Scientifically-Backed Health Benefits of Energy Medicine

“Is it just me or does it seem like there are more energy healers out there these days?” a friend asked me recently.

She’s not seeing things the way they are: From shamans to Reiki masters to chakra balancers, energy medicine is becoming more talked about than ever before. Keeping Up With the Kardashians and Project Runwayhas also joined the movement, and has recently been recruiting patients to be treated by an energy healer as part of a new reality TV show.

As an energy medicine practitioner myself, I am grateful that energy medicine is becoming more accessible, but I also worry that this sudden fad will sideline the field at a time when science is beginning to take this medical practice more seriously.

This sudden trend [energy medicine] The act has fallen to the sidelines at a time when science is beginning to take the practice more seriously.

As an acupuncturist, I practice one of the oldest forms of energy medicine in existence, which also requires four years of graduate study, certification, and licensure in Traditional Chinese Medicine. So when publisher Harper Collins asked me to write a book on all forms of energy healing, I had the opportunity to connect with some of the best healers in the world.

I met with a university sociology professor who specializes in energy medicine research and teaches his students healing techniques that have cured cancer in mice in the lab. I spoke with a Chinese herbalist who has conducted research at Johns Hopkins showing that acupuncture can cure serious eye diseases and restore vision. I interviewed sound therapists, spoke with researchers who study the power of prayer, participated in a Peruvian shamanic ceremony, attended a Native American sweat lodge, met with an 18th-generation qigong master, watched Reiki practitioners treat patients in a hospital, and consulted with scientists and medical anthropologists who could explain their research.

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Needless to say, this is a broad field, but all energy healers have one thing in common: they access the body’s electromagnetic field in a way that stimulates self-healing, or in scientific terms, restores homeostasis.

Let’s take a look at how Western medicine has adopted these Eastern traditions.

Accessing the body’s electromagnetic field

Modern medicine has a good understanding of the body’s energy fields and uses them for both diagnosis and treatment. The best documented fields are the bioelectric fields around the heart, brain and muscles. These are best known through measurement techniques such as the ECG, EEG and EMG. Science has also identified fields around the retina, nerves, some organs such as the ovaries, and some glands.

And practitioners now harness energy like vibrational sound energy, light, and lasers. For example, infrared pulses can stimulate a patient’s vagus nerve to treat depression, and static magnets are used to relieve pain and break up scar tissue. So when energy healers talk about healing through interaction with energy fields, they’re talking about something that’s measurable, well-documented, and becoming increasingly mainstream.

Doctors currently use several forms of energy, including vibrational sound energy, light, and lasers.

But long before physicists began studying energy waves, the ancient Chinese understood that everything around us vibrates. And they weren’t the only ones. In fact, most major traditions have identified vital energies that govern physical and mental processes and provide a blueprint for health and abundance for all living things.

In Chinese medicine, this vibration is called “qi,” a broad term that encompasses all manifestations of energy, from its most material aspects, like flesh and blood, to its most immaterial expressions, like nerve impulses, thoughts, and emotions. I like to think of qi (sometimes spelled “chi”) as the intelligence of our bodies — the way various systems interact to help us heal and grow. It’s what prompts your liver to detoxify when you drink too much, or what causes your skin to regenerate after a cut.

Harnessing the healing power of energy

The ancient practice of acupuncture is just one part of Chinese medicine, which also includes the use of herbs, massage, qigong, nutrition, cupping and moxibustion (a type of medicinal smoke). It’s taken the West 5,000 years to catch up, but today acupuncture has gained some legitimacy thanks to research that supports the connection between acupuncture and health. Involving the release of endorphins, it has been shown that this modality can affect pain pathways in the brain and nervous system.

Here in the West, it has only taken 5,000 years to catch up, but today acupuncture has gained some legitimacy.

Neuroimaging studies have also shown that acupuncture calms areas of the brain that sense physical discomfort and activates areas involved in rest and recovery. And what’s more, Doppler ultrasound studies have shown that acupuncture increases blood flow to the treatment area, and thermal imaging studies have proven that it reduces inflammation.

The more ways we can quantify how energy medicines like acupuncture work using Western techniques and clinical terminology, the more readily these therapies will be accepted throughout the medical community.

Maintain a sense of mystery

Many years ago, I had the opportunity to start a program at New York University Lutheran Medical Center that used acupuncture to relieve the pain of childbirth. Brooklyn’s hospitals aren’t the only ones embracing Chinese medicine traditions: Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York is now training acupuncturists to treat cancer patients, and Stanford University’s materials science department is studying the healing powers of something called “subtle energy.”

Meanwhile, the University of California, Irvine, has studied the science behind Pranic Healing, a field of non-contact energy medicine that uses prana (human life force) to balance and harmonize energy levels within the body.

I am fascinated by the scientific perspective on energy medicine, but there are aspects of healing that cannot be measured with modern technology.

While I am intrigued by the scientific perspective on energy medicine, there are aspects of healing that cannot be measured with modern technology. In my own practice, I have often been in awe of the ways people heal themselves. And while I was looking at life force energy from different angles for my upcoming book on energy medicine, I was reminded of this quote from Albert Einstein: “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mystical. It is the fundamental emotion that lies at the cradle of true art and true science.”

Jill Blakeway, PhD, DACM, is a Chinese medicine practitioner and teacher, and the founder and clinic director of the YinOva Center in New York City.

Jill is the author of Making Babies: A Proven 3-Month Program for Maximum Fertility and Sex Again: Recharging Your Libido, and is currently working on her third book on energy healing for HarperCollins.

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