Andy Smith 00:00 
A quick disclaimer before we begin, the PEMF podcast does not contain any medical advice and the content provided is for informational purposes only. If you have any health concerns, please visit a healthcare professional. Welcome back to the PEMF podcast. Today, I'm joined by Shilpa Kudekar, a medical scientist and Reiki master with over 20 years of experience. Shilpa spent more than a decade working within Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, which is consistently ranked as UAE's top hospital where she has worked as a clinical instructor in point of care testing alongside supporting patients through Reiki and holistic wellbeing approaches. Shilpa, welcome to the podcast.

Shilpa Kudekar 00:46 
Hi, Andy. Thank you so much for having me on this amazing podcast. I'm so grateful.

Andy Smith 00:51 
In this episode, we're going to explore in about Reiki as a supportive therapy, which in particular focus on how it's used alongside cancer care in a clinical or in a hospital setting. We'll break down what Reiki actually is, how it's experienced and where it fits responsibly alongside conventional cancer treatment. So let's start with, you know, many of our listeners, they may have heard of Reiki, but what actually is Reiki? Because, you know, I'm going to use this as an educational tool today as well. You know, when we have these guests on, it's really useful. And my biggest problem at the moment is I keep calling it Reiki and I know it's not, it's Reiki. So tell me what it is and let's get this going.

Shilpa Kudekar 01:34 
So Reiki simply means universal life for its energy and so it's a Japanese sort of technique, which is safe, simple, natural, spiritual in nature, does no harm, has no dogma or religious beliefs, so everyone can use it. And the intention of Reiki is to create deep relaxation, reducing anxiety, stress, pain, nausea, restore your balance and enhance your well-being. So it does fall under the realm. I mean, people say it falls under the realm of alternative or complementary medicine. It mostly is a complementary therapy, so it complements and increases the efficacy of the treatment that a patient is on. So essentially, that's what Reiki is all about.

Andy Smith 02:23 
Yeah. And so when we explain like PEMF therapy to people, like I break it down and say, it's like a, it's a magnetic field, you put it around the body, you know. So what are we essentially doing with Reiki? You know, what, what, as far as what I understand, it's like an energy kind of therapy, you know, can you, can you break it down like, like that instances, you know, what's the technology?

Shilpa Kudekar 02:47 
So in a sense, how does Reiki work, right?

Andy Smith 02:50 
Yeah, go for that, yeah.

Shilpa Kudekar 02:51 
Reiki simply is energy healing, okay? So it falls under the realm of quantum physics, so it's intangible. So one possible way Reiki could work, and this is as per literature, is all of us human beings, you know, all living organisms have energy fields surrounding them. So Reiki's considered one of the biofield therapies, and what I mean by biofield therapy is energy fields. So each one of us, Andy, you, Josh, me, all of us have energy fields surrounding us. It's interaction between my energy field, Andy, and your energy field is one possible way Reiki could work. But the beauty of this practice is that you're in charge, you're in control. You will only take how much energy you need, and you will determine the flow of energy, you will determine the time, and you will also determine the location. So let's say you come to me and let me know, hey, Shilpa, I'm here to see you for a Reiki session. We essentially figure out what the need is. So essentially you say, listen, I'm a little bit anxious, could be focused on my anxiety, so can we focus on the crown region? So I'll place my hands on your crown region, your head area, essentially, that's one of the energy locations, and I'll channel the energy that is surrounding me, turn me into you from my hand. So I'm only a medium, I'm only a channel. And what will happen is when I move my hand from a particular location on top of your head to let's say your forehead, the energy that is surrounding you will freely flow through your inner meridian's channels, clearing away any blockages that may be present. So it essentially works on clearing away emotional and mental blockages. So it works in your emotional and mental well-being, essentially your spiritual well-being. So the main intention of Reiki is to align your mind, body, and spirit. So this is the way Reiki works. One possible way Reiki could work.

Andy Smith 04:42 
Perfect. No, that, that, that helped me. That helped me really a lot. Um, and if, if someone chooses Reiki, so someone has decided to go down that road, um, what outcomes they typically looking for. So, you know, someone has come to you, they want a session. What do they want to get out of that session?

Shilpa Kudekar 04:59 
Are you seeing a practitioner or as a client more are they trying to get...

Andy Smith 05:04 
More as a client, I would say. So someone, you know, someone is going through cancer. We'll talk about the whole cancer link and everything, but you know, some, some ones, you know, they've approached you and they want a session of Reiki. I'm still doing the Reiki thing Reiki. What do they want? You know, what do they want to walk out the room feeling or what's, what's the outcomes? You know, what's, what are they there for?

Shilpa Kudekar 05:26 
So the outcomes are absolutely varied because it's an individualistic response. Remember, every individual is unique. So the perceptions of feelings that they are going to feel as the outcome of doing a requisition are going to defer. So to give you, uh, to, to give you, you know, uh, a little bit of what a client might feel, they could feel lighter, calmer, relaxed, at peace, joy, heavier, sometimes tingling sensations. Uh, sometimes they might get headache. Sometimes, uh, they feel, I guess at peace or peaceful, but there's field tension reduction, they feel reduction in anxiety and stress. Um, or sometimes they feel nothing. Honestly, sometimes they can see colors. Sometimes they can smell things. Sometimes they can hear conversations. Uh, sometimes they feel as if they're floating or they get transported into a different dimension or world. These are all perceptions of feelings. And like I said, they are unique, they're raw, they're true, they're real.

