How Does Reiki Work?
15 Dec 2025 · 14 min
Serena Poon, a Reiki Master and nutritionist, explains how Reiki sessions work: a practitioner uses hand placement or light touch to balance energy fields and chakras from head to feet. People seek it for anxiety and stress. Some experience temporary reactions like nausea or dizziness afterward, sometimes called an "energy flu."
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How Does Reiki Work?
This is JJ Virgin four time New York Times bestselling author, celebrity nutrition expert, and Fitness hall of Famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask Ask the Health Expert. Tori from Facebook asks, how does Reiki work? Can you share who should get Reiki and why? Hey, it's J.J. and I've got Serena Poon here today to answer this question. She's a Le Cordon Bleu trained chef, certified nutritionist, and Reiki Master to the Hollywood elite. She started by creating contemporary meals, nutrition plans and menus for the likes of everyone from Jerry Bruckheimer to Kerry Washington to Sean P. Diddy Combs. Her passion for integrative health and holistic nutrition led her to create Culinary Alchemy, a method of functional and spiritual nutrition that integrates how food affects our bodies on a physiological and energetic level. She's also a crazy good gift giver. I've gotten some of my favorite crystals from her. We'll be right back to answer this question, so stay Stay with me.
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So Reiki is such an incredible healing modality. I think the best way to kind of dive into it really quickly is to say if you've ever experienced an overactive mind or struggle with feelings of anxiety, Reiki can be a new avenue for someone to find peace, peace and calm. This is really the number one reason why my Reiki clients reach out. People are referred to me and it usually comes from having a need to feel calm, feel supportive, have rebalancing to be grounded again. So what is Reiki really? Reiki is a non invasive, gentle healing technique that originally evolved in Japan and it's commonly translated from the Japanese language as universal life energy. And Reiki is known to activate the natural healing processes that range from physical to emotional and to spiritual levels. So as we, as I first talked about, you know, just in that mental state, in that emotional state, when someone's feeling anxious or stressed, you know, that directly affects our physical body. You know, that shifts us into a state of fight and flight. And we naturally have a physical response to that kind of feeling and all the biochemicals that get released when we're in that state. So using Reiki as a healing, as an energy healing modality, you can really help create balance and harmony in a person's energy fields. And this kind of involves a placement of a practitioner's hands. So I can either, or a practitioner can either lightly touch or just have their hands just above the areas of the body that need support, healing, balancing, unblocking. And so normally I start from the top of the head and I work my way down to a client's feet. And the whole time I'm working to channel and guide that positive energy flow to that body and making sure the energy chakras are moving, they're in flow, they're Spinning in the right direction and there's nothing blocked. So one of the most wonderful things about Reiki is that you can really learn to be your own practitioner and you can transfer this healing and there's energy to yourself. In fact, that's actually the first. The reason why I first studied Reiki was because I really wanted to, to use that energy on myself, my own body, to help heal some of the physical issues that I was recovering from from my surgeries. And so that was kind of how I first started. And once I knew sort of what I was doing, I wanted to be able to channel that healing energy towards people I love, my friends, people I knew. And it ended up becoming a big part of my practice. And so what people don't realize is, you know, when you are actually, when you're a practitioner and you're actually doing Reiki on someone else, that energy is channele through you, so you actually receive it as well. And that's another really beautiful thing about it. Reiki is almost like an active meditation. You know, you're consciously connecting and releasing that which no longer serves you or that person in order to allow the body, mind and spirit to receive the energy it needs for balance. So if you can imagine that and remember that we are all made up of energy, then you begin, then you can begin to believe that you hold the ability to shift your own energy at any time. And so that's basically what Reiki is. Reiki works to positively affect and just gently support our energy systems by balancing, harmonizing our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual bodies. So, you know, as I, as I mentioned already, it's really about channeling that universal life energy into our energy systems or our energy centers, which are called chakras. Different names in different languages, but they're basically chakras as most of most people have heard of. And we're just doing that to clear balance ground our bodies and our energy fields. So that flow of energy through the physical and non physical bodies activate our innate healing resources and sort of encourages that gradual release of emotional, physical, mental, spiritual toxins that have built up over time in our system. So our cells have memory. And those toxins, whether it's from stress or thoughts or experiences or traumas, they're almost stored in our cellular memory. It can come from depression, fears. I mean, any experiences that have resulted in imbalanced or painful emotions can also result in chronic or acute physical health issues. So when we work to release and heal those conditions, we're allowing our bodies to open up and expand so that we can carry more love and more light. And much of the time, the release experience is very gentle. And the cleansing process happens without a lot of notice by the recipient. So people have a tendency to be very relaxed. They feel calm. Sometimes they sleep or they take a nap. That's usually how it is. But sometimes the release of these toxins, these emotional toxins, these. These. These energetic toxins, and sometimes their physical toxins as well, they can. They can result. They can result into some physical discomforts. You know, sometimes people have some nausea, some dizziness, some, you know, headache. Sometimes people can have their sleep disrupted or feel achy in their muscles and joints, I mean, or have even digestive issues. These are all very normal things that can happen depending on what the body is releasing, because the release process can also stimulate the nervous system. And so they can bring out, you know, repressed feelings and emotions, memories that really need to come to the surface in an acute way so that we can work towards true healing. And that's true healing for our emotional body, for our spiritual body, but also very much for our physical body. So people can experience a rollercoaster of feelings sometimes. I mean, that's not always the case. It's typically very gentle, but sometimes they can feel frustrated or even more anxiety. And it's all sort of part of the process, but that's not what happens every single time. And when these type of discomforts happen, it's called a healing crisis or an energy flu. And usually it just passes after a couple days. It's almost like, you know, when you do a cleanse or a detox, sometimes there's discomfort for a couple days, and then those toxins get released, and then you feel amazing and you feel light. So, you know, energy. Energy healing. Reiki is just another modality that really complements other holistic, naturopathic, and traditional type of healthcare. And for the most part, a Reiki practitioner or an energy practitioner can really can really navigate someone through the discomforts of any type of healing crisis by offering supportive and balancing protocols. So I would say, you know, hydration is a huge one. Anytime I work with a client, I'm always. I'm always reminding them to stay really well hydrated. Hydrate before an energy session. Definitely hydrate after an energy session, because water really helps flow and helps the energy flow, helps your physical body flow as well, and you always want to just sort of move those toxins out.
This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert.
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