What is Reiki, and why are midlife women turning to it?

If you’re sceptical, good. That’s exactly the right place to start.

You’ve probably heard of Reiki. Maybe a friend mentioned it, or you spotted it on a spa’s menu between hot stone massage and reflexology. You might have nodded politely and thought: I’m not really sure what that is, but it sounds a bit… out there.

That’s a reasonable response. I’d have said the same thing once.

So let me try to explain it in a way that doesn’t require you to believe anything unusual.

What Reiki is

Reiki is a hands-on (or hands-near) practice that originated in Japan in the early twentieth century; initially as a personal spiritual practice, but as it was brought over to the west, it became a way of treating other people.

A practitioner places their hands lightly on or just above different areas of your body, with the intention of supporting your nervous system to settle, and your body’s own capacity to heal.

That’s it, at its most basic.

You lie down, fully clothed. No part of the body is pressed or manipulated. Many people feel warmth, a kind of heaviness, or simply drift into something that isn’t quite sleep but isn’t quite waking either.

Most people leave feeling noticeably calmer than when they arrived.

What’s actually happening during that process - energetically, physiologically, or otherwise - is where it gets more interesting. 

Why the scepticism is fair

Reiki sits in territory that mainstream medicine hasn’t fully mapped. Although there are plenty of studies that demonstrate how Reiki works alongside mainstream medicine and within the NHS, large-scale clinical trials don’t yet exist. The mechanisms aren’t established in the way that, say, the mechanism of a painkiller is established.

If you’ve spent your life making decisions based on evidence, that matters. You’re right to notice it.

What we do have is a substantial body of smaller studies and a large amount of anecdotal evidence suggesting that people feel genuinely better after Reiki sessions;  less anxious, less pain-aware, sleeping more deeply. We have plausible explanations involving the parasympathetic nervous system and the relaxation response. And we have a growing number of hospitals and hospices in the UK offering it as a complementary therapy, which suggests that at least some clinicians consider it worth the room.

Reiki was offered to me as part of my recovery journey from a recent breast cancer diagnosis and treatment, along with reflexology and acupuncture, so I know from experience of receiving it, as well as being a practitioner, how effective and safe it was to have alongside medical treatment.

None of that is proof. But it’s not nothing, either.

So why are so many midlife women trying it right now?

Here’s what I observe in my practice, and in conversations with women navigating perimenopause and beyond.

By the time a woman reaches midlife, she has often spent decades managing herself - her work deadlines, her mood, her symptoms - in order to keep functioning. She is very good at overriding her own system.

Then menopause arrives and the system stops cooperating with that approach. Sleep becomes unreliable. The nervous system feels more exposed. Emotions move faster than she can process them. The body, after years of being managed, starts demanding to be listened to instead.

Reiki, at its most practical, is a structured hour of stopping. Of lying down in a quiet room and letting your nervous system do what it actually needs to do. For many women, that alone is more unfamiliar - and more valuable - than they expected.

But there’s something else, too. Many of the women who come to me are also navigating a quieter internal question: Who am I now? Not the version who performed and achieved and held everything together, but the one emerging on the other side of all that. 

Reiki can also create space for that kind of question to surface, and sometimes, tentatively, to begin to be answered.

What Reiki isn’t

It’s not a replacement for medical care. If you have symptoms that need investigation, please investigate them.

It’s not a belief system. You don’t need to subscribe to any particular worldview to receive a session or benefit from it.

It’s not going to knock you sideways. You won’t necessarily feel anything you can easily describe afterwards. Sometimes the shift is subtle; a slightly lighter feeling, a better night’s sleep, a sense of having exhaled properly for the first time in weeks. And if any intense emotions bubble up during the session, they tend to dissipate within a minute or so; a well trained Reiki practitioner is experienced in being able to allow these shifts to happen safely.

And it’s not only for people who already believe in this kind of thing. Some of my most interesting clients came in curious but unconvinced, and stayed because something shifted that they couldn’t fully explain.

If you’re curious

I offer both in-person Reiki sessions in Godalming and Haslemere, Surrey, and distance sessions that can be received from wherever you are. If you have questions, including sceptical ones,  I’m very happy to answer them before you decide whether to book.

You can get in touch here or find out more about what a session involves.

About Karen

Karen Skidmore is a Reiki Master Practitioner (Usui tradition) based in Hindhead, Surrey. She works with over-thinkers, HSPs and midlife women navigating the physical and emotional terrain of perimenopause, menopause and beyond.