Andy Smith 06:33 
No, that's amazing. And for someone who's listening to this thinking, you know, I want to try a session, what can they expect it to actually feel like, like physically, but also mentally? You know, different therapies, you jump in a cold bucket, you know what you're expecting, you know, you're going to get it cold. Is there any kind of sense, you know, actual sensation or feeling when it comes to Reiki?

Shilpa Kudekar 06:55 
So again, it's very, very unique. If you let's say, for example, I'm going to give you an example of one of my patients, if that's okay. So, you know, if let's stick to my caregivers first, because I know we want to talk about cancer a little later. So, when a caregiver comes to me and says to me, Shilpa, you know, I'm here, I'm really stressed, I am petite, I'm burnt out, cannot please do a Reiki session with you. So, what they're expecting as to how they're feeling before the session is, I'm hopefully I'm going to feel calmer, I'm going to feel relaxed, you know, I'm going to feel a little bit clear minded, I'm going to feel a little bit resilient so I can get back to my unit and take care of my patients properly. And sometimes, or most of the times, I must say they feel exactly like that. When they come to me, they come to me with these feelings, we do a session and after a session, seriously, they feel relaxed, really relaxed, they feel that the anxiety levels have gone down, that they feel energetic, and they feel clear minded, focused, and sometimes they say that it makes them feel resilient, so they can go back and they can look after the patient properly. So, it really, really depends upon an individual as to what the needs are, and as to how they're going to feel after the session. And like I said, it's very unique. They could feel any of the things that I've told you, or they could just get up and say, you know what, I feel good, but that's all I felt, you know, I didn't feel anything else. Sometimes people are like, I mean, wow, Shilpa, I feel very heavy, like very heavy, you know, that's the release, that the need, I feel very heavy. And they're like, is this normal? And I'm like, yeah, that's absolutely normal, because heaviness is a form of a release that your body is trying to achieve. So, flow with it, go with it. And after a little while, you'll start to feel lighter and better. And then I check in on them in the evening and ask them, hey, how do you feel now? And they're like, yeah, I feel lighter, better, you know, I feel really good. And the next day, they tell me, you know what, I slept really well, so thank you. So, it's very unique, and very individualistic.

Andy Smith 09:11 
And effectively, you can do Reiki, Reiki, anywhere. We met in Dubai and, you know, quite recently we went to the Biohack Summit and you met myself and our producer, Josh. And, you know, the energy you were giving off was insane. I absolutely loved your energy. And, you know, Josh did straight away. He was like, we've got to get Shilpa on the podcast.

Shilpa Kudekar 09:33 
Thank you, Josh.

Andy Smith 09:34 
So, you know, it's quite cool to know as well, like, because you offered us at the stand, you know, you said, you know, if you've got time, we'll do a session at the stand. And, you know, unfortunately, we didn't. It was a really busy show. And it was just all over the place. So you still owe me that session. So we're definitely going to do that.

Shilpa Kudekar 09:50 
Done! Done!

Andy Smith 09:51 
Yeah, good. And, you know, a long, a long time PEMF, Reiki gets this kind of woowoo tag, you know, it's unfortunately, you know, even though these things are proven now, you know, a lot of people 10 years ago, me would have looked at this, both of these technologies and said, this is, you know, this is, this is nothing. It's, it's, it's, it's quackery and all that sort of thing. But, you know, you work in hospitals and, and we did some research before this and actually the NHS in the UK have, have Reiki practitioners now. And so is there clinical data or is there, you know, backed evidence that Reiki helps with, with, with patients, you know, is that out there? Can people find that data?

Shilpa Kudekar 10:37 
Absolutely. I mean, you guys can hop onto PubMed or Google Scholar and type out Reiki in mental health care or Reiki in cancer patients, Reiki in pain management, and you will get a lot of research. Now, mind you, there's a lot of articles there. And the literature review I did showed that there's great work that's done. Some of the studies have robust design. Some of them are lacking robust design. And what do I mean by that is some of them have randomized, they have randomized, you know, randomized control trials, or sometimes a single-blinded, but the volume is very, very small. You know, we want a larger volume. And robust design, when I say by robust design, should be randomized control plus with a single or double-blinded study. Now, that's something that we need to think about how we're going to build this design and have a very large volume. But there are studies out there that actually show positive benefits, a positive effect of Reiki on mental health care, on pain management, and on cancer patients' well-being, especially in breast cancer patients. So, there's about two systematic reviews done. One of them was done in 2021. One of them was done in 2023. One of them looked at mental health care. One of them looked at, you know, pain management and cancer patients. And it proved, it showed that Reiki has positive effects on your mental well-being. So, it does help in, you know, significant introduction and anxiety was seen. And with pain management, there was reduction in pain. You know, patients could feel that after receiving a Reiki session, pain is sometimes a side effect of chemotherapy, or it could also be side effect of the cold capping that they do, or cold gloves or socks that they wear. And what I've observed through my practice or through experience is that it distracts them from pain. So, they don't feel pain for about 20 minutes or 30 minutes of session that I do. And this is what was observed, that there's reduction in pain. So, definitely Reiki has a protocol which are attached to it. And what I would like to add is my study has been approved by research and ethics committee. And we are at the phase where we are analyzing our data. We're our paper should be published next year. And we are aiming to publish in a journal of clinical oncology, which is at the top. And obviously in all of the various journals as well, including holistic practice, nursing journals, alternative and complementary medicine journals. So, I will talk to you about observations. With my research, since we're on the topic of research, with my data collection, what I observed was there was a reduction in anxiety stress pain and overall well-being was in hand. And I could see this with a series of treatments. So, when I gave my patients a series of treatments, like let's say they were coming for the infusion treatment once a week, once every two weeks, once every two weeks, that's when I would see them. And what I observed was a came with feeling, of course, stress and should have panic attacks. I'm sure of what was going to happen during chemo and after chemo. So, there was dynamic of emotions surrounding that. And then after the session, you could feel that anxiety level go down, that stress level go down, panic attacks stop. They were clear minded. They were focused. And that was my perception of feelings that are connected. So, that was anecdotal evidence. And my tangible outcome was the validated numerical tool that I use to focus on four symptoms, which is pain and anxiety, stress and overall well-being before and after session. And I could see that after session, obviously, let's say a scale of zero to 10, zero is fantastic feeling, 10 is really worse. They were obviously started at 10 after the session. It reduced, Andy, honestly, it reduced to about, let's say five or four. So, it produced for 50 or 60%. That was incredible after the first session. But what I observed in the second session was when I saw them again during their second chemo infusion, before the session, their anxiety had gone down to 908. And this is what I mean by cumulative effect is it keeps going down and down and down and down. And it was just a wondrous thing to see. And that's what I've observed during my experience when I was taking care of my patients. But there was literature out there. And yes, it does show that Reiki is beneficial, has positive effects, and it works.

