What is Reiki, really?

What is Reiki, really?

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A quiet look at an old practice with a Japanese

BY IZZY · SEPTEMBER 2026 · 5 MIN READ

What I’ve noticed is that when I tell people I practise Reiki, there’s often a slight hesitation. A polite nod. A quiet trying-to-work-out whether this is something serious or something a little new-age.

It’s a fair reaction. Reiki has arrived in the West wrapped in language that can feel unfamiliar. Energy. Frequencies. The word “healing” doing a lot of work.

But when you look at what Reiki actually is, where it comes from, and what the research is showing, it looks quite old, quite well studied, and quietly at home in ordinary medical settings.

What Reiki actually is

Reiki is a Japanese practice developed in the early 20th century by Mikao Usui. A practitioner places their hands lightly on or just above the body, in a series of positions, with focused attention and steady presence. The person receiving stays fully clothed, resting on a treatment bed.

What people notice inside a session is a change in the body. Slower breathing. A release of tension. Warmth. Some feel emotional. Some fall asleep. Some come out saying they haven’t felt that quiet in months.

What I’ve come to understand is that Reiki is essentially this: presence, attention, gentle contact, and a specific tradition of how to hold the space so the nervous system can shift out of sympathetic activation and into the parasympathetic state where the body can rest and repair.

What it actually does, and how

The traditional Japanese framing is that Reiki works with ki, roughly what the Chinese call qi and what Indian traditions call prana. A subtle life-force that moves through and around the body. That’s the framing Usui worked within, and the one I work within too.

Here is what we do know.

Safe touch activates the parasympathetic nervous system. Heart rate slows, breathing deepens, cortisol drops. Basic somatic physiology.

Your nervous system responds to another person’s regulated presence. This is called co-regulation, and it’s how babies learn to calm down. A practitioner trained to hold quiet presence brings that state into the room, and your body responds.

The body has measurable electromagnetic activity. The heart’s electromagnetic field is about five thousand times stronger than the brain’s and extends several feet beyond the body. In this context, “energy” is not only a metaphor.

And there is what the practice itself teaches.

 In my own work, I feel something specific happening in my hands during a session. Clients describe waves of heat, movement inside the body, colours behind closed eyes, deep meditative states, sometimes a sense of having been somewhere else entirely. Often they describe changes that correspond to what I was working on, even without being told. This is the everyday experience of practising Reiki. The tradition has always known it. The research is catching up.

Where Reiki can help

People arrive for Reiki for very different reasons. Some are curious. Some are exhausted. Some are working through a difficult chapter. Some just want to lie down for an hour and not be asked anything of.

Some come for what happens in the room: deep relaxation, warmth, a release of tension they didn’t know they were holding. Others come for what carries over into the days after: better sleep, lower anxiety, a longer pause before reacting to things that would normally have thrown them.

For some it’s about emotional release.

Others come during grief, illness, transitions, or recovery, and find a place where they can simply rest.

The effect people describe most often, in my experience, is the sense of being met and held in a way that ordinary life doesn’t often make space for.

Where it comes from

Usui named and structured the practice in Japan in the 1920s, drawing on Buddhist meditation, Japanese healing traditions, and his own contemplative experience. What he called Reiki was his particular way of teaching a practice that was, in its underlying gesture, very old.

Similar practices exist almost everywhere

The Chinese have worked with qi for thousands of years through acupuncture and qigong. Indian Ayurveda works with prana. Across the Americas, curanderos and indigenous healers have used hands, breath, plants and prayer for generations. In many African traditions, healers work with touch, sound, plants and community ritual.

Europe has its own long history. In ancient Greece, from around 500 BC, hundreds of healing temples called Asklepions functioned as the earliest hospitals in the Western world, working with rest, diet, music, herbs, dream incubation and gentle touch. In pre-Christian Britain, Gaul and Ireland, the Druids worked with plants, ritual and presence alongside their other roles.

