Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal.
Centro de Biociências em Saúde Integrativa (CBSIn), Atlântico Business School, 4405-604 Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Jun 13;18(12):6397. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18126397.
Practices such as "Reiki", therapeutic touch, healing touch, and external "Qigong" have been regarded as some form of "energy medicine" or "biofield therapy". The biofield concept has been studied and debated by researchers of distinct areas of expertise, and although the phenomenon was sometimes described as physically related to electromagnetics, other factors such as "subtle energy" and focused intention might be involved. These nonconventional practices integrate contact and non-contact techniques, and those dealing with so-called distant healing interventions are perhaps the most difficult to understand and accept. Practitioners describe these so-called nonlocal interventions as involving intentional factors and particular states of consciousness. With a spiritual mindset and a particular state of awareness, compassion is said to work out as a catalyst to produce physiological and physical changes through mechanisms that are still unknown. At the body level, these vegetative changes might be related to individual self-perception variations as part of the body neurovegetative feedback system of regulation. Further mechanisms are difficult to document and measure, and might be more accessible to research by using physical signal detectors, chemical dynamics methods, detectors using biological materials, detectors using living sensors, and detectors using the human body. The growing interest in these practices and the considerable amount of research exploring their effects and clinical applications encouraged this narrative review, which aims to provide an easy to consult partial overview of the history, theory and findings of quantitative research strategies exploring non-contact biofield-based practices. This work also aims to stimulate the reader's mind with the raised hypotheses, catalyzing further research on the subject to confirm or deny the reported outcomes.
“灵气”、治疗触摸、愈合触摸和外部“气功”等实践被认为是某种形式的“能量医学”或“生物场疗法”。生物场的概念已经被不同专业领域的研究人员进行了研究和辩论，尽管这种现象有时被描述为与电磁学有关，但其他因素，如“微妙的能量”和专注的意图也可能涉及其中。这些非传统的实践整合了接触和非接触技术，而那些涉及所谓的远程治疗干预的技术也许是最难理解和接受的。从业者将这些所谓的非局部干预描述为涉及有意因素和特定的意识状态。他们说，有一种精神思维和特定的意识状态，同情心可以作为一种催化剂，通过尚未了解的机制产生生理和身体变化。在身体层面上，这些植物性变化可能与个体自我感知的变化有关，作为身体神经植物性反馈调节系统的一部分。进一步的机制很难记录和测量，并且可以通过使用物理信号探测器、化学动力学方法、使用生物材料的探测器、使用活体传感器的探测器以及使用人体的探测器来更易于研究。对这些实践的日益关注以及大量探索其效果和临床应用的研究促使我们进行了这项叙述性综述，旨在提供对探索非接触生物场实践的历史、理论和定量研究策略发现的便捷参考概述。这项工作还旨在通过提出的假设激发读者的思维，促进对该主题的进一步研究，以证实或否定报告的结果。
