What Is Reiki? A Grounded Guide to an Energy-Healing Practice
Reiki is one of those practices many people have heard of but may have a hard time explaining.
Maybe someone has described it to you as energy healing. Maybe you have seen a practitioner resting their hands lightly on another person and wondered what they were actually doing. Or perhaps Reiki has simply made you curious, even if you are not sure what you believe about energy work.
Reiki is a Japanese energy-healing practice with spiritual foundations. It is generally received while fully clothed, with a practitioner using gentle touch or holding their hands slightly above the body. There is no kneading, stretching, or manipulation of muscles.
Within the Reiki tradition, the practice is understood as working with Reiki, commonly described in English as universal life energy. Rather than generating or consciously directing that energy, the practitioner is traditionally understood to serve as a channel through which Reiki flows.¹ ²
You do not have to understand exactly what that means, or even decide what you believe about it, before experiencing Reiki.
What Happens During a Reiki Session?
A Reiki session is quiet and physically gentle.
You remain fully clothed and typically rest on a massage table. The practitioner works with a series of hand positions around different areas of the body. Depending on your preferences, the practitioner's hands may rest lightly on the body or be held a short distance above it.¹
There is no massage oil, deep pressure, stretching, or manipulation of muscles or joints.
Traditional Reiki includes established hand positions, although a session does not have to feel like someone mechanically working through a checklist. The practitioner may remain longer in some areas before moving on.¹
Comfort and consent matter throughout the session. If you do not want an area touched, Reiki can be practiced with the hands above the body instead.
Once the session begins, there is very little you are required to do.
You do not have to concentrate, visualize energy moving through your body, breathe in a particular pattern, clear your mind, or somehow become "good at" receiving Reiki. You can close your eyes if that feels comfortable. Your mind can wander. You might become deeply quiet or even drift toward sleep.
You can simply receive the session.
What Might Reiki Feel Like?
There is no single sensation that tells you Reiki is "working."
Traditional Reiki literature describes people experiencing warmth or coolness, tingling, pulsing sensations, heaviness, lightness, changes in body awareness, emotional responses, relaxation, or sleepiness during a session.¹
Some people notice very little that they would consider unusual.
That is okay too.
A Reiki session does not need to produce heat, visions, emotional release, or another dramatic experience to be meaningful. Experiences vary from person to person and can even vary between sessions for the same person.
Those sensations also should not be treated as diagnoses. Feeling warmth somewhere does not tell a practitioner that an organ is healing. Tingling does not establish a medical condition. An emotional response does not prove that a particular trauma has been released.
For many people, Reiki is much subtler than that.
Do I Have to Believe in Reiki?
No particular religious belief is required to receive Reiki.
Reiki has spiritual foundations, but Reiki itself is not a religion. Its practice does not require adopting a particular theology, participating in religious worship, or converting to a belief system.¹ ²
You also do not need to convince yourself that universal life energy exists before you walk through the door.
You can have a strong spiritual understanding of energy. You can be uncertain about it. You can simply wonder what receiving Reiki might feel like. Curiosity is enough.
Why Do People Choose Reiki?
People come to Reiki for different reasons.
Some are specifically interested in energy healing or spiritual practices. Others have heard about Reiki from someone they trust and want to experience it themselves. Some simply prefer a gentler form of care that does not involve muscular manipulation or substantial physical pressure.
There can also be something valuable about having a period of time in which very little is being asked of you.
You do not need to perform, explain yourself, maintain a conversation, stretch farther, tolerate deeper pressure, or accomplish anything during the session. You are given time to rest while receiving a quiet form of hands-on or hands-near-body care.
For someone whose days involve constantly responding to demands, that can be a very different experience.
A Little About the Reiki Tradition
The Reiki most commonly practiced today developed from the work of Mikao Usui in Japan in the early 1920s. Historical material from Japan records that Usui established a center in Tokyo in 1922 where he taught and practiced what became known as Usui Reiki Ryōhō, or the Usui Reiki healing method.³
Reiki later developed through different teachers and lineages as it moved from Japan into the West. As a result, practices and explanations can vary somewhat depending on a practitioner's training.
One idea, however, remains central to many Reiki traditions: the practitioner is not considered the source of Reiki.
Both Essential Reiki and The Spirit of Reiki describe the practitioner as allowing Reiki to flow rather than mentally directing energy toward a predetermined outcome.¹ ² The practitioner brings training, attention, intention, and presence to the session without claiming to personally control another person's healing.
