What Does It Mean To Be In A Truly Relaxed State?

Relaxation and the ability to be relaxed is a very powerful tool in life. Think about it, people say all the time, when your anxious ‘just relax’, or when you’re about to feel pain and you know it, people say ‘just relax’ and when you are about to speak in front of a large group of people, you say to yourself ‘Just relax’.

At even deeper levels, relaxation has the ability to show you something about yourself that most people wouldn’t believe unless they saw it for themselves. We will get to that later on.
What Is Relaxation?

When you are letting go of worry and concern in your mind, you experience greater degrees of relaxation. On the other-hand when you are encouraging worry and concern in your mind you, experience greater degrees of tension. When people learn to meditate in order to experience inner peace they are encouraged to relax.

When people enter into deep states of hypnosis, first they are taken through a process of relaxation. However, what is it exactly? It’s a silly question really, but the answer is this: Relaxation is the action of releasing tension in the muscles of the body.
Mental relaxation is the action of releasing tension in the thought process, done in various forms of meditation and hypnosis discipline.

So How Can We Make Use Of Relaxation?
Relaxation is something that can be employed by any of us, at any time in our lives. It is a tool that is very useful for dealing with situations and encounters that cause us mental anguish of any kind. It can also help us to experience a greater sense of well-being in our daily lives. Without tension, without stress, we experience greater peace. Inner peace is brought about by a relaxation in the mind and spirit.

At night, we can learn to go through a form of self-hypnosis exercise whereby we release the activities and attachments of the world by encouraging our bodies, mind, and spirits to let go, to relax and just let things be.
The positive effects of this type of mental training must be experienced to be believed, but needless to say, it is one of the most powerful tools we can have in our arsenal for encouraging greater health and wellness.

The Practice
Do these exercises at night when you go to bed, when all of the days’ work is done and there is nothing else left that requires your personal attention. It can be employed during the day also, but make sure you will have at least half an hour to yourself in an environment where you won’t be disturbed or interrupted.

Silence your phone, turn off the T.V, wear something warm, and find yourself a nice comfortable spot to lie down.
When you are lying down, allow yourself to relax and focus on your breath.
Pay attention to the feeling in your feet and allow every muscle in them to relax.
Slowly move your attention up into your calves and do the same thing. Breathe slowly and allow all the muscles from your calves downwards to relax.
Move your attention slightly higher into your thighs and buttocks and do the same. Let everything relax.

Continue the process until you have covered, bit by bit, the entire length of your body, from foot to head.
Be aware of your breathing. Just breathe naturally and allow every muscle in your body to be in this relaxed state of awareness for as long as you like, or as long as you can.
Doing this exercise will develop your ability to be relaxed and you will learn that everything that happens to you in the world, develops a certain amount of tension in your body and mind, and doing this particular exercise will allow all of that tension to slowly dissolve.
Practicing this properly can give you insight into the nature of meditation and has even lead some people to have unexplainable mystical experiences. However, the main aim with this is to uncover for yourself a truly relaxed state.

Once you get the hang of this practice, you can even take it with you into your everyday life, while going about your daily business. Focus on your body and encourage your muscles to stay relaxed, by consciously relaxing them.

Advanced students of this practice will even do it while in stressful situations, combined with ‘breathing focus exercises’ to support their state of relaxation, they can face challenges and stressful situations to a degree much higher than most other people.
In terms of being alive today in the stressful world of the 21st century, developing your own truly relaxed state is a tool that is well worth forging within your body, mind, and spirit.

Is Your Life Designed To Support Wellness?

The question we are asking ourselves here is whether our own personal life, in its current state, is designed to support wellness.

This requires a dual approach.
We must investigate exactly what wellness is referring to. Does it mean a general state of well-being? Can we be well physically but not mentally? Does this have anything to with spiritual wellness?

We must recognise whether or not wellness is suited to our life currently. Maybe we already live in a way that promotes wellness in our everyday life and maybe we do not. However, in either case we want to understand how well our life is suited to wellness.

