Frequently Asked Questions

Reiki is a gentle energy practice rooted in Japanese tradition that supports your nervous system in shifting from states of chronic stress into rest and restoration. It works with your body’s bio-electrical field, the same field measured by EEGs and ECGs, to bring coherence and balance to your system. When your energetic field settles, your nervous system often follows, allowing your body to access its natural capacity for healing and regulation.

Your mind doesn’t need to believe in Reiki for your body to experience relief and lasting change. Reiki works with your body’s natural bio-electrical field and nervous system responses, which function independently of conscious belief. Many people who approach Reiki with curiosity or even skepticism still notice tangible shifts in how they feel.

Reiki doesn’t require physical touch, visual cues, or physical proximity to be effective. During your session, I connect with your energetic field through trained attunement, focused intention, and a regulated presence. I practice the same way online as I do in-person, but without all the sensory overwhelm, physical hurdles to get dressed and arrive at a particular location, or pressure to perform or mask.

I often use a seven-stone layout as a physical anchor for your body to represent your chakras, placing each stone intentionally to represent your main energy centers. This helps ground the session somatically while allowing your nervous system to settle without needing to “do” anything.

You can rest, lie down, sit up, turn your camera off, close your eyes, or move around. The work meets you exactly where you are.

Life force energy is the vital, non-physical energy that flows through all living things and sustains our health and vitality. This concept appears across cultures and healing traditions throughout history: it is known as Ki in Japanese, Qi in Chinese medicine, and Prana in Indian philosophy. While the terminology varies, the underlying idea remains consistent. There is an energy that keeps us alive, and when that energy flows freely, we experience health and well-being. When it becomes blocked or depleted, we may experience physical illness, emotional distress, or a general sense of being unwell.

One way to understand this is to think of life force energy like a river flowing through your body. When the current is strong and smooth, you feel healthy, vibrant, and resilient. But stress, injury, illness, or emotional trauma can create blockages or stagnation in that river, disrupting the natural flow. Over time, these disruptions can manifest as physical symptoms, chronic tension, anxiety, or a feeling of being stuck. Reiki works by helping to clear those blockages and restore the natural movement of energy through your system, allowing your body and mind to return to a state of balance.

Another helpful analogy is to imagine that your body runs on an internal battery powered by this life force energy. When you are stressed, overwhelmed, or unwell, your battery becomes depleted and you may feel exhausted, foggy, or emotionally drained. Reiki helps to recharge and balance this energy system, giving your body the support it needs to activate its own natural healing capacity. Rather than adding something foreign to your system, Reiki simply replenishes what has been lost and removes what has been blocking the flow.

While life force energy itself is invisible and cannot be measured with current scientific instruments, many people report tangible sensations during a Reiki session. These may include feelings of warmth, gentle tingling, a sense of heaviness or lightness, or a deep and profound relaxation. These experiences are signs that energy is moving and rebalancing within your body, even if you cannot see it happening.

Whether you understand life force energy as a literal phenomenon or as a useful framework for describing how stress, tension, and trauma accumulate in the body, the experience remains the same. People can feel stuck, depleted, or disconnected and after Reiki, many people feel lighter, clearer, and more at ease. You do not need to believe in life force energy for Reiki to be effective, but understanding the concept can help you make sense of what you may feel during and after a session.

No, your camera can be off for the entire session if that feels more comfortable. You’re welcome to lie in bed, sit in the dark, keep the lights low, turn your screen off, curl under a blanket, fidget, stim, or move however your body needs to move.

Remote Reiki is great for anyone, but especially people whose emotions hit harder than others’ and who recover more slowly after stress. It’s particularly helpful for people who struggle with meditation and self-regulation, find that other wellness tools that work for others don’t seem to work for them, or who want support that doesn’t ask them to perform or exhaust themselves to access. 

This work tends to resonate most with people who prefer slower, gentler modalities over high-intensity interventions. If you’re looking for an energetic-support practice that honors your capacity and doesn’t require you to perform or explain yourself, this is a good fit.

This space is open to anyone of any gender identity who experiences cyclical or seasonal emotional patterns, PMDD or PMS, hormone-related shifts, neurodivergent nervous system sensitivity, burnout cycles, overstimulation, or difficulty regulating after stress. While the majority of my clients are women (including trans women) because PMDD and cyclical shifts disproportionately affect them, all are welcome. If your inner world is cyclical, seasonal, or easily overwhelmed, you belong here.

