How to Do Reiki on Yourself: A Daily Self-Treatment Guide

I'm Bronwyn Ayla, L.Ac. — a licensed acupuncturist and Reiki Master Teacher who has trained over 1,000 practitioners since 1998.

Practicing Reiki on yourself is straightforward: you center, you pray, you place your hands. You begin at the top of the head and work down the body through a sequence of positions, holding each area and allowing the energy to flow. You do not need to guide Reiki with your mind in order for it to work. Reiki has its own inherent intelligence, which allows it to flow into the body wherever it is needed most and in just the right amount. Anyone who desires to may practice this.

What Reiki self-treatment actually is

Reiki is the universal life force energy that already exists within everyone and everything to some degree. A Reiki attunement amplifies your already existing Reiki and opens your energetic channels to allow a clearer, stronger flow of energy for healing and spiritual purposes — but the attunement is not a gate. It is an amplification.

Practicing Reiki on yourself is a great way to enhance the flow of the energy, embody this practice, heal yourself, and invite in self-transformation. Having access to the ability to heal with your hands makes self-healing very convenient. You can beam Reiki on your eyes, head, jaw, throat, upper lungs, heart, liver, and more — treating everything from headaches to toothaches using your own healing powers.

The Reiki energy goes where it is needed most and in the right amount, using the body's innate ability to heal. Once blocks to the healthy functioning of energy in the body are removed, the body begins to heal itself.

Before you begin: the three pillars

Every Reiki session — including self-treatment — follows the same three-step structure:

1. Gassho (centering) Bring your palms together. Focus your attention on the place where the tips of your middle fingers meet until you feel a warmth there. This is not about concentration or control. Meditation is a place of surrendering — surrendering to what is happening, and how it is that your breath is moving in your body.

2. Reiji-ho (invitation and guidance) Invite the Reiki to flow through you. You can say it simply: Reiki, please flow through me. Repeat this three times. Then make a prayer. Include your intention, your protection, and ask that your hands be guided to where they are needed. Once you have asked the Reiki to flow through, you no longer need to wonder whether it is working. You have asked the Reiki to come through, and so now the Reiki has its own way. You can trust in its intelligence to work in the way that it needs to work.

3. Chiryo (treatment) Begin. Hold your dominant hand above your crown chakra and wait for an impulse or inspiration. Once Chiryo has begun, you no longer need to be specifically directing the energy.

How to hold your hands

The energy used for Reiki healing emanates from the minor chakras located in the center of your palms, known as Pericardium 8. Keep your fingers close together — this allows the energy to accumulate without escaping through the gaps between the fingers. Keep your fingers relaxed and soft.

A general rule of thumb: you want a direct line with as little kinking as possible. Think of it like a hose. If you bend a hose, the flow becomes impeded and weaker. In the same way, you want the wrists and joints to be in clear, relaxed angles rather than contorted. Muscle tension blocks qi, so everything should be as soft and open as possible, using as little effort as possible.

Hand positions are guidelines, not rigid rules. Adaptability supports energetic flow. Whatever you are covering is what you are treating, so you can always place your hands directly where there is pain or discomfort.

The self-treatment sequence: head to feet

A full body self-treatment generally starts at the top and works down the body. This is especially useful when there is high stress or anxiety rising upward — going from the top down helps calm and ground the system. If the system is more lethargic or cloudy, you can instead go from the bottom up to bring more energy in and clear the yang.

Eyes Place the base of your hands over the infraorbital ridge below your eyes so that Pericardium 8 is right over your eyeballs. This closes the eyes, is calming and relaxing, and treats frontal headaches, eye strain, tension, and excessive mental activity.

Side of head Treat the side body — over the ears or over the jaw are both valid alternates. If your hands feel congested at the wrist, just let it go, relaxing the wrists and opening the thumbs. This balances left and right brain and treats temporal headaches.

Back of head Hands can rest as in a hugging position for comfort rather than with wrists sharply bent. This calms the spirit, treats occipital headaches, and addresses vision disturbances.