Andy Smith 15:21 
And how do you navigate? Do you have like a simple tool in which you navigate people that are, you know, that aren't open to this type of this type of therapy? You know, we have to win the PEMF industry, you know, we tend to lean towards giving people a full refund after 30 days, you know, if they haven't noticed a difference. So have you got a way of navigating people that are sceptic about this therapy and getting them to try it?

Shilpa Kudekar 15:48 
Oh, boy, yes, I have faced a lot of skepticism, a lot of skepticism. I mean, I can tell you so many stories. It's, it's been a fulfilling, gratifying and vibrant and comfortable experience. So yes, I've faced quite a lot of skepticism. What I've learned, and this is thanks to two of my local patients who were very open to, you know, receiving Reiki, and they long, long time throughout their treatment. So bless them, they're doing really well now. And I'm so very grateful to them. What they taught me was, Chopin, you are going to face skepticism. So in order for you to deal with skepticism, and this is especially with local population I'm talking about, because we have a very dynamic culture, and you have to respectfully, we have to respect their faith, you have to respect belief, because that's very, very important. So when I go in to see a patient, and if it's a local patient, man or a woman, obviously, you start by introducing yourself who you are what you do. You ask the permission if it is okay for me to sit and continue talking. And when they do give you that permission, then you go ahead. And the way I approach it is, and this is what I learned from two of my amazing local patients is that you let them know that Allah, the great Allah is in everything, birds, bees, plants, flower, air, sunlight, this knowledge is given to you by Allah, in order for you to apply it and back it up with evidence. And when you do that, they will open up to listening to what you have to say, and they will want to try because they're curious. And that's how I approach it. And yes, I get people then letting me know, okay, continue, you got me, you now have my attention, I'm curious. And then I continue telling them about reiki its benefits. I obviously back it up with evidence with literature with data. And of course, I tell them about the research that I'm doing. And that's what gets them they're like, okay, you know what, I would like to try a session.

Andy Smith 17:54 
Yeah.

Shilpa Kudekar 17:55 
And that's how I proceed. But if they say no, then it's a no. Then you respect that boundary. You respect them, you respect that boundary, and you just, I essentially respect the boundary. I respect that they have said no to me. That's perfectly fine. I essentially step back. But what I do is I always go in and check in on them to see how they're going, if they need anything, to let me know and I'll be more than happy to help. And sometimes when I have done that, sometimes when they tell me, you know, what shall I just come and sit down and talk to me? Tell me what this is all about. Then they slowly and steadily start to open up. So you have to establish that rapport. You have to build that trust. You have to have that bond. Without that, you can't do anything.

Andy Smith 18:41 
Yeah, sure.

Shilpa Kudekar 18:42 
And these are a couple of ways that I've overcome skepticism. That is, from my experience, what I have gone through.

Andy Smith 18:51 
And is reiki safe for everyone is there any contraindications so is there any people that can't have a session?

Shilpa Kudekar 18:57 
how everyone can have it. Everyone. Reiki does no harm. Everyone can use it. Human beings, we can use it. Plants can, we give it to plants as well. We give it to animals. There's such a thing called animal Reiki as well. Babies love it. You know, fetuses love it. In, in mom's tummies, everyone loves it.

Andy Smith 19:17 
Mm-hmm.

Shilpa Kudekar 19:17 
It's absolutely safe.

Andy Smith 19:19 
Good. And we do a lot of research before these, these episodes and something we found on Reiki is that there's something called a Reiki hangover. Have you heard of this term and what is this? Can you explain, you know, for again, for the skeptics out there, what is a Reiki hangover?

Shilpa Kudekar 19:35 
I mean, Andy, Reiki hangover simply means your body's just trying to achieve the release. It's trying to achieve. Like I said, sometimes my patients feel very, very heavy. Sometimes they get headaches. Sometimes they feel tingling sensations. It's just your body's way of releasing all those deep, brutal or seated emotions, essentially. It's just trying to play around blockages and the release that you feel is in term of heaviness, is in term of a bit of headaches, a bit of tingling sensation. So it's quite normal, you know, there's nothing to worry about it. Patients can obviously, you know, what I request or recommend my patients to do is to rest, to hydrate a lot, to keep drinking a lot of water, to nourish themselves with nutrient-dense food, to move a little bit and to essentially keep going on with the day-to-day routine. You know, there's absolutely, like I say, Reiki does no harm. So it's just a form of a release. I don't know who coined the term hangover, I guess. I can see the point why with the heaviness and the headaches, but it's just your body trying to achieve the release that it needs, essentially.