Neurodivergent nervous systems often live in states of continuous heightened arousal, constantly scanning, reacting, compensating, masking, and managing sensory and emotional input at lightning speed. The parasympathetic nervous system, responsible for rest and recovery, often doesn’t get much opportunity to activate. Reiki invites the parasympathetic system back online through cues of safety like warmth, stillness, breath, and grounded presence.

For people with ADHD, Reiki can help reduce hyperactivity and impulsiveness, when desired, by supporting a calmer, more focused mental state. Many people report feeling clearer, lighter, or more settled after sessions, not because Reiki fixes ADHD, but because it gives the nervous system space to breathe between all the demands. For autistic individuals who experience heightened sensory input, difficulties with interoception, and persistent nervous system dysregulation, Reiki offers a gentle, sensory-friendly practice that doesn’t require conversation or performance. The session is paced entirely by your comfort, and for non-speaking or minimally verbal people, the healing happens through presence rather than words.

Common benefits that neurodivergent people experience through Reiki include reduced anxiety and stress, improved sleep quality and duration, better emotional regulation during transitions or meltdowns, decreased sensory overwhelm, improved interoception, faster recovery times, enhanced focus and concentration, and a greater sense of feeling grounded in their bodies. Because Reiki is non-invasive, quiet, and can be done without touch, it’s especially helpful for people who are sensitive to light, sound, or physical contact.

You do not need a diagnosis. I fully honor self-identification. Many people are never able to access formal assessments due to cost, stigma, masking, or systemic barriers. If you know or suspect that you’re neurodivergent or experience the world differently, you belong here.

Research on Reiki and hormonal health suggests that regular sessions can support the body in regulating stress responses, which in turn may influence hormonal balance. When the nervous system is chronically activated, it can disrupt the endocrine system and intensify cyclical emotional patterns. Reiki helps bring the nervous system into a more regulated state, which can create space for the body to restore hormonal equilibrium.

Many people living with PMDD or cyclical emotional shifts report meaningful changes after consistent Reiki sessions. Common experiences include feeling emotionally steadier during days that normally feel volatile or unpredictable, recovering more quickly after emotional flooding or sensory overload, experiencing less overwhelm when the luteal phase begins, sleeping more fully even during hormonally intense weeks, moving through emotional waves without losing entire days or weeks to shutdown, and noticing fewer days where everything feels unmanageable. People often share that Reiki gives them a sense of internal calm they haven’t been able to access through meditation, breathwork, or nervous system tools alone. The practice seems to work at a deeper level, beneath conscious effort, allowing the body to recalibrate in ways that feel both gentle and profound.

PMDD goes far beyond typical premenstrual symptoms. It often includes debilitating mood shifts, physical pain, insomnia, sensory sensitivity, brain fog, and cyclical depression. Many people describe feeling like a completely different person during their luteal phase, experiencing what I call a very deep “inner winter” every month.

Many people live with PMDD for years before receiving a diagnosis due to systemic barriers including lack of provider awareness, diagnostic criteria requiring months of symptom tracking, and dismissal by healthcare providers. Self-identification can be transformative and even life-saving when formal diagnosis feels out of reach. If you recognize yourself in any of these symptoms, you deserve support whether or not you have an official diagnosis.

Cancellations made less than 24 hours before a scheduled one-to-one session, as well as missed appointments or no-shows, result in the session being forfeited.

If I ever need to cancel due to illness, capacity, or emergency, you will be offered a full refund (unless you would like the opportunity to reschedule for a different time/day).

Yes. One-to-one sessions may be rescheduled with at least 24 hours’ notice using the link in your Acuity confirmation email or by contacting me directly at anastasia@emberandhearth.co.

Appointments are scheduled based on current calendar availability. 

New appointment times are released on a rolling basis.

All services are non-refundable, including one-to-one sessions, packages, group sessions, live events, and digital products. Once purchased, payments cannot be returned.

Reiki is an experiential modality, and results vary from person to person. If you’re unsure whether this work is right for you, you’re welcome to reach out with questions or book a complimentary introductory call before scheduling.

Yes, I hold a limited number of sliding scale spots for people experiencing financial hardship. Please reach out to me at anastasia@emberandhearth.co to apply. I do my best to make this work accessible, especially for those who genuinely need support but are navigating difficult circumstances.

I do not collect, store, or document anything you may share during a session. Our Privacy Policy covers this clearly: information shared in sessions is voluntary, not recorded, not stored, not tracked, and not added to any file. Click here to read our Privacy Policy: Privacy Policy.