Can a slight touch, a firm touch or even no touch really heal what’s ailing you?
Energy healing — tapping into the body’s own frequencies as a type of alternative medicine — is being taken seriously by health practitioners trained in both eastern and western modalities of medicine.
And science is backing up its powers: One 2013 study found that 10 minutes of energy healing was as effective as physical therapy in improving the range of motion in people with mobility problems. UCLA even has en electromyography (EMG) lab that studies electrical activity in the body.
But many remain skeptical. Dr. Edzard Ernst, a professor of Complementary Medicine at the University of Exeter in England (the first-ever professor of this branch of study), has repeatedly refuted the efficacy of energy healing, stating once that just five percent of alternative medicine has evidentiary support.
I put four energy-based alternative healing practices to the test to find out if any of them are worthwhile complements to Western medicine. But first a disclaimer. While I don’t have any major medical issues that required serious healing, I did try these to get a feel for what each procedure is like.
Reiki
What it is: A practitioner places his palms lightly on or over various parts of the body in an effort to redistribute energy.
What the expert says: “Reiki is a self-healing technique, a profound meditation technique that you can learn,” said Gianantonio Corna, a third-generation energy healer and the owner of Reiki Vitae in SoHo. “I don’t even remember the last time I got sick.” He recommends at least three sessions to really feel its effects on both physical and emotional levels. So with Reiki, he argues, those stress-related conditions you’re fighting can start to subside. He compares it to a GPS for your body, “going around the different energy channels that we have and detecting where the traffic is not good, and giving the information on that spot that (leads) to rebalance.”
My verdict: I lay flat on the back in a dark room, while soothing music played in the background. Gianantonio did not touch me once, just hovered his hands over my body. It was slightly awkward, but I reminded myself that Corna does this every day and it doesn’t faze him.
Corna told me to expect various memories to pop up in my mind during our 90-minute introductory session. He was right — random slices of life crept back into my conscious during our time together. Corna explained that that is the Reiki energy’s way of storing those memories on our human “iCloud,” so that they don’t take up space on our hard drive anymore. The memories aren’t being erased, but rather moved so that we can let go of old patterns and make room for positive encounters.
After the treatment, I felt relaxed. After all, I was just lying down for an extended period of time! And Corna was spot-on in his diagnosis of an area of myself I wanted to work on, even giving me practical advice for self-improvement. It was pretty incredible he knew so much about me without me giving him any details!
Reflexology
What it is: Not just confined to the feet, reflexology stimulates specific pressure points on the feet, hands, face and ears to affect various organs, glands and parts of the body. Each reflexology pressure point is said to correspond to, and connect with, a different body part. Whereas a massage uses big, broad strokes, reflexology is just the fingers and thumbs pressing on reflex pressure points.
What the expert says: “Reflexology is a science and an art,” said Laura Norman, a certified reflexologist and author who also teaches classes on the subject in Midtown, the Berkshires and South Florida. The feet are the most popular not only because they are “the most neglected and abused,” parts of our body, but also because they are the furthest from the heart and contain almost 15,000 nerves. Because of gravity, toxins tend to settle in the feet, which can affect our health.
When reflexologists work on the feet, they’re “balancing energy flow, calming the nervous system, improving circulation, and assisting the body to eliminate toxins while helping a variety of health conditions,” Norman said.
My verdict: Whether it was the early morning appointment or Norman’s magic fingers, or both, I easily drifted in and out of sleep on Norman’s table. Some of Norman’s clients have told her that reflexology is more relaxing than massages they’ve had, and I’d have to agree — peeling myself off the table when it was time to go was torture. My tired soles were feeling lighter by day’s end, and I noticed a slight change in my sinuses later in the night. Did I feel like all of my problems were solved in the hour? No, but I was able to melt into the treatment and experience a new type of relaxation. It was my favorite of all the treatments (if you really want to know).
Tapping
What it is: Gentle self-taps on various acupressure points in the body (under the eye, the collarbone) to signal to the brain that it’s OK to calm down. Also known as Emotional Freedom Technique.