Andy Smith 20:40 
And if anything, you know, if people want proof that this therapy does something and it works, then there it is, you know, if you, if you've only done one thing, you've introduced, you know, a session of Reiki and, you know, the next day you, you feel like this, you know, heavy feeling. And then, you know, there's something in it. There's something that's happening. So, you know, it's, it's proof, if anything, before we go into the kind of cancer link. Can you share your background on why you came? How did you actually get into the, you know, working in the, particularly the Cleveland Clinic and Abu Dhabi? You know, how did that come about? Because again, it seems like quite a skeptical type of place and hospital to have Reiki practicing.

Shilpa Kudekar 21:25 
Yeah. So, you know, I, I was in Australia and, you know, applied for a position as a medical scientist. And I, you know, got a job offer from Cleveland, kind of like Abu Dhabi. Bless them, I would say for 11 years. So I came to open up a laboratory. And in 2017, I essentially moved my role into education. So I went to nursing education and I became a clinical instructor for form of testing, pandemic hit 2020, all healthcare systems took a major toll. In my organization, you know, we, I was, I was a medical scientist, always a medical scientist, that's my background, that's my brand, but as a clinical instructor, you know, we have to put a hold on a normal duty of education, training, recertification. And I, me, along with a lot of other educators, we up guild ourselves to become nurses. So during nurses, so we were taking swabs, you know, or a pharyngeal swabs, wearing the whole gear, working in the tent, taking care of all the patients, caregivers. And during that, what I observed was, there was a lot of burnout, a lot of depression, a lot of fatigue, a lot of anxiety. And when I'm talking about fatigue was not just emotional fatigue, it was compassion fatigue as well. I observed that as well. So there were four of us practitioners back in the day, three of them have moved on and, you know, moved on back home and gone into the bigger bed of things. So bless them. So what profits started was, hey, why don't we do Reiki sessions for our caregivers? So we decided after we finish our shifts, let's do 20 minutes of session for each individual caregiver. There were four of us. We saw a couple of hours we did Reiki. So we saw about 16 caregivers between the four of us. And what we observed was caregivers used to come in feeling heavy, feeling bad, depressed, anxious, burned down, fatigue, in pain, like headaches, muscle aches, in pain. And they used to see us, we used to do 20 minute session for them, because they have to get back up to the wall again, or head back home and get ready for the next shift. And what we observed was, as a scientist, I need to collect data to see the trend, what's going on. And what observed was they felt very, very light. They felt focused. They felt calm. So they felt extremely relaxed. And they felt as if they could bond with their teammates on a deeper level to deep human connection, trust. And they felt that they became a little bit resilient to get back up to the wall to take care of the patients and enhance, you know, patient care. So that's what happened during pandemic. And after the pandemic, I mean, during pandemic, I thought, well, if caregivers, why not patient? But obviously, at the time, it was like, nope, you know, going to patients is a bit risky, it's a bit dangerous, let's just wait till the pandemic finishes, and then we will, you know, circle back and discuss. So in the meantime, what I decided to do was do Reiki awareness sessions, because one thing I've learned, and these you have to have positions fine, because they need to understand what Reiki is. And the only way to understand is to experience it. I thought, okay, let me go to awareness sessions amongst all the, you know, nurse managers, assistant nurse managers, teams, leadership, let's say, or directors, executive directors, let me do Reiki awareness sessions with them, including caregivers that take care, frontline caregivers that take care of patients. And that included doing presentation and doing group Reiki sessions about 2030 minutes max group Reiki session. So I started doing that. And in 2023, I did a group Reiki session for oncology leadership, and a couple of the physicians and nurse assistant managers that participated really enjoyed the session. And one of the physicians turned around and said to me, you know, what shopper, I believe this has been a really benefit the patient. So let's start taking care of our cancer patients. Let's start. And I'm like, yes, finally, a foot in the door. This is what I wanted. And that's how I started taking care of patients. So you need to have physicians fine, need to have caregiver buying. And Andy, I did Reiki for my beautiful caregivers and patients. So I took care of caregivers and patients as a Reiki practitioner. And that was all done on complementary basis. So I did everything on voluntary basis. So I did my main role at the hospital. And then in between my main role, I used to run to cancer Institute, I used to do caregiver well being sessions on top of that. But that was the best feeling that gave me the most gratification and full movement. I'm still grateful for that.

Andy Smith 26:23 
No, that's amazing. And you've got quite a strong laboratory and kind of medical science background as well. So do you think that that was, you know, made you more conscious of of the technology and I call it technology. But, you know, the the therapy, did you did it help you to understand it more or do you think it made you even more of a skeptic to start with, you know, having that kind of background?

Shilpa Kudekar 26:49 
No, I have always, I've been a Reiki master practitioner for 25 years now, over 25 years. So this was even before I became a medical scientist. So I never had the feeling of skepticism surrounding it. What I was was very curious and unsure to begin with as to what Reiki therapy was all about. But my father introduced me to Reiki and he did level one certification with me. I did that when I was a teenager back home in India. I'm talking about when I was 16 years old and I've continued ever since then. As a medical scientist, what it helps me is to collect data in terms of, well, there has to be evidence-based structure to this because scientific community is captured as you would know. Without evidence, without data, they're just going to call it as fluff and woo-woo and woo-doo and magic, which it is not. Please let me tell you it is not. It is what I call scientific spiritualism, simple as that. So me being a medical scientist kind of gave me that push to collect data and to approach it with evidence-based and naked data driven. So that's what I'm grateful for, for that background.

