#ReikiResearch Archives - Reiki 4 Well Being

What would it take for Reiki to fit into the daily rhythm of a busy community mental health clinic? That was the practical question behind a 2025 study on Reiki and mental health by a team that included Mayo Clinic researchers.

What the Researchers Did

Between July 2021 and May 2023, Reiki was offered to outpatients with a stable mental health diagnosis at Zumbro Valley Health Center, a community behavioral health clinic in Rochester, Minnesota that serves a largely low-income population. Of the 122 patients invited, 91 completed a session, about three in four. Eighty-one percent of them were women, and the most common diagnoses were major depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder.

Each person’s first session lasted up to an hour, at no cost, and was given by one of two Reiki master teachers following written guidelines. Because the study ran during the COVID-19 pandemic, patients could also choose to receive Reiki remotely. Before and after the session, they rated pain, fatigue, anxiety, stress, sadness, and agitation, along with happiness, energy, relaxation, and calm, on a simple 0 to 10 scale.

What Patients Reported

The main aim of this Reiki and mental health study was feasibility: could Reiki fit into the rhythm of a real outpatient clinic that already has plenty asking for its time? On that question the researchers reported a clear yes, with recruitment, retention, data quality, and patient acceptance all holding up, and no adverse effects or negative feedback reported.

The second question was what patients said they felt. After a single Reiki session, ratings of pain, fatigue, anxiety, stress, sadness, and agitation were lower, and ratings of happiness, energy, relaxation, and calm were higher. The changes were statistically significant, which means they were larger than chance alone would be likely to explain. Stress showed the biggest drop, a median of 4 points, while relaxation and calm each rose by a median of 4 and anxiety and sadness each fell by a median of 3.

What This Study Can’t Tell Us

This was a feasibility pilot rather than a randomized controlled trial, and the authors say so plainly. A pilot study is a bit like a first date: promising, but nobody is picking out curtains yet. There was no comparison group of patients who sat quietly for an hour without Reiki, so we can’t say how much of the shift came from the practice itself. The authors note that expectation and the placebo effect could account for some of it, and I would add that simply having dedicated, unhurried care in the middle of a hard week may play a part too.

Patients rated themselves on a simple scale instead of validated questionnaires like the PHQ-9 or GAD-7, and the study looked at a single session, not change over time. The patients were also predominantly White and from the Midwest, so the findings may not apply everywhere. The researchers describe the results as early work that could help shape future controlled studies of Reiki and mental health.

Why This Reiki and Mental Health Study Matters

What stands out about this study is who it looked at. The patients were managing diagnosed mental health conditions on limited incomes, and the authors note that complementary care options for low-income patients are limited. To their knowledge, this is the first study to look at Reiki and well-being in mental health in an underserved population. The researchers asked whether Reiki could realistically be offered there, and patients rated themselves calmer and more relaxed afterward. The authors present Reiki as a complement to standard therapies, which is how I see it too.

If you read my post on the Yale study of Reiki and heart health, you will notice a similar spirit in this Reiki and mental health research: a small, early study that asks a careful question and is honest about its limits. My post on how Reiki supports the body’s natural balance goes a little deeper on the nervous system side.

A Moment From My Own Sessions

I see a version of this in my own sessions. A client once described herself as feeling contorted when she arrived, and by the end of our time together her face had relaxed and she looked like herself again, calm and present. She said that when she caught her reflection on the way in, she hadn’t recognized herself. I’m not offering that as proof, since one client’s story is just that, but it is the kind of shift these patients rated on their own scales, and I’m glad researchers are taking the time to ask.

An Unhurried Hour

An unhurried hour is hard to come by in a busy week. If you’d like one, I’d love to have you experience a Reiki session for yourself, in person or by Zoom, and you can find the details and book a time on my Reiki sessions page. If you would rather ease in first, my free 5-day Reiki, Reconsidered series is a gentle place to start.

A gentle note: I’m a Reiki Master Teacher, not a licensed health professional. Reiki is a complement to medical and mental health care and never a replacement for it, so if you’re living with a mental health condition, please keep working with your doctor or therapist.