Usui's teachings also included principles for everyday life, commonly expressed through ideas involving gratitude, worry, anger, honest or diligent work, and kindness toward others.¹ ²
That broader philosophy is one reason Reiki can be understood as more than a technique performed with the hands. For many practitioners, it is also a practice of presence, awareness, compassion, and how one moves through everyday life.
Research Spotlight: What Has Research Found About Reiki and Anxiety?
Researchers have begun asking whether experiences people commonly associate with Reiki can also be detected in clinical research.
A 2024 meta-analysis published in BMC Palliative Care looked specifically at Reiki and anxiety. Researchers combined 13 controlled studies involving 824 adults from a variety of populations and settings.⁴
Across those studies, people receiving Reiki had lower anxiety scores overall than those in the comparison groups. The researchers found a statistically significant pooled effect, although the results varied considerably between individual studies.⁴
Reduced anxiety and a sense of calm are among the experiences people commonly describe when talking about Reiki. These findings suggest there may be something worth continuing to investigate rather than assuming those experiences are either universal or meaningless.
There are important limitations. The studies differed substantially in who received Reiki, how sessions were delivered, how often Reiki was provided, and the circumstances in which anxiety was measured. The research therefore does not tell us that Reiki will reduce anxiety for everyone, nor does it establish how Reiki might produce the effects reported in these studies.
It does give researchers a reason to keep asking the question.
Reiki Within My Practice
Reiki is an energy-healing practice with a long tradition of being used in support of healing and well-being. Different Reiki practitioners may work with that tradition in different ways depending on their training, professional background, and scope of practice.
At Stillness Renewal, Reiki is offered within the professional boundaries of my practice as a licensed massage therapist. I do not use Reiki to diagnose medical or mental-health conditions, prescribe treatment, or make promises about specific health outcomes.
Those boundaries describe my scope of practice, not the limits of the Reiki tradition itself.
Reiki can also be received alongside medical care, mental-health care, massage therapy, and other forms of support. If something you are experiencing requires evaluation or treatment outside my professional scope, Reiki does not change the importance of receiving that appropriate care.
Receiving Reiki for the First Time
If you have never experienced Reiki, there is very little you need to do to prepare.
Wear clothing in which you can rest comfortably. You are welcome to ask questions before the session begins and communicate any preferences you have around touch. If there are areas where you would rather not be touched, hands can remain above the body instead.
Most importantly, you do not need to arrive expecting something extraordinary to happen.
You may notice warmth, tingling, heaviness, quiet, emotion, or a sense of deep relaxation. You may simply feel comfortable lying on the table. You may experience something entirely different.
Going into a first session with curiosity rather than a requirement to feel something particular leaves room for the experience to be your own.
Is Reiki Worth Exploring?
That depends on what you are looking for.
If you want muscular manipulation, deeper pressure, or focused physical work on areas of soreness and tension, therapeutic bodywork may be a better fit.
If you are curious about energy healing, drawn to a gentler form of touch, interested in Reiki's spiritual and energetic foundations, or simply wondering what the experience is actually like, Reiki may be worth exploring.
You do not have to decide beforehand exactly what Reiki is or what it is supposed to feel like.
You can experience it and decide what the practice means to you.
Explore Reiki at Stillness Renewal
My training is within the Usui Reiki tradition. I offer Reiki because it provides something distinctly different from massage and other forms of therapeutic bodywork: a quiet, gentle form of energy work that does not depend on muscular manipulation, deep pressure, or the recipient having to accomplish anything during the session.
I approach Reiki with respect for the energetic and spiritual foundations in which I was trained, while offering it within my professional scope as a licensed massage therapist.
If Reiki has made you curious, you are welcome to experience it for yourself.
Experience Reiki at Stillness Renewal →
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References
1. Stein, Diane. Essential Reiki: A Complete Guide to an Ancient Healing Art. Crossing Press, 1995. Chapters II and III.
2. Lübeck, Walter, Frank Arjava Petter, and William Lee Rand. The Spirit of Reiki: From Tradition to the Present. Lotus Press, 2001.
3. Ushida, Juzaburo, and Masayuki Okata. Inscription on the memorial to Mikao Usui, erected in Tokyo in 1927 by Usui's students following his death. Historical account and English translation reproduced in Reiki historical sources, including translations published by Frank Arjava Petter and Hiroshi Doi.
4. Guo, Xiulan, Yue Long, Zhikai Qin, and Yongtao Fan. "Therapeutic Effects of Reiki on Interventions for Anxiety: A Meta-Analysis." BMC Palliative Care, vol. 23, article 147, 2024. doi:10.1186/s12904-024-01439-x.
