Stress, what it does to you and how reiki can help reduce stress

I want to talk about what stress and anxiety does to the body. Stress can be caused by many different factors, but it is how we cope with different situations and environments. Each of us deals with these things that affect our life differently. When we have stress, we sometimes become sick or ill, we can feel anxiety and fear. When we feel stressed and anxiety our body goes into the fight or flight mode, it is how we protect ourselves. This is from the time when we, as humans relied on that, fight or flight mode in order to survive. So, when the body is in protection mode it shuts down your growth center that is where your digestive and repertory systems are, in your torso. So, fear and anxiety can, if it is unchecked or prolonged, shut down your growth, your immune systems, reproduction, tissue repair and your inflammatory systems. So, having prolonged stress and anxiety can cause us to become chronically ill.

There are 4 basic sources that we experience stress. 1. Your thoughts, how you persevere your environment can affect your stress level. 2. Your body changes i.e. menopause, adolescence, poor nutrition, inadequate sleep, and your physiological reactions to your environment. 3. Your environment, pollen, weather, noise and air pollution all can be overwhelming. 4. Lastly your social demands for your time and energy and attention.

So, what should you look for when you are looking at how your body responds to stress? You can experience any of the following and more due to each person is different and experiences stress different. Heart-rate increases, breathing rate increases, muscle tension, blood pressure increases, and metabolism increases. You can feel your hands and feet become cold as blood moves to lager muscles that can help fight or flight. Your eyes can dilate, and your sight and hearing sharpen.

How can Reiki help with stress? Well as I have said before in previous posts Reiki helps you to relax! Reiki gently calms all of those over reactive sensations down. It brings balance back to the body and give a feeling of being safe so that the body can get out of the fight or flight mode that stress puts us in. Reiki allows one to return to the growth mode of being. When I have a reiki client that is over stressed, I ask them to tell me where they feel that stress and tension in their body. This then gives me a starting point for their reiki session. I also offer my stress management packet. I won’t make my stress management packet available on line through my website just yet, but if you would like it you can request it through my email/contact page.

Anxiety and Reiki

I find that a lot of my reiki clients come to me with anxiety, seeking a way to cope without medication. I must say this; I will never tell you to not take something your doctor prescribes to you or to stop consulting your professional medical doctors. I am not a Doctor nor will I claim to be one and if you go to any reiki practitioner that claims such you should ask lots of questions and want to see proof of their doctorate. So with that said I want to start by talking about what anxiety is so that you have a better understanding of it.

What is anxiety? According to medical definitions it is a mental dis-order that lead to excessive nervousness, fear, apprehension, and worry. What my interpenetration is that you are worrying about what is to come or the future. It is: the what could be’s, the what if’s, and worrying about the things that are out of your control.  I know that even talking about all this can cause one to have anxiety so let me remind you that you are safe and you are OK and focus on the here and now. Having anxiety is normal human emotion. Having constant anxiety is where it affects your health. It triggers your fight of flight response. When you are in that fight or flight mood your body sends all of its energy to your limbs and shuts down your digestive system and torso area. So staying in that mood for prolonged time, you then start to see other issues like ulcers.

So, how can reiki help with anxiety? Well first reiki is an energy that helps one to relax. It helps you be in the here and now. I have been told that reiki feels like a weight is being lifted off their chest. I have seen someone with severe anxiety come to me, looking like they are deflated. Almost like they have collapsed in on themselves, they were so hunched over that it was painful to see. After one reiki session my client could stand/sit up straighter than they have in years. She also told me that she could actually take a full deep breath and that she felt lighter in heart. She came back for weekly sessions for 6 months. To date she has reported that she has had only a few moments of where she felt her anxiety surface but she was able to manage it quickly. She comes to see me every so often just as something for her to do as part of her new self-care habits.

The energies of reiki are so gentle and loving that it encourages you to relax into it and just let it do what it needs to do. It is hard to resist that beautiful gift that you can’t help but to do as the energies ask of you and trust it and relax.