“My heart chakra is blocked.” “How do I get my chakras open again?” There is hardly a question we hear as often as this one. Behind it there is usually no esoteric interest, but a very human feeling: something has become tight, heavy or quiet. This article answers the most common questions about opening the chakras and balancing them — honestly, without promises of healing, and with gentle practices that fit into an ordinary everyday life.

What does “opening the chakras” actually mean?

In the Indian yoga tradition, the seven chakras are energy centres along the spine — from the pelvic floor to the crown of the head. Each one is assigned a life theme: stability to the root chakra, joy of life to the sacral chakra, personal strength to the solar plexus, connection to the heart chakra, expression to the throat chakra, intuition to the third eye chakra and openness to the crown chakra. You will find a detailed introduction on our overview page The 7 Chakras.

The ancient texts describe the chakras as lotus flowers. In this image, an “open” chakra is a flower that has unfolded; a “closed” one is a bud. What matters is what lies in this image: a bud is not defective. It simply has not opened yet — and it does not open because someone pulls at it, but because it receives light, warmth and time. This is exactly how the tradition understands the opening of a chakra: as patient attention, not as a technique with a switch.

In today's language, “opening the chakras” is therefore above all an invitation to consciously devote yourself to one area of life. Someone who says they want to open their heart chakra usually means: allowing more warmth again, seeking contact, being gentler with themselves. Someone who wants to strengthen their root chakra is looking for stability, routine and ground under their feet. This translation from image to everyday life is the core of all the practices further below.

What is a “blocked” chakra — and what is it not?

The word “blocked” does not come from the classical texts, but from the Western energy work of the 20th century. It describes the feeling that something is not flowing: you want to say something and swallow it, you long for closeness and withdraw, you have plans and cannot get moving. In chakra language, this feeling is assigned to a place in the body — the throat, the heart, the belly.

As a mirror, this can be helpful. Someone who notices that the image of the “blocked throat chakra” speaks to them has found a question to ask themselves: What am I not saying right now? As a diagnosis it is no good. A tight feeling in the throat, a racing heart or persistent exhaustion can have medical causes and belong in a doctor's hands — not in a chakra interpretation.

Underactive, overactive, balanced

Many modern chakra books distinguish three states. An “underactive” chakra stands for a theme that gets too little room (for example hardly any self-confidence with the solar plexus). An “overactive” one stands for a theme that takes up too much room (for example a need for control). “Balanced” means: the theme is there without dominating. In practice this means that opening is not always the goal. Sometimes it is more about calming down — which is why in this article we prefer to speak of balancing.

“The most important message to anyone who believes a chakra is broken: it is not broken. Every person has their own themes, and they come and go. What helps is giving the theme time regularly — and the most time we spend in one place at a stretch is the night.”

What do customers ask us most often?

Since we started offering the AURIPURA® mattress, we regularly receive questions about blocked chakras. Three of them come in almost every week. Here are our answers, just as we give them on the phone.

Where do I start? The decision tree

Instead of seven chakras at once: three questions, one starting point. Click your way through and choose the answer that feels most right today. There is no wrong answer — and tomorrow the answer may be a different one.

Which practice suits which chakra?

In the tradition, each chakra has an element, a colour and a seed syllable. Suitable practices follow quite naturally from this: the root chakra (element earth) likes ground and weight, the heart chakra (element air) likes the breath, the throat chakra (element ether, space) likes sound. The overview shows one gentle practice each and an everyday moment it fits into. You will find more about the colours in the chakra colours guide, and about the syllables in the symbol atlas.

You do not have to keep up all seven practices. One is enough to begin with. The table is more of a menu than a training plan — take what you feel like and leave the rest.

How do I open the heart chakra?