Andy Smith 28:09 
And you're what's known as a Reiki master. So, you know, for me in my head, I see this like black belt. But what does that mean? You know, what is a Reiki master and how is that different? Because I think you have to do something to get to that stage, don't you?

Shilpa Kudekar 28:25 
Sure, sure. So you know, level one practitioner is all about self-care, it's all about, you know, caring for your family, your friends, colleagues, community. It's all about exploring this wondrous energy healing modality. A regular level two is where you go a little bit in depth with the knowledge and application of that knowledge. And master level is essentially where you can teach or attune people who are interested to become Reiki practitioners. And master level is where you obviously gain a little bit more knowledge and apply it as per your intuition. And when I say knowledge, there's a lot of symbols surrounding it, sacred symbols surrounding it. So that's how essentially you go to each certification level. But mind you, when you do your level one certification, you don't just directly jump into level two straight away. You have to give yourself time about six months, six to nine months, then go to level two. Same thing, give yourself time, six to nine months, go to level three. And it's all about practice, practice, practice, self-practice and practicing on others. Because ultimately, Andy, this is a technique. It's a skill. So the more you practice, the better you get at it.

Andy Smith 29:42 
And when we were doing the research for this episode, we started finding a lot of stuff on, on Reiki and cancer, like the links. Um, so I want to kind of drill into that a little bit, like Reiki isn't, isn't spoken widely in the mainstream when, when you were talking about cancer conversations, but it's used in certain clinical and hospital settings. For example, like in the UK, the NHS has used Reiki for major trauma patients. So why do you think people are starting to link these two and, and using or choosing Reiki during like cancer treatment, for example.

Shilpa Kudekar 30:15 
From my experience, I essentially pushed for Reiki to be a part of complementary therapy or oncology supportive care for patients because taking care of cancer patient has to be a multidisciplinary approach. It's a multimodal approach. It's not just conventional medicine. You have to have a lot of holistic interventions stacked in there. And one of them is stress management. As you know, with functional medicine, foundational pillows, we've got nutrition, we've got movement, we've got sleep, we've got community, we've got social health, we've got obviously sexual health, but we also got stress management, which is where you can introduce modalities like Reiki and so many others. So to me, it was introducing this as one of the holistic intervention as a part of oncology supportive care into the patient's treatment protocol when they were going through their infusion, chemo, immuno, targeted therapy, or if they were going through radiation therapy before and after surgery and when they were in remission. I believe that having such complementary therapy, now I say it's a complementary therapy, Andy, because it increases the efficacy of a treatment a patient is on. Now Reiki by no means cures cancer, it does not cure cancer, but it makes the treatment more effective. How? It works in your emotional and mental wellbeing. It reframed your mindset. So you are able to receive, so essentially what happens is when it recalibrates or reframed your mindset, what your mind believes your body achieves. So when you say, yes, I'm ready for this, it's gonna work for me, the treatment is effective.

Andy Smith 32:09 
Yeah.

Shilpa Kudekar 32:10 
So that's how it works. And scientifically speaking, you know, Reiki regulates your nervous system. So there's emotional regulation going on, you respond to stress rather than react to stress. You know, it, I should say, activates your parasympathetic nervous system. So your whole body started with feel-good hormones. I'm talking about dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins, melatonin. It activates, or rather activates, activate is not the right word. It stimulates, or not stimulates, it enhances your vagal tone, right? It reduces your cortisol. It decreases your oxidative stress. So it gives your immune system a chance to recover. What happens because of that is your body's natural innate ability to heal itself kicks in.

Andy Smith 32:59 
I think that's a really important point.

Shilpa Kudekar 33:01 
And this is what is happening scientifically.

Andy Smith 33:02 
Yeah. No, a hundred percent.

Shilpa Kudekar 33:04 
And what is happening in layman term? It makes sense, right? What's happening in layman terms because of that? Deep relaxation, reduction in anxiety, stress, pain, restore, your balance is restored, so you feel good and your overall well-being is enhanced. So this is what's happening in layman terms and as I told you, what happens scientifically.

Andy Smith 33:29 
Yeah.

Shilpa Kudekar 33:30 
So that's how it helps.

Andy Smith 33:33 
No, it's amazing. It's really good point to make, like you say, because the same thing we say with PEMF therapy is that it's a complementary therapy, you know, people, we would never say to somebody, stop doing your chemo and, you know, start hitting PEMF every day, you know, it's, it's, that's never been the case. It's always a supportive therapy to use alongside these. And it's, it's really good to see these hospitals now, you know, taking this approach, because when we look at chemo, and, and, you know, therapies like that, where we're actually trying to attack cancer cells and destroy cells in the body, and obviously, that takes cells, healthy cells with it. It really, you know, people that are going through chemo, they, you know, you see their hair falling out, they're really not in a great place and, and their health declines. But what has always been not done so well in the past is supporting that person, putting them back into a healthy state and supporting their body, allowing their body to have the ability to heal, which is what you're saying. So, you know, it's, it's really linked with all these types of therapies. And it's, it's amazing to see that, you know, people like yourself are actually in hospitals now and working alongside these people to support those patients on, you know, on, on their overall wellbeing. I mean, working within the hospital, when does this, you know, when does Reiki get brought up? And when does it actually get introduced? Like, is it the minute someone comes through the doors? You know, do you want to try this? Is it, you know, part of the aftercare? Is it once they've been gone home, you know, and they get the support from there? You know, how does that look in practice?

