RUSSELLVILLE — Norah Dykema is on a mission to bring Reiki to the River Valley. The first step, she said, is knowing what Reiki is.
Dykema, of Russellville, said her first experience with Reiki was more than 15 years ago. Impressed with its results, she has become certified to administer Reiki to others. Reiki is administered by laying hands on the patient as he or she lies on a massage table fully clothed, allowing energy to flow through the body.
According to the International Center for Reiki Training, Reiki is a Japanese techniquethat promotes healing and is used for stress reduction and relaxation. Information on the
center’s website says an unseen
“life force energy” flows through
individuals, giving them life andhelping determine whether they are healthy and happy. Those with a low energy are more likely to get sick or feel stress, and Reiki helps restore that energy, the website states.
The Sacramento, Calif., native said she and her husband, a history instructor at Arkansas Tech University, began to share the technique with friends after the couple moved to the River Valley.
One of those people is Tachany Evans, who Dykema met while operating a nanny service in Russellville.
Evans said she wasn’t impressed when she heard about Reiki. She was studying for her certification in massage therapy.
Reiki used to be part of the Arkansas State Board of Massage Therapy’s curriculum. It is no longer included in the curriculum, Executive Director Marilyn L. Graham said. She said Reiki was removed from the curriculum before she became executive director, and she isn’t sure why. Graham admitted she is not very familiar with the practice.
But with some coaxing from Dykema, Evans agreed to try Reiki several years ago.
“I didn’t believe in energy work,” Evans said, “but when Norah told me about it, it opened my eyes to it a little more.”
Evans said she now receives Reiki twice a week and can’t imagine her life without it.
“After receiving Reiki, I feel more whole. I’m more in tune with myself,” she said. “It’s almost like a weight being lifted off my shoulders. I don’t know what to compare it to.”
Dykema said Reiki’s reputation and use are growing throughout the country. The technique is now used in 70 major hospitals across the country, including Columbia University Medical Center and Duke University Medical Center.
Dr. Rachel Lampert of Yale University was part of a team of researchers who studied the effects of Reiki on autonomic activity early after acute coronary syndrome. The study included patients who received a 20-minute Reiki session within three days of suffering a heart attack and found they had improved mood and heart-rate variability.
Lampert said she has onlytried Reiki briefly, but she said she still believes that the relaxation brought on by the technique can have psychological benefits for patients with cardiovascular and other health problems.
Other studies have looked into the effects of Reiki on pain in women following a cesarean section, as well as Reiki’s effect on patients with other types of pain, as well as anxiety and cancer. Information on those studies can be found on the sites related to the federal government’s National Institutes of Health, including www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ and do a search for Reiki, or at http://nccam. nih.gov/health/reiki/.
For the past two weeks, Dykema has held public meetings about Reiki in Russellville, Atkins and Clarksville. She said she plans to hold another in Russellville soon.
She said that so far, the reaction to Reiki from the public has been positive.
“People who come to the meetings are already a little bit interested in Reiki, so I’m talking to my crowd,” Dykema said. “They react to me because I’m a very professionallooking woman. I look like a business woman. I’m not a hippie or anything, so they think that if this is something I’m interested in, maybe it willwork for them, too.”
Dykema said that so far, the spirituality of the process has been a positive, rather than a negative for River Valley residents who are unfamiliar with the practice.
“Reiki works with divine source energy,” she said. “You tune the body to work, and people here in Arkansas really get that.”
Staff writer Caroline Zilk can be reached at (501) 244-4326 or czilk@arkansasonline.com.
River Valley Ozark, Pages 203 on 10/30/2011