The chakra system is an ancient map of the body's energy centres, originating in Hindu and yogic traditions thousands of years old. Whether you approach it as a spiritual framework, a useful metaphor, or simply a way of understanding the relationship between the body and emotional experience, it offers something that purely physical models of health do not: a language for the parts of us that sit between the physical and the felt.

What chakras are

The word chakra comes from Sanskrit and means wheel or circle, referring to spinning vortices of energy said to run along the central channel of the body from the base of the spine to the crown of the head. There are seven main chakras, each associated with specific locations in the body, specific organs and glands, and specific emotional and psychological themes.

In chakra theory, energy needs to flow freely through all seven centres. When a chakra is blocked or imbalanced, the disruption can show up as physical symptoms in the associated body area, emotional difficulty in the associated themes, or both. Healing work, whether through bodywork, yoga, meditation, breathwork, or other practices, can support the restoration of flow.

You do not need to hold a specific spiritual worldview to find this framework useful. At the very least, the chakra map provides a way of connecting physical symptoms to emotional and psychological patterns, which is something Western medicine is often slow to do.

The seven chakras

Root
Root Chakra
Muladhara: base of the spine
The foundation. Associated with safety, survival, stability, and a sense of belonging in the world. When it is balanced you feel grounded, secure, and at home in your body. When it is disrupted, anxiety, financial fear, and a persistent sense of being unsafe are common. In concussion recovery, the root chakra often comes under pressure: the injury disrupts your sense of safety in your own body and your place in the world.
SafetyGroundingSurvivalStability
Sacral
Sacral Chakra
Svadhisthana: lower abdomen
The seat of creativity, pleasure, emotion, and sexual energy. Associated with the reproductive organs, lower back, and bladder. When it is balanced you feel creative, emotionally fluid, and able to experience joy and sensuality. When it is blocked, creativity dries up, emotions feel stuck or suppressed, and there can be a sense of shame around the body and its pleasure. The sacral chakra holds a great deal of what we carry in the pelvic area: old pain, reproductive history, emotional wounding that accumulates in the body over time.
CreativityPleasureEmotionReproductive system
Solar
Solar Plexus Chakra
Manipura: upper abdomen
Personal power, will, confidence, and self-esteem. Associated with the stomach, liver, and digestive system. When balanced you feel a clear sense of identity, personal agency, and the ability to act on your own behalf. When blocked, self-doubt, people-pleasing, and difficulty making decisions are common. The solar plexus is often the chakra most disrupted by the loss of identity and capability that comes with serious concussion recovery.
Personal powerConfidenceWillIdentity
Heart
Heart Chakra
Anahata: centre of the chest
Love, compassion, forgiveness, and connection. The bridge between the lower three chakras (physical and emotional) and the upper three (communication, intuition, and spirit). When balanced you feel open, loving, and able to give and receive care freely. When blocked, grief, resentment, or emotional withdrawal are common. The heart chakra in recovery often holds the grief of what has been lost, and the work of learning to love the changed version of yourself.
LoveCompassionGriefConnection
Throat
Throat Chakra
Vishuddha: throat
Communication, authentic expression, and truth. Associated with the thyroid, neck, vocal cords, and jaw. When balanced you can express yourself clearly and honestly, speak your needs, and feel heard. When blocked, difficulty finding words, a tendency to hold things in, or a sense that your voice does not matter are common. Many people in concussion recovery experience throat chakra disruption both literally (difficulty with words and speech) and emotionally (not being believed, or struggling to advocate for yourself).
ExpressionCommunicationTruthVoice
Third Eye
Third Eye Chakra
Ajna: between the eyebrows
Intuition, inner wisdom, clarity, and imagination. Associated with the pituitary gland, brain, and nervous system. When balanced you trust your instincts, see situations clearly, and have access to a deep knowing beyond the rational mind. When blocked, overthinking, confusion, and a disconnection from your own inner compass are common. Given how much concussion disrupts the brain and nervous system, the third eye chakra is particularly worth working with in recovery.
IntuitionWisdomClarityBrain and nervous system
Crown
Crown Chakra
Sahasrara: top of the head
Connection to something greater than yourself, spiritual awareness, and a sense of meaning and purpose. Associated with the pineal gland and the brain's higher functions. When balanced there is a sense of peace, wonder, and connection to life beyond the everyday. When blocked, existential emptiness, disconnection from meaning, or a narrowing of perspective to pure survival are common. The crown chakra often comes last in recovery: it is hard to feel connected to a larger purpose when you are just trying to get through the day.
SpiritualityPurposeConnectionMeaning

Working with the chakras

There are many approaches. Yoga and movement are probably the most widely accessible, with specific poses associated with specific chakras. Meditation with visualisation, imagining each chakra as a spinning wheel of coloured light, is a common practice. Breathwork can move energy through the system. Bodywork including craniosacral therapy, massage, and Reiki is also used to address chakra imbalances through the physical body.

Sound is another avenue: each chakra is associated with a specific vibrational frequency, and sound healing using singing bowls, tuning forks, or specific tonal frequencies is used by practitioners to support balance. Colour, nature, and specific foods are also part of various traditions.

You do not need to adopt the full framework to benefit from it. Sometimes simply becoming aware that a certain area of the body carries a certain emotional theme, and giving that area some conscious attention, is enough to shift something. The chakra map is useful as a starting point for that kind of enquiry.

7
Seven main chakras running from the base of the spine to the crown of the head, each linked to specific body systems, emotions, and psychological themes.
Sacral
The sacral chakra holds creativity, pleasure, and emotional fluency. It is also the energy centre associated with the reproductive system and pelvic region.
Third Eye
Associated with the brain and nervous system: the chakra most directly connected to the physical site of a concussion injury.
Ally's experience

I came to chakras through my broader spiritual exploration and found them a useful lens for understanding the relationship between what was happening in my body and what was happening emotionally. The framework is not something I apply rigidly, but the map it provides, the idea that specific body areas carry specific emotional themes, has been genuinely illuminating.

The one that has meant the most to me personally is the sacral chakra. In 2022 I had a hysterectomy. I had been living with significant pain and a set of physical and emotional burdens in that area for a long time. The surgery removed what needed to be removed. What I did not expect was what came with it.

In the months that followed, something opened up creatively that I had not felt in years. A flood of it. Art, writing, ideas, projects: all of it suddenly more available and more freely expressed than it had been. At first I did not connect the two things. Then I started reading about the sacral chakra and its relationship to the womb, the reproductive organs, and the creative force, and it made complete sense.

The sacral chakra is the seat of creative energy as much as it is the seat of sexual and reproductive energy. Those things are not separate in this framework: they are all expressions of the same generative life force. When that area of the body has been holding pain, grief, or suppressed feeling for a long time, it makes sense that the creative flow would be constricted alongside everything else. And when the source of that pain is removed, the energy can move again.

I am not saying the hysterectomy gave me my creativity. I think the creativity was always there. But removing what was blocking the sacral energy gave it somewhere to go. That creative unlock has been one of the most joyful and unexpected gifts of the last few years, and I wanted to name it here because I suspect I am not the only one who has experienced something like it.

If you carry pain or history in the pelvic area, whether physical or emotional, the sacral chakra is worth paying attention to. Not as a diagnosis, but as an invitation to enquire.