Throat Opening the thumbs here has less tension. This is one of those positions where less effort creates more flow. The throat position addresses speaking one's truth, creativity, sore throat, thyroid issues, and respiratory ailments.

Upper chest Treats the lungs, tight chest, shortness of breath, and grief.

Heart You can place your hands directly on your body or orient toward the organ level. The heart position addresses heartology, palpitations, and the heart chakra. One hand on the heart and one on the belly is particularly helpful for falling asleep and for insomnia.

Diaphragm and liver Depending on your structure, place hands here for boundary issues, tight chest, and liver and gallbladder concerns.

Lower belly The hand fits naturally into the inguinal groove. This treats the reproductive organs, bladder, fertility, menstrual cycle issues, and the sacral chakra.

Kidneys and back body Reach your hands to your kidneys, then your sacrum, depending on your flexibility. The kidneys and adrenals address adrenal fatigue, trauma, lower back pain, and issues with fear.

Knees (optional) Not traditionally included, but a useful addition — particularly for knee pain and for moving energy that has become stuck.

Feet Grounding, useful for mania and headaches, and for connection to earth. There are many options for how to get your feet included — seated postures such as butterfly or Virasana work well.

Directionality and energetic assessment

By placing the hands over different regions of the head — eyes, temples, ears, or jaw — you can address specific conditions. Covering the ears can treat the entire body, as the ears contain points that correspond to all systems.

You can also use Byosen scanning to assess where your hands are needed. Byo means "sick" and sen means "line." Scan the front and back of the body with slow downward movements, sensing for depressions, indents, tears, excesses, or deficiencies. When you find an area that feels disturbed, hold your hands there and send Reiki directly into that layer.

How to integrate self-treatment into daily life

Practicing Reiki on yourself does not require a dedicated session. Here are some of the ways it can be woven into ordinary life:

• To pray for your life, health, and healing. Ask for what you want rather than what you don't want. Rather than ask for less anxiety, ask for more peace.

• Before meditation. Program your meditation practice with Reiki and use the intention to allow for a deeper level of peace and respite.

• Falling asleep. Place one hand on your heart and one on your belly as a helpful position to drift off into a deeply restful sleep.

• In the bath. Ritual, prayer, and intention are what make activities sacred.

• Beaming Reiki to your food. You can embody a gratitude practice with your hands before eating.

• Combined with yoga. Receiving Reiki in restorative poses that emphasize the same area one is treating with the hand positions greatly enhances the efficacy of treatment.

My counsel is to practice Reiki every day on yourself for the first twenty-one days after attunement — daily self-treatment for forty-five to sixty minutes, especially during this integration period. Practice creates the connection; theory does not.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a teacher or attunement to do Reiki on myself? Anyone who desires to may become an effective Reiki healer. Reiki is not attached to any belief system or religion, and it does not require specific abilities — it is based on a power that is innate to most human beings: healing with the hands. A Reiki attunement amplifies your already existing Reiki and opens your energetic channels to allow a clearer, stronger flow, but it is an amplification, not a prerequisite.

How do I know if the Reiki is working during self-treatment? Once you have invited the Reiki to flow through you, you no longer need to wonder whether it is working. Reiki has its own inherent intelligence, which allows it to flow into the body wherever it is needed most and in just the right amount. You do not need to guide it with your mind.

How long should I hold each hand position? Vary the duration of holds — from seconds to minutes — based on responsiveness rather than a fixed protocol. Hand positions are guidelines, not rigid rules. Adaptability supports energetic flow.

Can I do Reiki on myself if I feel emotionally dysregulated or overwhelmed? Yes. Reiki self-treatment can be used for emotional regulation and daily check-ins with the energy body. When feeling dysregulated, return attention to the body through scanning, listening, and allowing sensations to be present without constructing narratives around them. Track, scan, feel, listen, notice. This is a very safe way to work with upset.

I teach Reiki as something anyone can practice — you don't need to be chosen, gifted, or already "spiritual" to begin. If you'd like to learn it with me, my online Reiki class is open here: Learn Reiki online.