For those of us who do not live in a way that promotes wellness, what do we have to do to inspire wellness in our current life? Do we have to make any changes or is it simply a case of doing more? Maybe it is a case of doing less?

What is Wellness?
Wellness is something that many people overlook. Most people think that how they feel is how they feel and there is nothing to be done about it.
For some, the primary goal of seeking good health is to prevent some possible future disease, like heart disease or diabetes.
Some others relate wellness only to the physical body and others relate it more to their mental state than anything else does.
Let us have a look at a holistic view of what wellness is. Quite simply, wellness can be understood as balance.

Wellness = Balance
When we feel well physically it is due to the fact of our bodies is getting what they need from a balanced lifestyle. This includes our level of physical exercise, our nutrition intake, our level of work vs play, and our personal and environmental hygiene. When we feel balanced physically, we feel well.

Mentally we feel balanced when our thoughts are aligned with our purpose in life. When we have an understanding as to what we are doing, why we are doing it and what needs to be done to maintain order in our life. When we are emotionally disturbed on the other-hand, we say that we feel out-of-balance, or perhaps mentally unwell.

Spiritually, we have a much bigger picture to look at. In order to determine whether we are spiritually well we need to be very honest with ourselves when asking that question. If we feel completely happy with our lives, if we have a genuine understanding of our function and position in the universe, as living beings, then we could be said to be spiritually well. But, and this is where the importance of self-honesty shines through, we must be clear with ourselves if we feel spiritually unwell.

Do we feel confused about our way of life, or our beliefs?
Do we have unresolved conflicts with our past or even perhaps our understanding of our life, or our purpose?

Do we feel inner calm and peace that supports and promotes our utmost quality of life?
Being spiritually unwell means that no matter what we do, or where we go, or who we are with, our happiness, our wellness is only temporary.
Eventually we always fall back into some form of despair or confusion, or suffering: like having a splinter in our minds that inevitably, always returns back to hurt.

The Best Thing About Wellness
The best thing about wellness though is that it is attainable, by anyone and everyone. Everyone and anyone on the face of the planet can achieve physical, mental, and spiritual wellness. Bearing in mind, that wellness does not mean ‘to be in good health’. If that were the case then no terminally, ill person could ever feel well.

This is what is meant by, wellness = balance. Even a person who is suffering from a terminal illness can feel well, if their life is balanced and fulfilled.
In order to encourage the development of a holistic wellness in our life, all we have to do is maintain a balanced way of life. This incorporates the physical, mental and spiritual worlds, since all of those things are within us.

Therefore, with regards to the question, is your lifestyle designed to support wellness, the above will give you an idea if it is, and only you will know the answer. If the answer is no, there are many things you can do to make changes, so make a plan and stick with it.

Health Is The New Wealth, Are You Well-thy?

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No matter how successful you are and how much money you have in the bank, without good health you will be ill equipped to enjoy your riches and achievements.

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Recent surveys show a trend towards preventative health and the maintenance of good health. Values have shifted and where once acquisition of possessions was seen as the symbol of wealth, nowadays the trappings associated with health are becoming a bigger status symbol.

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Green juice, for example, is seen as a signaling of wealth, status, and discipline, and displaying the accoutrements of good health is being viewed as more important than the accumulation of expensive cars, houses, jewels, and other material “toys.”

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It has been shown that consumers are more interested in staying fit and healthy than they are in paying for health care once they have become sick. They are willing to pay a higher price for products and services, which will keep them fit and well.

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So rather than looking at dollars in your bank, why not take a few minutes to assess your own fitness level and see how “well-thy” you truly are...

The areas you need to look at in order to assess your health include the following:

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Diet

Exercise

Relaxation

Mental Wellness

Leisure and Fun

Community

Relationships

Spirituality

Finances

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Take a look at the following questions and answer them by giving yourself a rating of 1-10 for each one.

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Question 1: Diet

On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1= not at all and 10=extremely, how healthy is your diet?

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Question 2: Exercise

On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1=not at all and 10=excellent (5 to 7 times a week), how good is your exercise regime?

