The Crown Chakra, also known as Sahasrara in Sanskrit meaning “thousand-petaled” blooms at the top of our head and is symbolically depicted as a lotus flower.

This sacred energy center is the seat of cosmic consciousness that each and every one of us carries. As the seat of divine awareness, the crown chakra connects us to the eternal. In Tantric philosophy, the crown chakra both gives and receives the energy of consciousness. In other words, it is thought of as the meeting point between the finite and infinite.

What does our crown chakra look and feel like when it is healthy and open? When our crown chakra is balanced, we feel connected to our Higher Self, can easily access our inner wisdom, feel connected to others and life, can see the bigger picture, and feel a sense of serenity and wholeness despite what is happening around us.

What about when the crown chakra is imbalanced or blocked? Common symptoms include depression, a sense of alienation or disconnection from life, and a lack of empathy.

A blocked crown chakra tends to be the result of living in stressful environments, fast-paced lifestyles, as well as experiencing unresolved trauma and deeply rooted core beliefs which developed in childhood and have been reinforced throughout life. But overall, having a blocked crown chakra is the result of being conditioned to believe that we are separate and isolated beings who are defined by the ego, which is fundamental to almost all human beings.

If you would like to connect with your Soul more deeply, crown chakra healing is an excellent place to start.

What is the Crown Chakra?

The crown chakra, or sahasrara, is the energy center within our bodies that is responsible for thought, awareness, wisdom, and our connection to the Divine.Located at the very top of the head, the crown chakra is associated with the color violet and the pituitary gland within the brain. This chakra helps to regulate the energy of consciousness.

What is Crown Chakra Healing?

Crown chakra healing is the practice of clearing, opening, and harmonizing the crown chakra within our bodies and energy fields. Crown chakra healing employs a wide range of holistic healing remedies to bring alignment to the body, mind, and spirit. These remedies include practices such as meditation, mindfulness, color therapy, sound healing, yoga, self-inquiry, aromatherapy, and many others.

20 Signs of an Unhealthy Crown Chakra

The best way to tell whether you need to undergo crown chakra healing is to pay attention to your thoughts, feelings, actions, and physical sensations within your body.

Here are some signs to look out for:

• Apathy
• Lack of care and compassion towards others
• Excessive egotism
• Insomnia
• Nightmares/night terror
• Boredom with life
• Feeling of alienation from others
• Narrow-mindedness/dogmatism
• Existential depression
• Spiritual disconnection
• Rigid and limiting self-identity
• Greed and materialism
• Lack of purpose and direction
• Mental fog/confusion
• Loneliness
• Chronic fatigue
• Headaches/migraines
• Light sensitivity
• Mental illnesses that involve delusions (e.g. schizophrenia)
• Neurological and endocrine disorders

How many of these signs can you relate to?

Do You Have a Deficient or Excessive Crown Chakra Blockage?

Did you know that there are actually two types of chakra imbalances?

While a deficient crown chakra is passive or energetically “numb,” an excessive crown chakra is energetically aggressive or manic.

Here’s a breakdown of the difference between the two:

Deficient = lifeless, sluggish, passive, blocked, inwards (not enough energy flows in).
Excessive = lively, agitated, reactive, aggressive, outwards (too much energy flows in).

Therefore, if you have a deficient crown chakra, you will be more prone to issues such as apathy, loneliness, and chronic fatigue. On the other hand, if you have an excessive crown chakra you will be prone to egotism, greed, and mental confusion.

The question is, what type of imbalance do you have? It’s also possible to fall somewhere in the middle.

15 Crown Chakra Healing Practices

You might be wondering right now what a healthy and balanced crown chakra looks and feels like.

According to yogic philosophy, the crown chakra is the seat of our soul and our access to enlightenment. While you won’t necessarily become enlightened after practicing crown chakra healing (although don’t rule it out!), you will experience vastly more inner peace and clarity. You will also no longer feel so disconnected from the people around you, and instead, that sense of isolation will be replaced with a feeling of belonging and interconnectedness with all of life.

