When it comes to staying healthy, nothing can replace regular check-ups, STDs
screenings and an open, honest relationship with your healthcare
provider. But the quest for enhanced health and wellness needn’t end when you
leave your doctor’s office.
Good nutrition, exercise, spiritual practice, and massage therapy are merely
the tip of the wellness iceberg for many people between visits to your
doctor; there are many other options out there that can potentially
enhance your overall health. Alternative Therapies reported that even back in 2002 there were over one million U.S. adults
who had experienced Reiki (pronounced ray-key), an energy-based
complementary and alternative method of natural healing.
But
how exactly does Reiki—which is defined as both a form of bodywork and
of energy medicine—work? Reiki Master Anthony Luciano describes it as “a channeling of
healing-energy through the trained practitioner’s hands to the client.”
The client may perceive this as warmth, tingling, pulsing or other
sensations of energetic activity, he says, throughout the course of a
treatment, which lasts between 60-90 minutes
In
recent years the medical community has become more open to its
benefits, as Reiki is currently being used as an adjunct to
conventional therapies in hospitals, medical clinics and hospices
around the U.S. for everything from reducing anxiety and stress
to alleviating the unwanted side effects of chemotherapy. St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital in New York and Siloam in Philadelphia
have provided Reiki treatment and training for HIV/AIDS patients.
"Reiki
is being used as a complementary treatment to more traditional medical
care,” says Luciano, who has worked with both chemotherapy patients and HIV-positive
people. "I have found Reiki to noticeably reduce the side effect of
chemotherapy and in some cases the side effects are reduced
drastically."
Adds
Luciano: “Reiki helps promote natural healing by strengthening the
bodies own natural ability to heal itself. It works in conjunction with
traditional medical treatments and can actually make those treatments
work better.”
Official
research on Reiki remains scarce, though studies are slowly being
undertaken. A study on the effectiveness of Reiki on patients with
advanced AIDS was done by the National Center for
Complimentary and Alternative medicine, and more on the effects of
Reiki in stress and prostate cancer are in the works, says the NCCAM.
Hard
research may be lacking, but any complementary treatments that may
enhance a patient’s wellbeing can only help traditional treatments,
according to Susan Ball, M.D., assistant director of the Birnbaum Unit HIV Care Center at New York Presbyterian Hospital
“Statistically speaking I'm not sure that we can concretely say much
about Reiki, but ‘feeling good’ is huge when one is dealing with a
chronic illness such as HIV,” says Ball, “especially where chronic
medication is a part of the treatment.”
“Health
and wellness are a big package,” adds Ball, “of which the medical
portion is important but not exclusive. I try to be open to whatever
alternative treatments my patients discuss with me. As long as these
alternatives work in addition to established medical care then I think
that there is a lot of good that can come from them.” -- Mitch Rustad