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Question 3: Relaxation

On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1=never and 10=daily, how much priority do you place on relaxation?

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Question 4: Mental Wellness

On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1=very poor and 10=excellent, please rate your mental health?

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Question 5: Leisure and Fun

On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1=very little and 10=plenty, how much leisure and fun are you having?

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Question 6: Community

On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1= very little and 10=plenty, how much do you connect with a community where you feel you belong?

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Question 7: Relationships

On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1= very poor and 10=excellent, please rate a) your relationship with yourself and b) your relationship with your significant other?

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Question 8: Spirituality

On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1= very poor and 10=excellent, please rate your relationship with your spirituality?

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Question 9: Finances

On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1= very poor and 10=excellent, how healthy are your finances?

Results

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With this simple self-assessment tool you can easily see the areas of your life where you are truly “well-thy” and those where you perhaps are a little “poor.”

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If you scored, 7 or more you are doing pretty well and can feel proud of yourself.

In the areas where you scored 5 or less you might want to take a closer look.

If you scored lower than a 3 on any area, it indicates that you really should take a closer look, and focus on some strategies for improvement in that area.

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Even though you may be very successful in your corporate career and be absolutely loaded with the big bucks, if your relationships consistently suck or your blood pressure is too high and you are constantly running on overdrive, with a heart attack looming unless you lose fifty pounds, you might want to think about how wealthy you really are!

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Perhaps as a society, we are starting to cotton on to the truly valuable things in life. Who knows, maybe we will follow the example set us by the Danes, and learn to measure our contentment and happiness by the level of “hygge” in our environment.

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Hygge is something quintessentially Danish which has them being favored as the most contented people in the world. It comes from the word “hug” and is a quality of coziness and togetherness they are masters at creating.

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Alternatively, we might get on board with the forward thinking Buddhist nation, Bhutan, who uses a Gross National Happiness quota rather than a Gross Domestic Product quota. Now that's the true measure of prosperity!

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Are You A Nervous Wreck?

Everybody gets anxious or nervous from time to time in situations like going through financial problems or speaking in public. For some individuals, anxiety becomes so dominant and occurs so often that it starts to take over their lives.
How can you tell if you are a nervous wreck and have crossed the line into a mental disorder?
It isn’t easy. Anxiety can come in several different forms, including social anxiety, phobias, and panic attacks. The distinction between normal anxiety and an official diagnosis isn’t always evident.
If you want to know if you are a nervous wreck, check out these symptoms:
Excessive worrying. The main feature of GAD (generalized anxiety disorder}, which is the largest kind of anxiety, is worrying excessively about the everyday things—both large and small.

However, how much worrying is too much?

In the case of generalized anxiety disorder, the anxiety must be so bad that it interferes with everyday life and is associated with symptoms that are noticeable, such as tiredness.

Problems with sleeping. Difficulty in staying asleep or falling asleep is linked to a variety of health problems, both psychological and physical. Typically, the individual tosses and turns with the expectation of having to have a job interview. If you find yourself chronically agitated, worried, or lying awake, this may be a sign of some type of anxiety disorder.

Some experts recommend that nearly half of all people with generalized anxiety disorder will have sleep difficulties. Anxiety might be involved if you find yourself unable to calm down, your mind is racing, or you wake up feeling wired.

Irrational fears. Some anxiety isn’t at all generalized. On the other hand, it is attached to specific situations or things, such as crowds, animals, or flying. If the fear overwhelms you or if it is disruptive and out of proportion to the risk involved, it’s a sure sign of a phobia, a type of generalized anxiety disorder.

Although it can be crippling to have a phobia, they aren’t always obvious. In fact, they may not show up until you get into a specific situation and find out that you’re incapable of beating your fear.
Muscle tension. Constant tension in your muscles, whether it comes from flexing your muscles throughout your body, balling your fists, or clenching your jaw, is often an accompaniment to anxiety disorders.

