What Proof is There?

​

Some people are not convinced by the benefits of Reiki

Healing, but scientific studies have proven the genuine

benefit of Reiki. We might not understand it, but we know

it works.

 

Shore (2004) followed patients who were being treated

with for mild depression and stress. After six weeks of

treatment and for up to a year afterwards, those who

had received Reiki showed both immediate and long-term

improvements in depression, stress and hopelessness.

​

Reiki is becoming an increasingly accepted treatment in

hospitals and clinics. It is seen as an effective and cost-

reducing method to improve health outcomes and quality

of care. Scientific validation of Reiki’s effectiveness has

helped bring Reiki Healing to the mainstream, where it

is able to aid patients in all areas, including those with

mental health challenges.

​

Reiki is increasingly offered in hospitals, hospices, and holistic practice settings, applied to a variety of illnesses and conditions. Those who receive such treatments report relief of symptoms from numerous health challenges, including mental health issues. Research shows that Reiki primarily helps in the reduction of stress, anxiety and depression, as well as relief of chronic pain — the last of which can bring on anxiety and depression, or make episodes worse.

​

Several studies have found Reiki provides biological indications of significant stress reduction, as well as a relaxation response.

​

Research shows that Reiki also can help reduce depression and anxiety among people with chronic illnesses (Dressin and Singg, 1998) were found to reduce depression significantly. Effects lasted up to a year post-treatment (Shore, 2004).

​

Baldwin (2008) did research to determine if Reiki would reduce heart rates and blood pressure in noise stressed rats. This was done to find supporting evidence that Reiki is effective in stress-reduction in people. Reiki had already been shown to significantly decrease heart rates and blood pressure in a group of healthy human subjects. The use of humans in such studies can be misleading because they come with their own biases such as scepticism or prior believes in Reiki which can skew the results, hence they used rats to evidence there findings.

​

The rats that had been implanted with radiotelemetric transducers were exposed daily for 8 days to a 15-minute white noise regimen (90 dB). For the last 5 days, the rats received 15 minutes of Reiki immediately before the noise and during the noise period. The experiment was repeated on the same animals but using sham Reiki.

​

Reiki, but not sham Reiki, significantly reduced the rats heart rates, compared to initial values. With Reiki, there was a high correlation between change in heart rate and initial heart rate, suggesting a homeostatic effect. Reiki, but not sham Reiki, significantly reduced the rise in HR produced by exposure of the rats to loud noise.

​

​

​

​