Shilpa Kudekar 35:08 
That's not a good question. So when a patient comes in to see a particular physician, the physician essentially gives them the diagnosis and that is like, I can only imagine how the patient feels or the family feels or what they're going through. I cannot even imagine or understand Andy because there's so many myriad of emotions involved. And the oncology physician obviously picks on that and they essentially suggest, hey, we have a complementary therapy called Reiki. And these are its benefits. I've tried it. This is how I felt. Would you like to give it a go? Would you like to try this? And the Reiki practitioner will come and see you and it depends when you choose to see how. So most of the time, the decision is dependent upon the patient because for me as a Reiki practitioner, patient is my universal. So I will follow what the patient requests, what the needs are, and I will focus on that. So if the patient requests, patient reaches after me and says to me, but can we please see you from day one of our chemotherapy or chemo infusion? And I'm like, yeah, I am there. And then once they tried, they're like, this is really helping me. Can you please come and see me? All throughout my chemotherapy treatment could be six weeks, could be eight weeks, could be 12 weeks. And I'm like, yes, I will be there. And after that, they're like, you know, I would like to continue. So this is the next plan. The next step is I am going to go through surgery. So I'm very nervous, but can I see you before surgery? And then after surgery, they usually call me when they're recovering in the inpatient towers. So can you come and just do a Reiki session with me, please? Because that will calm me down. It will help me focus and it'll help me, you know, feel better. And I usually go do that. And then after that, it just depends whether they need to do radiation treatment or not, or whether they are just told, okay, take some oral medications and call us. We put you on post surveillance, post surveillance. And then after that, they still continue to keep on seeing me whenever they have appointments in the hospital for whatever reason that might be. They usually call me a day in advance and say, hey, I'm here. I'm going to be here the next day. Can I please see you for a Reiki session? And yes, we continue on. The treatment, I shouldn't say the treatment, I should say the care never stops, never stops. And always continues on. Even till now, if I have to tell you, I've been seeing one of my particular patients for nearly over two and a half years now when I've done maybe 75 to 80 sessions with her or more. So they find it beneficial, they find it useful. It helps them with their emotional and mental well-being. And so, yeah, we continue to keep on doing Reiki even after they are in remission or they are under post surveillance. But it begins with referrals from an oncology physician and sometimes or most of the times referrals from their nurse, so an oncology nurse affiliated with that oncology physician.

Andy Smith 38:23 
Yeah, OK. And can Reiki sessions be like standardized, like in terms of there's like a little bit of a rulebook where, you know, this person has cancer. So this is how we would treat them or this person is dealing with arthritis or this person wants mental well-being. This is how we treat them. Or is it very kind of feedback based, you know, and like you mentioned before, individual kind of is there a rulebook around it? You know, how is how does each session pan out is quite similar or or very varied? Does that make sense?

Shilpa Kudekar 38:57 
I mean, you said it, it's extremely individualistic, right? It depends upon what the patients need at that time, what their focus is. If it's a cancer patient dealing with a lot of anxiety and stress, they would essentially request me to focus just on relieving that anxiety and stress and the session could go for as minimum as 20 minutes to a maximum for an hour. It just depends upon how they feel. And like I said, they will determine the flow and only take what they need. So essentially, the sessions could last as long as 30 to 35 minutes max. If a patient is in pain, then we could probably go on for a bit longer and focus on a particular area where the pain is coming from. And that could probably go on for 45 minutes to an hour. But essentially, it really depends upon the patient's need and what the focus is for the day. And hence, it's going to be extremely individualistic. No matter the diagnosis, Reiki is Reiki. And if you need Reiki, it will work. If you need energy, it will flow. Simple as that.

Andy Smith 40:08 
Yeah. Okay. No, it makes sense. And are there kind of common feedback that you hear in terms of like particular emotional or nervous system themes that tend to come and come up again and again?

Shilpa Kudekar 40:21 
So are you talking about in terms of, do they feel anxious? Do they feel stress? Do they have panic attacks? Do they, do they have that fear that I'm not going to make through this, uh, the mindset is kind of this chaos and there are lots of thoughts, uh, that is essentially stopping from where they need to focus on, which is, you know, healing, which is looking after their wellbeing. Uh, so yes. And I mean, when you, when you, when the first go through a recce session, if it's the first time they're going through a recce session, the emotions are all over the place, you know, it's, it's a myriad of emotions. And they, after the first session, obviously like I said, they feel calmer, relaxed, lighter, better. However, between their infusion sessions, it could be one week, two weeks, three weeks where they go through so much, uh, where they're exposed to so many, I should say external precipitating factors, you know, plus family life, work, life relationships, so many things are happening, which essentially, you know, we, you know, not, not reset, I must say, put your nervous system back under that, uh, that essential, uh, what should I say, what's your nervous system under that bite of light load? Like, Oh my God, you know, I'm stressed again. I'm nervous again. I'm panicking. I've got to go to my second chemo session again. I do see that happening. Yes. Uh, I've seen this happen, uh, quite a few times, uh, for quite a few patients. Uh, however, as time goes past and when we do a lot of recce sessions and when we work on their mindset or reframing their mindset, that essentially helps deal with that pause between each recce session and they can always go home and do, uh, cell break as well. Even though they're not practitioners, uh, the, the takeaway messages when they ask me, Hey, can I go home and do this on my own? Yes, you can.  You know, I'm not going to say, no, you need a practitioner to do this. No, you can, you obviously can find a spot that makes you feel comfortable. That makes you feel safe. You can sit, lie or stand. You can put a music, you can put beautiful meditative music on, you know, do some deep breathing, some four, seven, eight or box breathing to calm that nervous system down, set an intention for yourself, whatever it might be just for today, I'm going to let go of stress or anxiety just for today. I'm going to put your hand on your, uh, you know, crown region, your head region or your heart or your solar plexus just for, you know, three to five minutes. And just breathe through it, breathe into it with intention, see how you feel. And all of you patients go home and try that between our sessions, you know, could be, I would see them within a week, two weeks, three weeks, we can also do that to come back and tell me, Hey, you know, I tried this a few times. When have I got a chance? I felt better. I felt good. I'm going to continue doing it. If it makes you feel good, if it makes you feel better, it's working. So keep doing it.

