Energy therapies are known techniques that use energy to heal the body. Energy therapies can treat symptoms and different types of disease. The majority of energy therapies are based on the idea of life-force energy pervades all living things. The alternatives therapies objective is to create balance and health in a person’s life. Therapy techniques such as music therapy, reiki, and therapeutic touch are a few ways that will provide peace. Although energy therapies can improve someone’s health, some theories suggested that energy therapies can cause imbalances and/or blockages leading to illness and disease.

Energy therapies cannot cure cancer. As a result of this, energy theories are known as compliments instead of replacements to cancer treatment. These kinds of therapies can help relaxation and improve the quality of life among people that have mesothelioma and other types of cancers.

The energy The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine distinguishes the differences between the proven energy and unproven energy. When conversing about energy in energy medicine, people are usually referring to a form of energy or an energy field that has not been proven to exist. The NCCAm uses two classifications:

• Verifiable energy can be measured, and it is scientifically proven
• Unverifiable energy cannot be measured with our current technology and may not exist

A few different forms of verifiable energy include electromagnetic energy, sound energy, and monochromatic and magnetism radiation.

Doctors often use verifiable energy to diagnose and treat cancer. Different types of therapies used are magnetic resonance imaging, radiation, lasers, and photodynamic therapy. Magnetic therapy and sound energy therapy are used but are not researched as thoroughly. Doctors do not traditionally use unverifiable energy in medical practice. Usually energy therapies are used by alternative practitioners.

How Does It Work?

Therapies that use unverifiable energy, reflect on the belief that people obtain a form of life-force energy. This energy is not measurable by modern science. Reiki and Therapeutic Touch are a few therapies that use unverifiable energy. Unverifiable energy is referred as many different things in different languages. The energy is called “Qi” in the traditional Chinese medicine, “Spirit” in Christian traditions, and “Prana” in Ayurvedic medicine. This type of energy is also referred to as a vital life-force energy or bioenergetic field.

The goal of energy therapies is to balance the life-force energy. Other types of therapies such as yoga and tai chi are used for the same goal. Current research to find biological explanations for the health effects of acupuncture are being researched. Acupuncture is also based on similar goals. Verifiable energy may be the only kind of energy that works as a therapeutic benefit, some scientists have studied.

Many people believe that therapeutics benefits are not developed from energy therapies because separate energy does not change. The placebo effect has a measurable effect in the scientific research studied. Some believe energy therapies help cancer whether or not there is a lack of evidence for life-force energy.

Multiple physiological actions control the benefits of energy therapies. Acupressure and acupuncture points normally have high density of nerve and blood vessels. There are serious physiological effects on the musculoskeletal system, nervous system, and the endocrine system, Stimulation of these areas can release chemicals such as oxytocin in the brain, which makes you feel good.

Music therapy is the way professionals use music to initiate relaxation and can improve the quality of life. People have experienced reduction of some of their symptoms. Listening to music can improve healing over time. Music therapists make sessions based of an individual’s music preference and the type of healing they need. Each session can involve listening to music, writing their own songs, and discussing the songs. The sessions is given in different settings such as treatment centers, hospitals, outside, or at home. The patients are not required to have any musical experience to benefit from the therapy.

Music therapy is known to ease nausea and vomiting after high doses of chemotherapy when it is mixed with anti-nausea drugs.

Music therapy has the ability to do the following:

• Can provide comfort and relaxation
• Reduces short-term pain
• Decreases pain when combined with pain reducing drugs
• Minimizes the need for pain medications
• Improves the quality of life

Studies have proved that music therapy can reduce heart rate, breathing rate, insomnia, blood pressure, anxiety, and depression. Music therapy can relieve stress hormones and the brain waves can induce relaxation. Neurological studies involving music therapy are known to ease depression, enhance stuttering, and improve brain plasticity. It can also help emotional adjustments with people who had traumatic brain injury. This type of therapy is not related to unverifiable energy. Music therapy benefits developed from psychological effects from listening to the kind you like and connecting with others during the therapeutic sessions. The American Music Therapy Association provides an online directory of music therapists.

Practitioners sometimes use touch during energy therapy. They use their hands to intentionally send balance and energy into their patients’ body. There therapies can be beneficial towards enhancing and/or balancing life-force energy. Benefits can also result from biological effects of touch and psychological effects of their health.

Reiki

A therapeutic practice based on the idea that someone’s life can be cleansed is called reiki. Initially, the practitioner uses their hands to transfer energy. There are dozens of positions they use over the patient’s body. Researchers are unclear how Reiki developed, but it is believed to originate in Japan by Dr.Mikao Usui in the 1900s. However, a student of Dr.Mikao Usui brought the teaching methods to the United States later on. About one million patients use Reiki every year. There has been limited clinical research on this therapeutic practice. Most of the research that has been done was qualitative rather than quantitative. The reports have been based on the patients reports rather than in controlled studies. Anecdotal reports have showed the results of the practice to make people feel more relaxed. One study found Reiki to reduce pain for cancer patients. It is difficult to find strong evidence to support the practice.

Therapeutic Touch

Therapeutic Touch is the practice of using his or her hands to send healing energy to the patient. This therapy was developed in the 1970s by Dr.Krieger and Dora Kunz who was a natural healer. Therapeutic Touch can reduce anxiety and improve healing after cancer. It also prevents nausea and headaches. During sessions, practitioners send healing energy to clear blockages and negative energy. There have been 83 scientific studies to confirm a positive effect from therapeutic touch. These reviews included a study to determine whether or not practitioners can identify which hand was closest to someone’s hand under blinded conditions. This would prove if they could sense someone else’s energy. Not one practitioner could identify the location of the hand. Only 123 out of 280 trials were correct which results as a 44 percent success rate. Overall, investigators concluded therapeutic touch practitioners were unable to detect energy fields. Although there is a lack of scientific evidence, many nurses continue to use this method.