There are literally thousands of ways you can “heal” and “balance” your chakras. Meditation and visualization are both very popular choices, sound is another good method, sight is yet another (using yantras or mandalas), and smell works really well too – it’s called aromatherapy. Yoga is another very popular way to work on your chakras, and I could go on as the list is too long to recite.

But do each of these modalities work equally well? The answer is yes, and no. Or the proverbial, “it depends.”

First of all, I think it’s important to realize that each healing modality is actually more closely associated with each one of the chakras. This means that one method may work better for a particular chakra than another.
 Let me explain.

The 6th and 7th chakras balance well with visualization and meditation and pure energy work, because they are in the higher frequency realm. The seventh chakra isn’t even truly “physical” – it’s our spiritual connection to everything. It resides off the body, above the crown of our head. The sixth chakra is at the third eye – in the middle of the forehead – and it is the least “physical” of the sixth bodily-related chakras.

A Quick Intro to Your Chakras

Think of your six bodily chakras stacked up like a sort of pyramid – with the lowest one, your first chakra creating the wide and heavy base of the pyramid, and the highest one in your body, your sixth chakra, representing the highest tip of the pyramid. It’s light and airy and easily mutable, while the first chakra is dense and heavy and more difficult to change (in fact, the first chakra represents and strengthens stability, so it’s very nature is the opposite of change).

Each chakra also relates to a sense and an element, like this:

• First chakra = smell/earth
• Second chakra = taste/water
• Third chakra = sight/fire
• Fourth chakra = touch/air
• Fifth chakra = hearing/sound
• Sixth chakra = “sixth sense”/light
• Seventh chakra is off the body and unrelated to the sensory world, so it has no associations, except to pure consciousness.

To learn much more about your chakras, see this in-depth article I wrote and this fabulous chart I created.

Best Healing Method for Your First Chakra

So, for the first chakra, the best, long term healing comes from very physical activities – like hatha yoga, because the first chakra is the most dense and most related to the physical body. Smell-oriented treatments, like aromatherapy, work well too because this chakra is related to your sense of smell. Gemstones (pictured) are great for first chakra healing as well, because stones are from the earth, the element of this chakra. Gardening is also really good for healing your first chakra (see the above video)

Best Healing Method for Your Second Chakra

For the second chakra – which is still very dense and physical – hatha yoga is good – especially tantrically-oriented yoga and hip poses (see the above video). Healing with chakra foods (juicy, orange foods like oranges, mangoes & pumpkins) is good for this chakra since it’s related to taste, and doing aquatic bodywork – like watsu (pictured) – is really good too, because the second chakra is related to the water element.

Best Healing Method for Your Third Chakra

For the third chakra – Visual therapy like working with yantras is very good here, as are my Tranformation Power Questions and Byron Katie’s “The Work,” because our conscious, mental reasoning ability and our self-image are both associated with the third chakra. Sun bathing is good, because the third chakra is related to the fire element, and it’s located in the solar plexus.
And if you’re up for it, fire walking will stoke your third chakra in a major way. Any method that builds confidence is good for the 3rd chakra too. Some folks thing affirmations do this, but I disagree. I avoid affirmations (because they often invite your subconscious mind to respond negatively), and use Transformational Power Questions (empowering questions) instead. Here’s how and why to do TPQs. Finally, any kind of actual core work — like power yoga — or breathing that stokes your core — like yoga’s “breath of fire”, are really good for your solar plexus chakra.

Best Healing Method for Your Fourth Chakra

For the fourth chakra – the bridge between the lower (more “physical” chakras) and the upper (more “spiritual” chakras), touch is good. Studies show that babies thrive when nurses and nanny’s hold them, and so do adults. Humans need hugging. Hugging –even self-hugging (do it now!) is one of the simplest ways to boost and balance heart chakra energy. EFT – the process of tapping – is great for this chakra too, as is all forms of breath work, because we breath in and out of this chakra and the element here is air.

Best Healing Method for Your Fifth Chakra

For the fifth chakra – sound healing takes the cake. You can use this technique two simple ways – putting sound out, in the form of mantras, chanting, and seed sounds (or even just singing a favorite song that makes you feel good) and taking sound in, in the form of crystal bowls, mantras or again, a favorite song.

The seed sounds (shortest mantras) for each of the chakras are:

• 1st –  Lam
• 2nd – Vam
• 3rd – Ram
• 4th – Yam
• 5th – Ham
• 6th – Om
• 7th – Silence (again, pure consciousness

Best Healing Method for Your Sixth Chakra

For the sixth chakra – visualization is the best tool, since our third eye is ground zero for all our dreams and visualizations. You can do this inwardly or outwardly, and I recommend both. Meditations are the best way to do inward visualizing. Just close your eyes and create a positive world within you. See and feel what you truly want and as you do this, you change your whole physiology in a way that causes you to interact more positively and confidently with your external world (and thereby change it). You can also visualize externally by creating an Amazing Vision Board. I created an awesome 4-video series that walks you through the process of creating a sacred vision board that will ignite your creative energy in a major way and take your life to the next level. You can access the series here:

• How To Create A SOULFUL Vision Board – Part 1
• How To Create A SOULFUL Vision Board – Part 2
• How To Create A SOULFUL Vision Board – Part 3
• How To Create An Amazing Vision Board – Part 4

Best Healing Method for Your Seventh Chakra

For the seventh chakra, meditation – pure, silent, thoughtless openness is the best. Just opening to the space that we are, with nothing added.

Now, this is not to say that meditating won’t help the first chakra, it can. But we’re talking about a super subtle technique being used on a super dense chakra (kind of like “hammering” a nail with a pencil).

It may cause a shift in the energy field of the first chakra, but for it to stay for good, lots of repetition and consistency (both qualities of the first chakra) are needed. Getting into the actual body – tissues and bones – works much better for creating long-term, positive, first chakra shifts.

And conversely, for the sixth or seventh chakras to be greatly affected by something as physical as hatha yoga, you need to make sure you’re paying equal attention to your subtle energies while doing your physical practice.

It’s a trade off.

For Best Results…

My general suggestion is this: try lots of different modalities so all your chakras can be affected positively by their most compatible modality.

Be aware that you will tend to avoid the modality you need the most.

Here’s why… If you need more first chakra energy (more earth energy), then you tend to “live” more in your upper chakras, which means you are not deeply inhabiting your body. It also means that you like to float around, not being consistent, and not committing to things.

Unfortunately, the way to balance and “heal” such an issue is to do what you don’t want to do – go into the body with yoga or conscious bodywork — and commit to going in there deeply and consistently.

So another rule of thumb is don’t just do what you like to do. A popular new age adage is “Do what you love.”  While that’s certainly good some of the time, it’s not good all of the time. More of the same cannot create positive change. If you want things to change, you need to change the things you do.

The general rule of thumb is: Use more meditative-type techniques for the upper chakras, and do more physically-oriented techniques to best effect the lower chakras.

Finally, try out my Chakra Boosters Healing Tattoos™ for any or all the chakras. They’re beautiful, fun to apply, and they boost and balance your chakras even while you’re sleeping.

Happy Healing! And if you want a simple way to balance your chakras while beautifying your body, try my healing tattoos (use coupon code “FriendDiscount” for By-One-Get-One 50% Off).