Andy Smith 43:28 
And from your experience, you know, how important do you think community and emotional support alongside these type of therapies is, you know, for, for patients going through, especially things like cancer.

Shilpa Kudekar 43:37 
Oh, very much so. You need that. You need the community support because what I, you know what, I'm going to tell you a story. So one of my patients, one of my gorgeous girls that I was seeing, and by the way, she's gone back on to Canada. She's cancer free. She is doing amazing. She looks fabulous. So while I was seeing her for Reiki sessions, she essentially said to me, Shilpa, do you see other patients for Reiki? And I'm like, yes, my darling, I do. She said, are most of them breast cancer patients? I said, yes, they are. She said, are they going to the same treatment protocol like mine? I said, well, it's similar, but sometimes no, depends upon the diagnosis. She said, how do they feel? Like, I know that we are going to different protocols, so the medication is different. So we might feel same side effects of the treatment or different, but how do they cope with it? And who was the surgeon? Who was the oncology physician? I'm like, wow, these are amazing questions. I'm going to have to find out for you. She said, well, why don't we have a support group? And I'm like, you know what? I don't know why. We don't have a support group. That's a good question. She said, Shilpa, can you start a support group? And at that time I thought, well, I might have had to. A few seconds thought, and I'm like, hell yes. I'm going to start a support group for my girls. And I did. I founded the Tribe of Warrior Women Spirated Thriving Conquering support group. It's female only support group of all various cancer diagnosis, locals and expats, different ages, ethnicities, and these girls are brilliant. I'll tell you what, they communicate amongst each other. You know, they motivate, encourage each other because if someone new comes into the group and they're just starting the treatment and they say, my God, I've got, you know, I'm stage two or stage three or metastatic breast cancer. This is the treatment I'm on. This is how I'm feeling. What am I to expect? Please tell me what am I to expect? And the girls jump in and say, hey, listen, I went through the same treatment. I went through a similar protocol. This is what I experienced. This is what I did to support my, you know, mental, emotional well-being or my physical well-being. I ate this food, nutrient-dense food, and I moved. I hydrated myself. This is how I took care of my pain management. So they essentially helped each other out so much because who better to talk to than the girls who've already walked that path and have gone through that journey. And these girls just, I see, I'm just in the background looking, you know, over this bombardment of questions and this conversation happening. And these girls, I love these girls. I tell you what, Andy, they challenge the status quo and they question everything. They get research articles out and they post it on the group and this is what it says. This is what they're doing. Why am I doing 21 cycles of radiation therapy and not 15? Why? And they approach the oncology physician with that. Oh my God, these girls are fierce and feisty. I tell you what. So there's a lot of encouragement, a lot of motivation going on. They uplift each other. The main thing what I've seen because of this group is that there is a lot of faith. There's a lot of hope. There is resilience. There's a lot of patience, a lot of love, a lot of kindness, a lot of support. And they empower each other. And I see them flourish. And that is the strength of community.

Andy Smith 47:03 
Mmm, that's amazing.

Shilpa Kudekar 47:04 
And it's absolutely needed.

Andy Smith 47:06 
I'll get you to repeat that group at the end when we get all your details. So we can link that as well. So if people were listening to this, not to go through the same thing, it'd be great for them to join.

Shilpa Kudekar 47:14 
No worries.

Andy Smith 47:14 
One more question just before you kind of wrap it up is, do you ever get people say to you, you know, I love the Reiki session that we had and actually I want to stop all medical treatments, you know, I'm going through cancer, I want to stop all medical treatments and just receive Reiki. Do you ever have that scenario when you do, how do you deal with that situation?

Shilpa Kudekar 47:33 
So I haven't had that scenario none. However, like I tell all my patients, Reiki is complementary therapy. It doesn't cure cancer. It's a complementary therapy. It increases the efficacy of the treatment you're on. So I haven't come across that situation, but I would definitely leave it at the discretion of the patient. And I would definitely encourage them to have a chat with their attending physician or consulting physician or oncology physician. Absolutely. Because by no means I am a doctor or oncology physician. I'm a Reiki practitioner. What I would encourage them is along with conventional medicine to have these holistic interventions start from the get-go, from the beginning of the diagnosis, not towards the middle, not towards the end, from the get-go, from beginning of the diagnosis. So, nutrient dense food, movement, intermittent fasting, sleep, stress management, community, relationship purpose, all the beautiful gorgeous foundational pillars. And you know, like you said, Andy, PEMF therapy, start from the beginning of the diagnosis, you know, red light therapy, start from the beginning of diagnosis, hyperbolic oxygen therapy, ketogenic diet, start from the beginning of the diagnosis. These interventions, when you stack them, they help. They increase the efficacy of the treatment. They really help with symptom management, truly. And if I, if we have time, I would love to give you a story. If that's okay, if I'd love to talk about a little story.

Andy Smith 48:59 
Literally, my last question is to share a story with us, so it's like you knew.

