Why Woo-Woo Works: The Surprising Science Behind Meditation, Reiki, Crystals, and Other Alternative Practices

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The US National Center for Complementary and Integrated Health writes that the goal of a reiki practitioner is to direct energy to help facilitate the person’s ownhealing response. In a sense, what’s being directed is electric and magnetic fields. While we’re not in the business of studying the individual movement of electric and magnetic fields while a practitioner practices reiki, results in large part almost certainly come from this process. Similarly, a 2019 review in the British Medical Journal Supportive & Palliative Care, reported that “Reiki therapy is useful for relieving pain, decreasing anxiety / depression, and improving quality of life in several conditions.”

David has a first class honors degree in chemistry, specializing in biological and medicinal chemistry. He has the slightly geeky honour of having achieved 100% in his 3rd year university degree exam in ‘Statistical Mechanics’, which is a branch of quantum physics applied to chemistry. Consciousness: prayer, distant healing, and modern scientific and philosophical ideas surrounding consciousness

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There were a few interesting things but if you are at all even remotely adjacent to New Age stuff, this is all a shallow review with some...really odd science (more on that in a sec). A number of studies now show that doctor empathy even has a significant impact on a patient’s immune system. In one study, more than 700 patients treated for symptoms of the common cold received either a regular consultation or an empathy-enhanced consultation.21 Empathy substantially lifted the patients’ immune responses, and their recovery times were almost 50 percent faster than in those who received a lower-empathy consultation.” The ideas behind some of these holistic therapies have been around for millennia – but now we have scientific evidence demonstrating how they can contribute to physical, emotional, and energetic healing too. Be kind because improves a lot of things, including the immune system and telomere length. Telomeres are long when we are young and they shorten as we age, but practicing loving-kindness could help slow that down. I took this seriously. I know that I need to add more loving-kindness into my life. I’ve been practicing it more since I listened to this point. After completing his PhD, he worked for 4 years in the pharmaceutical industry, first developing drugs for cardiovascular disease and cancer, then a year managing leadership and change projects. During this time he also served as an athletics coach and manager of Sale Harriers Manchester, one of the UK’s largest athletics clubs, leading the Junior Men’s team to three successive UK finals. Upon leaving the pharmaceutical industry, he co-founded the international relief charity Spirit Aid Foundation and served as a director for 2 years.

When times are rough, go with the flow. There is science behind this. It’s important to trust that we are where we need to be. To a large extent, the brain doesn’t distinguish real from imaginary, and this underpins some aspects of the placebo effect. When you imagine that something is happening, it really is happening as far as your brain is concerned, and it releases the chemical substances necessary to confirm that what you’re imagining is indeed real.” Published (2005, 2006). In this first book by David Hamilton (originally self published), you will learn about the mind-body connection and the mind-world connection.I have been part of Mindvalley for years, and I’ve seen Regan Hillyer many times on the platform doing what I thought was guided meditations.… Unlimited access to every Hay House audiobook, ad-free meditation, lecture, immersive learning program, podcast & more. While walking in a park with a friend one day I pointed to a cloud in the sky and told him that it probably weighed around 100 tons (90 tonnes). He laughed – not in an unfriendly way, but just at the preposterous notion that we can establish the weight of a cloud. For him, it conjured up an image of a giant set of kitchen scales. Clearly, it’s impossible to know such a thing. The study suggests that depression can reduce color contrast, making the world seem monochrome and even flat." Some of the subjects covered are Mind Over Matter, Meditation, Trapped and Released Emotions, Nature, Reiki, Crystals, How Perception Changes Your Reality, Consciousness, Telepathy, Distant Healing and Prayer,The Right Conditions and The Law of Attraction.

I came out of Why Woo-Woo Works with even more confidence in things I use regularly like reiki, hypnotherapy, visualization, and energy work. Sometimes these studies are done in hospitals. One took place at Bryn Mawr Hospital in Pennysylvania with patients who had undergone total knee replacement surgery, a very common surgery in the US. Twenty-three patients received reiki and 20 didn’t – for comparison. Pain was assessed before the operation and each day afterwards. Those who received the reiki were in significantly less pain than those who didn’t.On emotional contagion: "The direction in which it flows - the is, who is the sender and who is the receiver - depends on who is the stronger expresser of their emotions." Many complementary therapies, healing modalities, treatments, and other practices, theories, and beliefs are often referred to as woo-woo, but this is because they’re not widely understood and most people are unaware that in some instances, they’ve a sound basis in science.