Reiki is an ancient touch therapy which recharges, realigns and rebalances energy to create optimal conditions for healing. Studies with oncology patients demonstrate its benefits: faster detoxification processes, enhanced immunity responses, decreased anxiety as a result of being diagnosed and reduced fear and stress following cancer diagnoses.
Libby Barnett MSW is one of the longest practicing Reiki Masters on the East Coast and co-author of Reiki Energy Medicine: Bringing Touch into Home, Hospital and Hospice.
How Reiki Works
As a Reiki Master Teacher, Libby Barnett assists her students to connect to the energy healing system at the core of Reiki. She offers classes and workshops for professionals as well as the public. Her book Reiki Energy Medicine: Bringing Healing Touch Into Home, Hospital and Hospice has received critical acclaim for its integration of Reiki into traditional medical care; she has taught classes at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health as well as Harvard Osher Integrative Grand Rounds presentations of Reiki presentations by John Harvey Gray one of Hawayo Takata’s original 22 Masters trained by Hawayo Takata himself.
Benefits
Reiki has long been used by individuals as an individual daily practice to revitalize and realign energy. Anecdotal evidence supports its benefits in many clinical settings such as neonatal units, cancer clinics, surgery centers, counseling offices and hospices – nurses and doctors say Reiki helps alleviate pain relief, boost immunity levels and decrease stress while improving sleep and appetite patterns while decreasing radiation/chemotherapy side effects such as nausea or fatigue.
Research also indicates Reiki’s potential to shorten hospital stays and promote recovery for surgery, trauma, chronic illnesses such as AIDS and cancer patients, including reduced anesthesia requirements and sooner discharge times compared with non-Reiki patients. Furthermore, patients receiving Reiki were able to reduce pain medication use post-surgery and reported greater satisfaction with their hospital experience than others who did not use Reiki.
Reiki is a noninvasive therapy that is easy for nurses and doctors to incorporate into their work with patients. Being touch therapy, Reiki practitioners simply touch patients to activate the energy. Furthermore, sessions don’t take long and can easily fit into daily schedules such as an RN’s.
Libby Barnett is a Reiki Master and runs her Reiki Healing Connection in Wilton, New Hampshire. Additionally, she offers classes to health care professionals at several hospitals, hospices, medical schools across the nation. In 2012 she co-authored Reiki Energy Medicine: Bringing Touch into Home, Hospital and Hospice as co-author.
This book, intended for medical professionals, takes a scientific approach to energy healing by explaining how Reiki works and its physiological effects. Written by a former NASA physicist, the author provides her personal experiences of Reiki while sharing a practical guide for its application in contemporary healthcare settings. An invaluable resource for any healthcare worker interested in understanding more about this ancient healing art; available both online and major bookstores (a review copy was provided for review purposes).
Techniques
Reiki practitioners use energy work known as Reiki Energy Medicine: Bringing Healing Touch Into Home, Hospital and Hospice to restore balance to the body’s energy by placing hands on what are known as chakras or “energy doors.” Nurses, physical therapists, anesthetists and counselors in hospitals and hospices also employ Reiki techniques to promote healing by relieving pain, managing stress levels and increasing patients’ ability to cope with illness. This book helps readers gain an understanding of this system within themselves as well as techniques used in Reiki and touch therapies such as other touch therapies. Also available from Greenworld Books is: Reiki Energy Medicine: Bringing Healing Touch into Homes Hospitals and Hospices