other group was a Reiki group, and one was a sham Reiki group. 

So the Reiki group received a Reiki session in the preoperative area before their procedure. The sham Reiki group thought they were getting Reiki, but did not actually get Reiki.

And then the control group was a normal preoperative exam and anesthetic. they had the patients fill out some assessment tools [00:39:00] and they found that their anxiety decreased with the Reiki and not with the sham Reiki, which I found to be really compelling. 

Amy: Yes. Yes, I think because they put that sham Reiki group in there that definitely seals the deal in terms of effectiveness.

Kristin: Yeah, it sure did for me. Yeah. And another sham group research study with Reiki this one was done in 2023, but it was for patients who received abdominal surgery. And what they were looking at was They had them rate, and they assessed their surgical fear, their anxiety, then they had their pain scale, but they also looked at their O2 sat, and so patients who received Reiki versus a sham Reiki, they saw the surgical fear and anxiety levels go down, which we would expect that, right?

But then the pain levels also went down, which [00:40:00] I wouldn't necessarily expect, and the O2 sat increased and it went up. 

 And the results were statistically significant. 

the great thing about it is wouldn't this be amazing if we could teach nurses in their training Reiki because it's inexpensive, is extremely safe. It's easy to do. And now we know it's effective. 

Amy: And the side effects, maybe some tears if some emotional things come up, but we have tissues for some tears. 

Kristin: We sure do. Then, and to get back to what you're saying about a patient who's having an anesthetic, if I have a patient who is in an induction phase or is having a C section and they are awake and they are crying.

I always tell them to just let it go, to just cry, because I find that release can be so effective in helping them release their anxiety [00:41:00] and to feel better. Yeah. But I will send you these studies so that your listeners 

Amy: can look at them. And I'll put them in the show notes. Yeah. Oh, I can't wait to look at them.

This is exciting. Wonderful. I feel like we've bounced around over all kinds of different topics and a lot of different people could find this information helpful personally and professionally. Do you feel like we've missed anything or have any other final thoughts? 

Kristin: The only thing I would like to mention is that there is a tool that I like to use in my self care and it's free and it's called insight timer.

there is a practitioner that I found on insight timer, who is a psychiatric nurse in the UK, and we can link it in the show notes as well. But her. Her specialty is infant loss, and so there are several guided meditations that she offers for free on [00:42:00] there concerning those things, and I felt like she approaches the subject with a lot of intellect and also empathy, and she's a grieving mother as well, and I felt like the combination of those things could be very helpful for people in your community.

Amy: I will include that as well. Thank you for sharing that resource. There's so many wonderful apps out there and insight timer. We've talked about this. It's a free app. It is very easy to use. There's many different offerings there. And so if you haven't tried using a meditation app, it's a really nice place to start and find some benefit from it.

Kristin: Yes. Totally agree. 

Amy: Wonderful. Kristin,, thank you so much for sharing some of your expertise here with us and adding something to the list of things that people can pick and choose from if they're navigating grief after [00:43:00] pregnancy or infant loss, or they're going through some other stressor.

I really appreciate all of this information. 

Kristin: You're so welcome. Thank you so much for having me on. 

Amy: You're welcome. 

Navigating the journey of grief after experiencing pregnancy and infant loss is profoundly personal and unique. What brings comfort and healing to one person might not work for another, and that's perfectly okay. The key is to be open and curious to try different approaches, like Reiki, for example, to find what resonates with you.

So if you think joining one of our Facebook groups or monthly virtual support group on Zoom would help, hop in. There are links in the show notes.

Amy: If you are a healthcare provider navigating pregnancy and infant loss and would like to share your story as a guest on this podcast, please complete the form in the show notes for consideration. Previous guests have found that sharing their experience became part of their healing journey [00:44:00] and a way to honor their baby.

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