Instead of feeling bored or fed up with life, your perspective will be rejuvenated, and you’ll be able to appreciate the beauty of existence once again. If you struggle with egotism and a rigid identity, you’ll find yourself feeling more light, fluid, and playful. You’ll also be able to see the bigger picture of life and live more in the present moment. If you have struggled with contacting your Higher Self or Soul in the past, you’ll now possess the ability to experience and live from that holy space. Overall, a sense of expansiveness and serenity will come to define your reality.

While these big changes might sound exciting, please understand that crown chakra healing can take time. So don’t expect the practices listed below to be ‘quick fixes.’ The two most important tools you need to bring to this work include commitment and patience.

Here are fifteen crown chakra healing practices out there which will help you balance this energy center:

1. Meditate, meditate, meditate

Meditation means the recognition or discovery of one’s own true self. – Sri Chinmoy

To many, the prevalence of meditation as a spiritual tool has become old and cliche. But there’s a reason why meditation is so commonly recommended: it works! And for crown chakra healing it is perhaps the most important technique you can use to bring balance to this sacred energy center. There are countless meditation techniques out there ranging from breathing techniques to mantras, as well as moving to colorful visualizations. An amazingly detailed book on a vast array of meditation techniques I recommend is called The Book of Secrets: 112 Meditations to Discover the Mystery Within by Osho. I also recommend the mobile app “Calm” to help you start meditating as it has a variety of simple and free guided meditations and breathing programs.

2. Stop believing your thoughts

I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but that when I didn’t believe them, I didn’t suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. — Byron Katie

Upon first glance, the title above (“stop believing your thoughts”) might appear strange and confusing. “What?” you might think, “But I am my thoughts!” Here lies a fundamental error in understanding. How can we be our thoughts if we don’t control them? You can discover this reality for yourself:

Sit somewhere quiet and turn your attention inwards. Start to notice all the thoughts that blast through your brain. Did you deliberately create these thoughts? Did you scheme, plan, or create any one of them intentionally?

Upon observation, you will realize that you don’t, in fact, create any your thoughts. They just arise spontaneously from the vast abyss of your mind. Therefore, how can you be your thoughts? Furthermore, what is it that is observing these thoughts? The force that witnesses these thoughts (and forgets that it is the witnesser) is your fundamental Essence.

Meditation (mentioned above) is a powerful way to begin witnessing your thoughts and detaching from them. Another way to create a sense of spacious peace inside of yourself is to disbelieve your thoughts. This method is called self-inquiry and involves asking of yourself the question “is that true?” Enlightened teacher Byron Katie has a clear and simple method of challenging and disbelieving thoughts that create suffering. Noah Elkrief is another teacher on Youtube who has a similar method of self-inquiry.

3. Energy Work

Any type of energy healing is a good way to improve the health of your crown chakra. Examples include qigong, falun gong, reiki, yoga, acupuncture, acupressure, massage, EFT, and many others.

4. Educate yourself

Open your crown chakra by expanding your mind and stepping out of dead and limiting perspectives. Read books, watch videos, and listen to podcasts on a range of topics to do with self-growth. Identify any areas of ignorance or prejudice that you might possess (this takes the courage to be honest with yourself), and deepen your education in these areas. The wise philosopher Socrates once said, “the more I learn, the less I realize I know.” In other words, the more you educate yourself, the more humility you develop about life and open-mindedness you have towards yourself and other people.

5. “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”

Simplify your surroundings. You don’t need to be a minimalist, but you can aim to reduce the clutter in your life. An excess of belongings and mess has been proven to create mental and emotional distress. Go through your house and create three piles of belongings: those you want to keep, those you want to donate, and those you want to throw away. By cleaning and simplifying your surroundings, you’re also creating the same kind of purification within. This process of cleaning your external environment energetically frees up space within your mind and greatly contributes to your crown chakra healing.

6. Hum or chant the sound “OM”

This sound matches the vibration of the crown chakra. Try drawing out the letters into sounds, such as “ommmmmmmmmm” or “auuuummmmmm.” You might also like to listen to binaural beats (a form of music healing therapy) which helps to activate and clear all the chakras through alternating sound waves. Try these chakra healing songs.

