Reiki or a coffee with a friend: which one do you actually need?
By Vanessa Chugani · Updated September 2026
Call a friend when you need someone to hear the whole story and take your side. Book a Reiki session when your body will not settle and you cannot explain why. A friend processes the story. A session works with the nervous system underneath it. Many women use both, for different jobs.
Both are things people reach for when they cannot carry something alone. A coffee with a friend is conversation: you talk, she listens, maybe she disagrees with you, maybe she has been through the same thing herself. That exchange does real work. It is also different work from a Reiki session, which is quiet and mostly wordless, and asks nothing of the person on the other end. One gives you a witness. The other gives your nervous system an hour where nothing is required of it. Neither replaces the other. The question is which job needs doing right now.
| a Reiki session | venting to a friend over coffee | |
|---|---|---|
| What happens | You lie down, fully clothed, for about an hour. She places her hands lightly on or above you. Mostly silence. | You sit across a table, talk it through out loud, and she responds, questions, and reacts to what you say. |
| What it costs | EUR 188 in person in Canggu, or EUR 138 for a distance session. Packages bring the per-session price down. | Depends entirely on your friendship. Usually nothing beyond the coffee itself. |
| What you leave with | People report sleep that comes more easily, a jaw that finally unclenches, the sense of carrying less alone. | A clearer account of what happened, and how you feel about it, because you said it out loud to someone who knows you. |
| Who's involved | Just you and the practitioner. You are not asking anything of her beyond her time and attention. | A friend who is also carrying her own week, and who may need something back from you another day. |
| Best for | A body that will not settle: the wired 2am mind, the shoulders that live up by your ears, grief with nowhere to go. | A specific problem you need to think through out loud, or a decision only someone who knows the whole history can help with. |
| Time | About an hour, booked in advance, in Canggu or by distance. | As long as the coffee takes. Often longer, if the conversation is good. |
Which one suits you
Venting to a friend is the right call when you need someone who already knows the backstory: a fight with your partner, a decision about your kids' school. No session gives you that context. A friend who has known you for ten years is worth more there than an hour of quiet. Reiki suits a different moment: when the story has already been told, more than once, and your body still has not caught up. When you are wired at 2am despite nothing being wrong today. When the tiredness will not lift no matter how much you sleep. That is not something a conversation fixes, because it was never really about the conversation. It is what Reiki is for: an hour where your nervous system gets to stop working so hard.
Related questions
Can I do both, Reiki and talking to a friend?
Yes. They are not competing for the same job. A friend gives you a witness who knows your life. A Reiki session gives your body an hour without needing to explain anything, including to itself. Many people use both around the same event: the friend right after, the session a few days later.
What if I don't have a friend I can talk to about this?
Then a session is worth trying on its own. It does not require you to narrate anything. You lie down, and the hour does its work regardless of whether you have said a word out loud about what is going on for you.
Is one more effective than the other?
They are not measuring the same thing, so effective is the wrong word. A 2025 review of eleven trials on Reiki found the best results came from sessions of an hour or more, repeated eight or more times, for quality of life. Nothing measures a coffee with a friend, because it was never trying to be a treatment.