Shilpa Kudekar 49:06 
Oh, I would love to. So I wanted to talk to you about one of my one of my girls. And I've spoken about her in LinkedIn. So my gorgeous girl's name is Lisa. And she's a gorgeous mother, a wonderful wife, and such a warrior send truly a warrior send. So she diagnosed with stage four metastatic breast cancer. And when I first bought her, when she was initially diagnosed, she went through a PET scan, and there were lesions in her liver. And I saw her as a Reiki practitioner. And after our session, you know, the conversation turned to functional medicine, because I'm a functional medicine health coach. So we spoke about functional medicine, we spoke about foundational pillars, like I said, nutrition, movement, intermittent fasting, stress management, relationship purpose, community, sleep. So we spoke about all of that. And she asked me, sure, but have you heard about cancer revolution? And I'm like, absolutely, yes, I've heard about cancer revolution. So we started talking about intimate fasting, started talking about nutrient dense food, and movement through her cancer treatment through a protocol. And she said, you know, watch, I'm going to incorporate some of these interventions while I'm on my chemo journey. So what she did was, she passed it for 24 hours, she had water with electrolyte, of course, passed it for 24 hours before her infusion of chemotherapy. When she came for chemotherapy, she looked fabulous and fierce, elegant fashionista, loved the way she dressed, and she showed up, went through the treatment, did not suffer through any major side effects, after the treatment was finished. And then she broke a fast with, you know, nutrient dense food. So prebiotic or probiotic, like microbiome enriching foods, slowly and steadily she incorporated that nutrient dense food, and she kept moving. She sent you sent me pictures like shop a log, I'm walking, I'm on treadmill, I'm lifting a little bit of weights, like weights, whatever my body can take, but I'm moving, I'm hydrating, I'm flushing all the toxins out. And she continued that throughout her chemo cycle. So she had 12 chemo cycles, right, original plan. On the eighth cycle, her oncology physician said, okay, let's go get a PET scan down to see what's happening. She got a PET scan down. Allegiance in the liver gone.

Andy Smith 51:33 
No, amazing!

Shilpa Kudekar 51:34 
No lesions in the liver. Amazing. Oncology physician stopped her chemo and she asked him, so when I was going through chemotherapy, was I on like low dosage of medication? He said no, you were on full dosage of medication. He said why? Did you suffer through any major side effects? He said no, I didn't. That's what helped her.

Andy Smith 51:57 
Yeah.

Shilpa Kudekar 51:58 
And she is my gold standard for all my warriors in my group.

Andy Smith 52:04 
No, that's incredible.

Shilpa Kudekar 52:05 
I just asked them to go talk to Lisa because she, she's just incredible. She's incredible. And she marked her, you know, uh, being, uh, you know, leisure and free, uh, no evidence of, you know, metastasies. She marked that by running 10 kilometers in the pink run. Incredible. Yeah. She's in, she's in, she's at the moment, she's in Florida, uh, doing a Disneyland run with a husband, who is a triathlete. So I'm just so proud of her. I'm just so proud of her. She's incredible. We'll keep doing what you're doing. Oh, please. I mean, I mean, these, these goals are the love of my life. They, they want me to do better than my best. Truly. They motivate me and encourage me. They truly are amazing.

Andy Smith 52:52 
It is it's the feedback that comes from people that you know that you've changed lives for and and that is what keeps keeps people like us sharing this information for these. Complementary therapies you know because we want people thriving using them and you know it's it's it's takes people ask to have this you know these conversations to get these conversations out and to and to share the word of everybody so. You know for someone like yourself who is essentially delivering energy to people every day you know you astound me as to how much energy you have yourself still so you know keep it up you're you're the perfect person for the job.

Shilpa Kudekar 53:30 
Oh, thank you, Andy. You're so kind and so sweet and so gracious. I'm grateful. Thank you.

Andy Smith 53:35 
No worries. So where can people find you Shilpa? So, um, you know, you mentioned that group, if you can say the name of that group again, and then obviously if somebody wants to reach out to you and contact you, where, where can they find you?

Shilpa Kudekar 53:45 
So they can find me on LinkedIn, and they can find me on Instagram. I think I've already shared my Instagram and LinkedIn handle with you guys. You can definitely share it out to our audiences. My website is under construction at the moment. Once it's built, I will definitely send it over to you guys. And you know, you can share that as well. So through LinkedIn or Instagram, they can reach out to me. And then I can have a private conversation with them and add them to my group. So my group is called Tribe of Warrior Women. Spirited, thriving, conquering. So it's a female-only cancer patient group. And it's a WhatsApp group at the moment. Obviously, it's not going to be scalable for too long on WhatsApp. That's why I'm building an online sanctuary. And my online sanctuary is going to be called Farasha Wellbeing. So Farasha in Arabic means butterfly. And that's a metaphor for transformation. So Farasha, it's your story, Andy. My warrior story, every person's story, my story. So it's Farasha Willbeing.

Andy Smith 54:42 
Amazing and thanks again for everybody listening to today's episode if you enjoyed it please subscribe leave us a five star review and a favorite streaming platform it really helps us to get more guests and encourage people like Shilpa to share their knowledge and experience with you thanks again Shilpa

Shilpa Kudekar 54:57 
Thank you so, so much, Andy and George and to my beautiful audiences. I would like to leave you all with just one intention just for today. Be kind to yourself and others.

Andy Smith 55:05 
Incredible. Thank you.

Shilpa Kudekar 55:07 
Thank you so much. Thanks guys. Thank you so much. Take care. Bye.