7. Explore plant medicine

Plants can be sacred teachers that give us direct experiences of the Divine. Some of the most mystical and life-changing experience I’ve ever had have been during shamanic journeys. Ensure that you research properly and find a good shaman who has experience with plant teachers such as San Pedro cactus, Psilocybin mushrooms, or Ayahuasca. Plant medicine is extremely powerful for opening the crown chakra as well as purging the rest of the energy field. (Please note that plant medicine must be approached with respect and with a properly prepared and balanced mind beforehand.)

8. Commit yourself to your own spiritual practice

No one can build a strong connection to Spirit but you. One of the simplest ways of creating your own spiritual practice is by designating a small corner (or even room) of your house to your daily spiritual practice. You might like to create a personal altar in which you put meaningful objects such as candles, books, stones, bones, incense, and so forth. You don’t need to spend a lot of money to create this space, simply take whatever you have already around the house that is significant to you, and place it in this space.

Spiritual practice is as diverse as human beings. Your spiritual practice will be completely unique to you. For example, it might include meditating, practicing yoga or qigong, praying, doing rituals, reading and studying sacred books, singing, drawing tarot cards, volunteering, creating art, watching nature, practicing visualization or self-hypnosis … there are endless combinations! Just ensure that you do what feels authentic to you. There is no need to copy anyone. Create a daily ritualthat nourishes your Soul.

9. Practice the power of prayer

Prayer doesn’t have to be religious. You can pray to whatever or whomever you believe in, whether that be your Spirit Guides, Ancestors, God/Goddess, Universe, Life, Spirit, or Soul. Prayer is very simple but also extremely beneficial. The gratitude we feel when we give thanks (which is simply one function of prayer) has been scientifically proven to have numerous health benefits. Prayer also creates an energetic bridge between you and your crown chakra. The more you pray, the more your crown chakra is opened to the Eternal. In a way, prayer can be perceived as the key that opens the door to higher consciousness.

10. Use crystals

Use crystals as energetic totems that will help you balance your crown chakra energy. Try meditating or carrying crystals such as selenite, danburite, charoite, labradorite, amethyst, and nuummite.

11. Be open to guidance

Look for synchronicity, look for signs, look for communication from Spirit. Guidance is happening all around you all the time, but you just need to be open to it. Cynicism severs the connection between your mind, body, soul, and surroundings. Give the benefit of the doubt. Question your preconceived notions and be courageous enough to actively seek and pay attention to help when it comes. What negative beliefs are causing you to shut yourself off? Do you believe that you aren’t worthy of assistance? Most cynicism stems from insecurity and a sense of worthlessness. Explore this sense of low self-worth and work to overcome it.

Guidance can happen through dreams, strange coincidences, daydreams, repetitive numbers or symbols, and intuitive gut feelings – and this list isn’t exhaustive! Help is provided in a subtle and nuanced fashion as a way to help you strengthen your mindful awareness. Take each day as an opportunity to look out for the help that the Universe is sharing with you.

12. Authentic affirmations

Every day, infuse your mind with supportive and loving affirmations. Try to choose a statement that you sincerely resonate with. Here are a few examples, “I accept myself completely,” “I am free of limiting beliefs,” “I am connected,” “I am at peace,” “I am divinely supported,” “I honor the divine within me,” “I trust my intuition,” “I listen to the Universe.”

13. Do a crown chakra visualization

Imagine a throbbing or swirling ball of luminescent violet light in your crown chakra area. Feel the ball of violet energy dissolving all blockages, sluggishness, or aggressive flows of energy within you. You might also like to try the violet flame meditation, which is a powerful way to enhance your spiritual awareness.

14. Use the following herbs

Use herbs such a holy basil, lotus, gotu kola, and lavender. You can diffuse these herbs, burn them as incense, apply them topically (in a diluted form), or consume them.

One of the best ways to take herbs is to drink them as tea. For the crown chakra, I recommend Buddha Teas’ soothing and 100% organic Crown Chakra Tea which you can buy here. This tea is infused with the essence of amethyst.

15. Wear voilet!

Wearing and surrounding yourself with the color violet is a wonderfully simple way to stimulate your crown chakra.

Final Advice

After reading all this information, you might be wondering what you should do next.

I recommend picking a handful of activities from the list above that you’re naturally drawn to. Make sure you identify whether you have a deficient or excessive chakra blockage (or a mixture), and choose accordingly. Experiment with each point for a couple of weeks and observe how you feel.