04/09/2026
GRATITUDE — MORE THAN JUST A FEELING
🙏 感謝して - Kansha sh*te — Be grateful.
Whether you are a Reiki student, practitioner, teacher, receive Reiki, or simply follow our page, you will probably have heard us speak about the Five Reiki Precepts.
At the heart of these teachings is something beautifully simple:
✨ For today only, be grateful.
In Reiki, gratitude isn’t simply about saying thank you or trying to feel positive when life is difficult.
It is a practice.
And interestingly, modern research has begun exploring whether regularly practising gratitude may influence not only how we feel emotionally, but also what is happening within the body.
❤️ In one small randomised pilot study, 70 people with early-stage heart failure were divided into two groups.
One continued with their usual care, while the other added eight weeks of gratitude journalling.
The researchers didn’t just ask people whether they felt better. They also measured inflammatory markers in their blood and looked at heart-rate variability.
✨ And what did they find?
The gratitude-journalling group showed a reduction in a combined measure of inflammation compared with those receiving usual care alone.
Their measured levels of gratitude also increased.
And while they were actually journalling, researchers observed increased heart-rate variability associated with parasympathetic — our calming, “rest and digest” — activity.
Of course, we need to keep this in perspective. 🌿
This was a small pilot study involving a very specific group of people. There was no long-term follow-up, and the changes in heart-rate variability occurred during the gratitude practice rather than showing a lasting change at rest.
So this isn’t evidence that gratitude can prevent or treat heart disease, nor is it evidence for Reiki. And gratitude practice should never replace appropriate medical care.
But it is a fascinating piece of research into a practice that sits at the very heart of Reiki philosophy.
🙏 Kansha sh*te — Be grateful.
For our Reiki students and practitioners, perhaps this is another gentle reminder that the Precepts aren’t something we learn for a course, recite during our self-practice and then put away.
And for everyone else, you don’t need to practise Reiki to bring a little more gratitude into your day.
It doesn’t mean pretending everything is wonderful.
It means noticing — even amongst life’s difficulties — the people, moments and simple things that are still worthy of our gratitude.
🌿 Just for today.
The Reiki Precepts were never intended simply to be words we recite.
They are an invitation to how we live. 💜