What the expert says: “When we feel stressed, it’s not a sensation we just experience in our head — we feel it in our entire body,” said Jessica Ortner, author of “The Tapping Solution for Weight Loss and Body Confidence.”
“By stimulating these acupressure points while focusing on the thought that is causing the stress, your body is communicating to your brain that it’s safe to relax,” she said. Ortner swears the practice is effective for everything from back pain to weight trouble. She cited one study in her book that found 89 women lost an average of 16 pounds over eight weeks without diet and exercise — just by adding two hours of tapping a week, which averages to 15 minutes a day.
My experience: Having just started my job at the News, and adjusting to leaning on my phone’s headset for much of the day (a big no-no…I’m aware!) I told Ortner I was feeling some tension on my left side.
Ortner guided me as I very gently tapped nine pressure points on my body six times, while using affirming self-talk. After initially tapping on the side of my hand, I moved up to the eyebrow, side of the eye, under the eye, under the nose, on the chin, on the collarbone, under the arm and the top of the head. Afterwards, I did notice the pain had subsided.
The great thing about this treatment is that you don’t need a practitioner’s help once you have it down. I have since used tapping when I’ve found myself in stressful circumstances, and I especially love tapping the underneath my eye — I find it instantly relaxes me.
Reconnective healing
What it is: A practitioner moves his hands above the client’s body in a way that opens up the body to different types of frequencies. From there, the intelligence of the body is supposed to intercede — without the practitioner manipulating or touching the body. For example, someone coming in with a knee problem might not realize that the body’s intelligence might need to fix something else in the body or mind, which is only presenting itself with a knee issue. It’s a quick practice, with three sessions being the maximum recommended.
What the expert says: The practice allows us to “step into our limitless potential,” said Dr. Eric Pearl, the movement’s founder and the author of “The Reconnection: Heal Yourself, Heal Others.” “People come in to have the experience of more fully embodying and embracing their lives.” Pearl explained that we need to let go of our belief that the body heals solely through chemicals produced by within the body, and instead embrace the idea that the body can heal through frequency, vibration, resonance, informational exchange and light. “If you’re lucky, your healing will come in the form your desires, but if you’re truly fortunate, your healing will come in the form that you’ve not dreamed of, one that the universe has in mind specifically for you,” Pearl said.
My experience: I had one of Pearl’s associates lead our session. He had me lay face-up and flat on the table and close my eyes.
He waved his arms over me in all sorts of rhythmic patterns and, wow, I felt a tingling, pins-and-needles sensation in my body almost immediately. My ears almost felt like they were filling up with water as well.
The pins and needles came and went for the half hour I was on the table, as did a soft whirring sound in the room. It was the most visceral treatment I had, and put me into a trance-like state. I felt uneasy being a bit “out of control.”
Afterwards, I woke up curious about what I had experienced, but Kelly’s prompt questions made me feel like the sensations I experienced were normal and to be expected. I can’t speak on it healing any condition I have, but I can see how people believe in this practice’s capabilities.
What the doctors think
Physicians specializing in both eastern and western medicine both affirmed the power of these healing modalities. Deepak Chopra, a holistic physician who also subscribes to Western teachings, said that science is starting to understand how energy healing works.
“It triggers your own healing system, which is called homeostatis,” he said. Homeostatis is what tells your body to create an antibody when you have an infection, or a clot when you fall so that you don’t bleed to death.
Dr. Mark Melrose, an emergency medicine physician at Urgent Care Manhattan, said that there’s “infinitely more that we don’t understand,” about medicine, and that alternative therapies such as energy healing could certainly benefit patients, provided that they do no harm and also are complements to traditional treatments.
“If it makes you feel better, then it’s probably helping,” he said.
The bottom line
If anything, these practices can help with stress reduction, which is linked to an improvement of many health conditions, like heart disease and hypertension. But with so many people extolling the benefits of these techniques, I’m likely to think that there is some unexplainable magic to them. I wouldn’t use them as my only method of treating a disease, but I can see how they complement other therapies.