The symptoms can be so pervasive and persistent that those who have lived with them for a long period of time will stop seeing it after a while. Getting regular exercise can help control the muscle tension; however, the tension might get worse if an unforeseen force or an injury disrupts the individual’s workout habits.

Having chronic indigestion. While anxiety may begin in the mind, it often shows itself in the body by having physical symptoms or chronic digestive difficulties, such as diarrhea, constipation, gas, bloating, cramping, and stomach aches.

If you have irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), it isn’t always connected to anxiety; however, the symptoms of IBS and anxiety often go together and can cause each other to become worse. Your GI tract is very sensitive to stress. The social and physical discomfort of chronic digestive issues can make you feel even more anxious.

Having stage fright. Many people get nervous prior to addressing a large group of people or otherwise being the one in the spotlight. However, if the fear is so strong that no amount of practice or coaching will get rid of it, or if you spend a lot of time worrying and thinking about being on stage, you might have a type of social anxiety disorder known as social phobia.

People who have social anxiety generally worry for weeks or days leading up to a specific situation or event, and if they do go through with it, they are usually extremely uncomfortable and may think about it for a long time later, worrying that they were judged.

Being self-conscious. Social anxiety disorder doesn’t just have be related to being the center of attention or speaking to a crowd of people. In many cases, the anxiety is caused by everyday situations such as having a conversation at a party, or drinking and eating in front of a small number of people.

In these types of situations, those with social anxiety disorder generally feel like everyone is looking for them and they often have symptoms of talking difficulties, profuse sweating, nausea, trembling, and blushing. These symptoms can be so unsettling that they make it difficult to advance at school or work, maintain social relationships, or meet new people.
Bottom Line
In reality, if “nervousness,” anxiety or worry are interfering with your quality of life, there is a problem. It could be something as common as work related stress that is causing this.
Get help, speak with your doctor, or a therapist, and address your stress issues first and foremost.

Symptoms Of Unwellness

A general feeling of “unwellness” can mean many different things and can manifest in various ways.
It is important first of all, to identify exactly what it is you are feeling when you experience “unwellness.”
What are your specific symptoms? They can vary widely and from person to person: everybody is different.
For example, do you feel tired or lethargic all the time?
Do you suffer with aches and pains? Are they in the joints or the muscles?
Do you find that your performance in daily tasks is suffering?
Are irritated, stressed out, and annoyed much of the time?
Are you overweight?

Do you sleep well or do you find that even though you seem to sleep all night, you wake up feeling as if you’ve been pulled through a hedge backwards? Is your sleep light and fitful, where you are woken up by the slightest noise? Do you find yourself waking up every night at the same time, say 3am, and then finding you cannot get back to sleep again until the wee hours?
Are you taking medications? Have you checked the possible side effects? Could these be contributing to your feelings of unwellness?

Possible Medical Causes

These are dependent on many factors and it is very difficult to pin down exactly what might be causing your malaise. Some common conditions that cause a feeling of general malaise include chronic fatigue, depression, fibromyalgia; you could have anemia or low blood pressure, or, you might have a urinary tract infection.

Problems that are more serious can include HIV and AIDS, cancer, diabetes and adrenal gland dysfunction. If your feelings of malaise go on for more than seven days, it is wise to see a medical practitioner.

The most obvious step is to discuss your symptoms with your doctor who is going to give you a thorough check-up and an educated diagnosis. It is important to get your health checked out to rule out the possibility of anything serious, or, if it is something serious, to catch it early and hopefully treat it successfully and prevent major problems from developing further down the line.
Your doctor will give you a physical examination and probably want you to get some blood tests or x-rays done to rule out certain problems such as thyroid disease or cardiovascular problems.

Identifying Your Needs and Deficits

Optimal wellness begins when we address the whole person, also known as Holistic Wellness. This means that we need to take care of your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing, along with considering our financial (the main cause of stress for many people) and occupational wellness.
In order to assess your own wellness, it’s important to take an honest and comprehensive inventory of your life and self to identify problem areas in order to begin the journey to reach an optimal level of wellbeing.