None of these traditions are the same. But when you set them side by side, a pattern is hard to miss. Wherever humans have gathered, someone has used their hands and their attention to support another person’s return to rest.

The precepts underneath the practice

At the heart of Reiki sit five short lines Usui offered as a daily practice:

Just for today, do not worry. Just for today, do not anger. Be grateful. Work with diligence. Be kind to others.

They don’t ask you to believe anything metaphysical. They ask you to live a certain way. For me, they’re as much a part of the practice as anything that happens in a session.

What the research is starting to show

Reiki has been the subject of a growing body of clinical research across a wide range of conditions.

Chronic pain. A 2025 randomised, placebo-controlled trial in Complementary Therapies in Medicine found real Reiki reduced knee osteoarthritis symptoms comparably to guided mindfulness, and significantly better than a waitlist. Sham Reiki showed a short-term benefit but rebounded by follow-up, suggesting the training and intent of the practitioner do something.

Post-surgery recovery. Randomised trials after caesarean delivery, abdominal surgery, cholecystectomy and open heart surgery have shown reductions in post-operative pain, anxiety and surgical fear, and in some cases reduced need for pain medication.

Cancer and chemotherapy. A systematic review found reductions in cancer-related fatigue, pain and anxiety, and improvements in quality of life. Studies with breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy have shown measurable improvements in well-being.

Anxiety and depression. A 2017 systematic review concluded Reiki showed effects better than placebo on relaxation, anxiety, pain and depression.

Palliative and end-of-life care. Research in hospice and palliative settings, including in the BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care Journal, has found Reiki meaningfully reduces pain and anxiety in terminal patients. It is now offered in many palliative care programmes.

That is why Reiki is now being offered in more than 800 hospitals in the United States, including Memorial Sloan Kettering (since 1999) and the Cleveland Clinic.

What it feels like in the room

A Reiki session is quiet. The practitioner works slowly. The person receiving is warm, held, and asked nothing of. You don’t need to believe in energy. You don’t need to arrive in a particular state. You come as you are, you lie down, and your body, if it’s willing, will do what it needs to.

It isn’t new. It’s just a name.

The word Reiki is Japanese. The practice is Japanese. The lineage is Japanese. But the human instinct behind it is universal, and older than any word we have for it.

Wherever people have gathered, someone has quietly stayed with another person until the tension loosened. Reiki is one careful, thoughtful way of doing that.

It is one of the things I offer at Soulora, and one I trust more with each session I hold.

SOURCES

Chronic pain - Hanley, A. W., et al. (2025). Complementary therapies for chronic knee pain: A placebo-controlled RCT of Reiki and mindfulness. Complementary Therapies in Medicine, 95, 103278.

Post-surgery recovery - Reiki and post-cesarean delivery pain, anxiety, and hemodynamic parameters. Randomised controlled trial. - Randomised controlled trial of Reiki on anxiety, fear, pain and oxygen saturation in abdominal surgery patients (2023). - Randomised controlled trial of Reiki on surgical fear and anxiety in cholecystectomy patients (2026).

Cancer and chemotherapy - The Effect of Reiki on Fatigue Symptoms of Cancer Patients: A Systematic Review (2024). - Effect of Reiki Therapy on Quality of Life and Fatigue Levels of Breast Cancer Patients Receiving Chemotherapy. Cancer Nursing.

Anxiety and depression - McManus, D. E. (2017). Reiki Is Better Than Placebo and Has Broad Potential as a Complementary Health Therapy. Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine.

Palliative and hospice care - Pontes-Gomes, R., & Reis-Pina, P. (2026). Reiki and Therapeutic Touch for symptom burden and quality of life in palliative settings: A systematic review.

Hospitals offering Reiki - Memorial Sloan Kettering — Bendheim Integrative Medicine Center (msk.org) - Cleveland Clinic — Effects of Reiki on Stress (clinicaltrials.gov)