More, More, More Reiki in NYC

New Yorkers, and all Americans, are a stressed out bunch. It's odd that, in the richest city in the richest nation in history, the one thing we don't seem to be able to purchase is genuine relaxation and peace of mind. 

Quite the opposite in fact -- the more prosperous we are, the more stuff we have, the more technological and sociological developments we accrue -- the more exhausted, the more tense, the more stressed out we are. 

More more more! How do you like it?

Progress comes at the ultimate price of our mental, emotional, and physical well-being. Go to some of the least developed societies on earth and the people seem a lot more chillaxed.

Here in NYC, and elsewhere, whole industries exist to bring moments of calm to roiling lives. Masseurs, yogis, and spas all offer -- for a big price -- to temporarily relieve people of their stress. 

One of the weirder offerings to enter this fray is reiki, the "laying of hands", where people literally lie on table and a "specialist" lays hands on, or just above, the person in order to "re-channel energy" and relieve them of their stress and restore well-being. It's very "meta", very weird, very pseudoscience-y, and even people who enjoy other relaxation treatments find it strange.

But reiki is becoming mainstream. Even here in NYC, parents are apparently teaching their kids to do reiki in order to calm there school-related stress. I've never had a professional reiki session but I might and I might even teach it to my kids to relieve their stress -- but I don't necessary think it's worth the price tag to do it too often.

That said, I might try it and, if you want to try it out for yourself in NYC, just do a Google search and you'll find an enormous number of reiki specialists available to treat you. (Just keep in mind that some of them are, uh, well, not exactly legit.)