Basic Ways You Can Improve Your Overall Wellness

Manage your sleep: There are a number of ways to help your sleep: for instance, don’t eat after 6pm. Try to turn off your computer at least one hour before you go to sleep. Reading is a good way to make yourself drowsy last thing at night. Meditation or listening to a relaxation recording can be helpful. Drinking a cup of warm milk before bedtime is soothing and helps you to settle down.

Eat well: a sensible diet with plenty of leafy greens and fresh fruits and vegetables is key to feeling well. Try to avoid too many carbohydrates as these can make you feel sleepy and light-headed.
Exercise, in moderation, is beneficial to your overall sense of well-being. Walking for half an hour daily can help you feel better.

Rest and relaxation: Getting enough of both of these will ensure you feel and perform your best.
Drink plenty of water and avoid alcohol, sugary drinks, and caffeine: Water can help flush your body of toxins and avoiding stimulants like sugar and caffeine can help calm the nervous system.

Reduce Stress: Whenever possible try to eliminate stress from your life. Create a calm and welcoming home environment. Avoid people who are negative and complaining. Find time to have fun. Connect with others and grow your social network. Laughter alleviates stress.

Self-care: At the core of all successful wellness attempts is self-care. This means making yourself and your wellbeing a priority, it is truly the foundation of your wellness.

5 Natural Ways To Thrive

develop harmony

What does it mean to thrive?

According to standard definition, it means to grow, to flourish, to prosper.
This is a beautiful term, something that resonates deeply with anyone who wants to encourage and inspire wellness. In terms of wellness then, to thrive means that we are constantly encouraging wellness within ourselves, within our bodies and of course, within our minds.
This leads us to an awareness of an –all-pervading sense of wellness within our spirits. To thrive is something beautiful and it is something that each of us can learn how to do.

How Do We Thrive?

We thrive, quite simply by allowing ourselves to and by encouraging ourselves to do so. For some, this is easier said than done. There are many people who have tried to thrive, but who have faced too much difficulty, they eventually give up because they think their life is just not cut out for it.
No matter how hard they try, something always gets in the way or pushes them back in the wrong direction. There are some things that we must understand about thriving, about constantly evolving, growing, and moving forward.

Knowing How To Thrive

To know how to thrive we must fully understand the process. Thriving, though the definition is of growing, prospering, and flourishing, is not always a case of thriving.
Sounds contradictory doesn’t it? Let me explain.

The tree that thrives in nature faces many obstacles. It faces potential destruction in its early stages by animals walking by that could possibly crush it underfoot. It has to compete with all the other trees and plants in the forest to get the sunlight it needs and even when it has fully matured still it must face gales and storms and through all of this, it must continue to strive towards thriving.
It can be seen then that thriving is not actually something that is achieved; rather it is something that one must aspire towards and to do that we must accept that we will face challenges.
Indeed in order to thrive it is essential that we face challenges and it is also essential that we overcome those challenges or at least have a mindset that will strive to overcome them.

5 Natural Ways To Thrive

Motivate Yourself – Without motivation, it is impossible to thrive. Motivation is inspired through passion, whether that is related to doing something for yourself or for others, maybe your passion relates to providing a future for your children. It doesn’t matter what motivates you, use your motivation to thrive. Use it to grow, and to push you to the next level.

Accept all challenges – When you are challenged, you are forced to thrive. This doesn’t mean that when somebody challenges you to a game of pool for example, and you win the match easily, that you are thriving.

No, a true challenge is something you find difficult, something that you cannot easily achieve, something that requires that you grow, or learn a new skill, or visit a new environment or face a fear, to achieve. This is true thriving, pushing your boundaries, expanding your limits, forcing yourself to thrive.

Face your fears – Fears, in every case are designed to limit us. By facing our fears, we are pushing ourselves into an area of life that we have been too afraid to visit. To truly thrive we must want to be able to do anything and we must be able to do everything without limitation. In order to do this we must allow the formation of mental barriers to what life presents us with.
Everything that comes our way can be used as an opportunity to thrive and by facing our fears, we will make the most of every opportunity that does.