Source: Prasad K, et al. Effect of Reiki on Measures of Well-Being in Low-Income Patients with Mental Health Diagnoses. Global Advances in Integrative Medicine and Health. 2025;14. Read the study on PubMed | Free full text on PubMed Central | DOI

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Reiki 4 Well Being • Kandi Mullen, RMT
17+ years in practice. Teaching since 2009. | Pinellas Park, FL | Reiki4WellBeing.com

If you have ever typed something like does Reiki actually do anything into a search bar, especially late at night after a hard week, you are far from the only one. Interest in complementary practices like Reiki has been growing for years, and a fair question tends to travel right alongside that interest: is there any real research behind this, or is it just something people say makes them feel better?

It is a fair question. Rigorous research on complementary practices has historically been thin, and a lot of what is written about Reiki online leans more on personal testimony than on data. But there is at least one study worth knowing about, because of where it happened and who conducted it. Researchers at Yale-New Haven Hospital studied Reiki on their cardiac unit, and their findings were published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, one of the most respected cardiology journals in the world.

What Researchers Wanted to Know

After a heart attack, doctors pay close attention to something called heart rate variability, or HRV. It is a measurable sign of how well a person’s autonomic nervous system, the part of the body that runs largely on its own, is functioning during recovery. Lower HRV in the weeks after a heart attack is linked to worse outcomes, which is part of why medications like beta blockers, which raise HRV by increasing parasympathetic activity, are a standard part of post-heart attack care.

For someone lying in a hospital bed in the days after a heart attack, this is not just an abstract number. It reflects whether the nervous system is still braced, keyed up as if bracing for another blow, or beginning to settle into the calmer, rest and digest state that supports real recovery.

The Yale research team wanted to know something more specific: could Reiki produce a similar shift. Could a noninvasive practice, delivered by hospital nursing staff already trained in it, measurably change a recovering patient’s nervous system activity, and how would that compare to simply resting quietly or listening to calming music.

To find out, they screened 229 hospitalized patients recovering from acute coronary syndrome. Forty-nine met the study criteria and were randomly assigned, within 72 hours of admission, to receive Reiki from a trained nurse, listen to slow classical music, or simply rest while their heart activity was continuously monitored.

What They Found

In the group that received Reiki, HRV increased significantly from where it had started. In the resting group, it barely moved. In the music group, it dropped slightly. The researchers reported that the increase seen with Reiki was significantly greater than what happened with either music or simple rest, and that the size of that shift was similar in magnitude to what had previously been documented with propranolol, a commonly prescribed beta blocker, in an earlier heart attack recovery trial.

This was not an outside therapy brought in as an alternative to hospital care. The Reiki sessions were delivered by the cardiac unit’s own trained nurses, folded directly into standard patient care, with zero complications reported.

— Findings from the Yale-New Haven Hospital study, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 2010

Read the full study

The study also tracked emotional state using a simple self-report scale before and after each session. Patients who received Reiki reported more of the positive states, feeling happier, calmer, and more relaxed, and less of the negative ones, including feeling stressed, angry, and anxious. And notably, there were no complications reported in the Reiki group at all.

Being Honest About the Limits

It is worth being precise about what this study does and does not say. The researchers themselves were careful in their own conclusion, describing a potential clinical role for Reiki in post-heart attack inpatient care, not a replacement for medical treatment and not a cure. The sample size was small, 49 patients, and the measurement window was short, a single hospital stay rather than months or years of recovery. The authors were direct about this too, calling for longer studies to see whether the benefits they measured could translate into lasting improvements in heart health over time.

What the study does offer is something genuinely rare in this field: a randomized, controlled comparison, conducted at a major academic medical center, with continuous physiological monitoring rather than self-report alone. That combination is part of why this particular study gets cited again and again by people looking for research-backed information on Reiki.

A Practice Worth Knowing, Wherever You Are in Your Health

I am a Reiki Master Teacher, so I will say plainly that I did not need a Yale study to believe in the value of this practice. But I understand why some people do want the research, and I think it is a good thing to want. Reiki supports the nervous system’s natural ability to restore balance. That is the mechanism this study points toward, and it lines up with what I have watched happen in sessions and in my own daily self-practice over the years.

If you found this research interesting, you may also want to read my post on Reiki and Mental Health: What Mayo Clinic Researchers Found, another early study that asks a careful question.

Curious How Reiki Could Support You?

If you’re curious how a Reiki session could support you, or you’d like to learn a self-practice of your own, I’d love to hear from you.

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Reiki 4 Well Being • Kandi Mullen, RMT
17+ years in practice. Teaching since 2009. | Pinellas Park, FL | Reiki4WellBeing.com