Balance – Balance your life from the perspective of ‘Body & Mind’. In order to truly thrive we must develop a way of life that promotes balance. If we cannot promote physical wellness then our mental wellness will struggle and the same goes in reverse. By developing balance physically and mentally, we allow our spirits to thrive.

Develop harmony – Harmony is something that is very important when it comes to thriving. Without harmony, we face too much opposition in the world, and this opposition leads to restriction of our ability to express ourselves.

If we cannot express ourselves freely, we cannot thrive. Learn to accept what happens around you and even within you, be selfless if it encourages harmony and not only will you thrive, but you will see that everyone else that you interact with will also, in their own way, will thrive.

Tuning into your Energy with Reiki

Many of the processes of the body are related to energy within it. Reiki can help you tune into your energy in a number of different ways.
If tuning into your energy sounds weird or New Age, just consider how a pacemaker is used to help a person with something wrong in relation to their heart beat. Cast your mind back to science class and recall that Luigi Galvani was able to get dead frog’s legs to move through electricity. In this way we can see clearly that a body’s health and functions both rely on energy.

Meridians and chakras

Two of the main ways to tune into your energy using reiki is through meridian and chakra work. There are 14 primary meridians and 7 chakra. The 14 primary meridians don’t just connect to your energy, they connect to your organs as well, enhancing health and healing. The 7 chakras control particular kinds of energy in the body, from the desire for safety and security at the root chakra at the base of your spine, up to your mental and spiritual energy at the crown of your head.

As you study reiki, you will learn about each of these forms of energy and how to harness the through both ‘hands-on’ healing and through the power in your palms as you hover them over the body to build, balance and focus the energy.

The reiki attunement

In most cases, people visit a reiki master and enjoy various treatment sessions, with this expert guiding their energy. However, if you feel that reiki energy healing is perfect for you and that you would like to learn more about it, your first step on this path would be a reiki attunement.

The attunement is a ceremony in which you receive the power of healing from a qualified reiki master. In order to be qualified, they must be able to trace their teacher, their teacher’s teacher, and so on, all the way back to the first reiki master Usui, in an unbroken line called a lineage.

Once you receive your attunement, this help you tap into your own energy and will deepen your study and practice. If you wish to help others, you could study Level 2 reiki. Some people like to receive an attunement for that also as they receive their special set of reiki symbols as well, but it is not essential.

If you constantly feel out of balance, or as if something or someone else seems to be running your life, it might be time to get to your know energies better

The 3 Levels of Reiki Training

Reiki, pronounced RAY-key, is a form of healing using the energy within the body. It is considered to be a legitimate form of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), that has its origins in Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and Ayurvedic medicine from India. TCM and Ayurveda have been practiced for more than 5,000 years and reiki for about 2,500 in Tibet, and in the last 100 or so years as reiki in Japan. It is therefore well-documented in terms of its effectiveness to support both overall wellness, and specific goals for healing.

Traditional Japanese reiki was founded in the late 1880s and systematized by Mikao Usui based on his own studies and experiences with healing. In his lifetime, he passed on his teachings to more than 2,000 students. This is important to note because in order to start on the path to healing with reiki, you need to receive what is called an attunement from a qualified reiki master.

There are 3 levels of reiki, 1, 2 and Master. There are levels of Master in certain forms of reiki, but each level will give you a general idea of the amount of study and skill involved. Level 1 is for beginners. Once you receive your attunement, you can start to travel on this path. You will learn about the energy centers of the body such as the meridians and chakras (energy centers in the body) and be able to do your own hands on healing in the comfort of your own home.

If you become really interested in the studies and wish to help others, you might then decide to study Level 2 reiki. In this case you will learn how to work with others in person, and from a distance as well. You can help people and even pets with this effective healing modality.

If you really love helping others, you might then choose to deepen and expand your studies, and undertake to become a reiki master.

Reiki isn’t just a destination, it’s a journey of body, mind and spirit as you attempt to heal all three. The best way to start is to go for several treatments and see how you feel after them. If they’ve made a significant difference to your energy levels and outlook on life, ask your practitioner if they are a master, or can recommend one.

Ask about their lineage and why they became a reiki master. If you like what you hear, you can get an attunement from them and follow this fascinating new path to healing.

Reiki and other Healing Energies – An Introduction

A lot of people have heard of reiki and other forms of traditional healing from the East, but aren’t sure how they work, or even if they actually do work.

The truth is that reiki DOES work, according to numerous studies and is just one form of what we can term energy work, using the body’s energy to heal physical and mental issues. Some of the most common and familiar forms of energy work are acupuncture, acupressure, chakra work and reiki. Reiki has a lot in common with all 3 of these healing modalities, and a few key differences.

Acupuncture and acupressure are the most familiar forms of Traditional Chinese medicine. Each uses the meridians, 14 different energy centers of the body, in different ways. With acupuncture, thin metal needs are used to balance, stimulate or adjust the energy within the meridian.

With acupressure, a finger or knuckle is used to press hard on each meridian and get the energy to unblock and flow once more.

Chakra work comes from traditional Indian (Ayurvedic) medicine. The word chakra means wheel or vortex of energy, and the 7 chakras are believed to be the seat of certain forms of energy, such as the heart for love and compassion and the throat for effective communication.

Reiki, pronounced RAY-key, means spirit energy. It is commonly translated as universal life force energy. Its goals is to balance and move around the ki or qi, (pronounced CHEE), or vital energy that keeps us alive and healthy. If the qi stops flowing, illness can result.

Reiki is different from acupuncture and acupressure because it is a form of “hands on healing,’ laying hands on the body in certain positions to balance the meridians, but without pressing hard. It can also be done without touching the person at all.

It is also different because it works with the chakras as well. Depending on the style of reiki used, some practitioners will just focus on overall health and balance, such as Western style. Japanese traditional practitioners will aim for deeper healing.

If you’ve been feeling run down and as if your get up and go has got up and went, it might be time to try reiki. It’s the gentlest of all energy work modalities, and can enhance body, mind and spirit if you give yourself regular treatments and practice clean living on the days you don’t have a treatment.

Easy Self-Care With Reiki

Reiki is a great addition to any self-care routine. It does take some time to learn, but once you do, you can treat yourself any time you need to.

Reiki is a form of spiritual healing which uses the energy in the body, the ki, or qi, (CHEE) to balance and heal. It has its origins in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and was practiced for more than 2,500 years in Tibet, until it fell out of fashion. In the late 1800s, it was rediscovered by Mikao Usui of Japan and turned into a system that modern people could study and get great benefit from.

It is important to know this because reiki should be taught by a reiki master, who will give what is termed an attunement so you can learn the hand movements. Then you can give yourself treatments on a regular schedule. The ideal schedule is 3 days in a row, followed by 18 days in which you can do other things like meditate and do other forms of energy work.

Reiki has been associated with many health benefits, but here are a few easy ways to use it for self-care regularly:

Balance and boost your aura
Your aura is your armor against the world and the impression you convey to others. Your aura should be strong all over, not thin in places, or else this might cause imbalance and disease, or people taking advantage of you. Polish your aura with reiki.

Identify your main health issues.
As you work your way along your body and then each of the main energy points during each reiki session, the meridians and chakras you will be laying your hands over, you might sense low energy or some other issue and focus your power there. For example, the organs are linked to the meridians, so focusing on one meridian in particular can offer deeper healing.

Enhance your concentration and mood
Each reiki session involves 3 things, starting, healing, and concluding in a way that is mindful, that is, in a state of focus and awareness. This is usually through meditation. Meditation can help you balance body, mind and spirit, and improve your concentration. In this way your mind will feel clearer and your mood uplifted.

If you’ve been struggle with health issues or just don’t seem to be able to stop feeling stressed and worried, reiki could be the perfect healing path for you.