The heart chakra (Anahata) is located in the middle of the chest and is the fourth of the seven chakras — exactly between the three “earthly” ones below and the three “spiritual” ones above. In the tradition it stands for connection, compassion and self-acceptance; its colour is green, its element air. Everything about its meaning and symbolism is in our article on the heart chakra. Here it is about practice. Five gentle ways to open the heart chakra:

1. Make the chest wide. If you sit a lot, you roll your shoulders forward — the chest literally becomes tight. In the evening, lie on your back for three minutes with a rolled-up towel under your shoulder blades, arms relaxed at your sides. Alternatively, the sphinx pose from yoga: on your belly, forearms propped up, breastbone forward.
2. Breathe into the chest. Place one hand on the middle of your chest and breathe so that the hand rises. Ten calm breaths. The element of the heart chakra is air — the breath is the most direct access.
3. A gratitude sentence in the evening. Before you fall asleep, name one person or moment you are grateful for today. Just one. The repetition makes the difference.
4. Green and YAM. As you breathe out, imagine a warm green light in your chest and silently say the syllable YAM. If you like, add a stone: green jade is traditionally regarded as the stone of the heart chakra (more on this in the chakra stones article).
5. Be gentle with yourself. An often overlooked part of the heart chakra is self-acceptance. If something went wrong for you today, speak to yourself inwardly the way you would speak to a good friend.

If you are looking for a guided form of heart chakra meditation, you will find a five-minute version in our chakra meditation. And if you would like to accompany the heart chakra at night too, you can begin with the Anahata Bloom rod.

How do I strengthen the root chakra?

With the root chakra (Muladhara) people rarely speak of “opening”, but of strengthening or grounding. It is located at the pelvic floor, its colour is red, its element earth. In the tradition it is the foundation: only when you feel safe is there room for everything else. You will find its meaning and background in the article on the root chakra. Five grounding practices:

1. Barefoot. Stand barefoot on grass, wood or tiles for five minutes and feel the soles of your feet: heel, ball, toes. It sounds banal, and that is exactly the point — the root chakra likes the simple.
2. Walk slowly. Ten steps so slowly that you notice every moment of the foot rolling. In the hallway, in the garden, on the way to the mailbox.
3. The mountain pose. Stand upright, feet hip-width apart, weight evenly distributed, knees soft. Imagine you are putting down roots into the ground. One minute is enough.
4. Rhythm. Fixed times for eating, getting up and going to bed give the day a framework. Many experience a regular sleep rhythm as the most grounding habit of all.
5. Red and LAM. A red object as an anchor in the bedroom, the syllable LAM as you breathe out, a heavy blanket instead of a light one. Red jasper is the traditional stone of the root chakra.

The root chakra is the chakra of the night par excellence: sleep is the time when we have the most ground beneath us. In the AURIPURA® mattress, its rod, the Muladhara Essence rod, sits at the lower end of the chakra line.

How do I open the throat chakra?

The throat chakra (Vishuddha) sits in the throat and stands for expression, communication and truthfulness. Its colour is light blue, its element space, its syllable HAM. If you often bite your tongue, swallow things down or lose your voice in conversation, you often feel addressed by the image of the “blocked throat chakra”. More about the background in the article on the throat chakra. Four practices that work with sound:

1. Humming. Lips closed, one deep tone, feeling the vibration in throat and breastbone. Two minutes, for example in the shower. Humming is the gentlest way of using your own voice.
2. Chant HAM. Say the syllable of the throat chakra out loud on a long exhale: Haaam. Five times in a row. If that feels too unfamiliar, simply sing — nobody can hear you in the car.
3. One sentence a day. Every day, say out loud one sentence you would otherwise have kept to yourself. A compliment, a request, a no.
4. Writing. If you struggle with speaking, begin on paper. Three sentences in the evening: What did I want to say today?

In our mattress, the Vishuddha Whisper rod belongs to the throat chakra, with chalcedony — the stone that the tradition associates with clear, calm expression.

How do I balance all the chakras?

“Balancing the chakras” means in the tradition that none of the seven themes dominates life and none withers. It is not a state you reach once and then own, but rather like fitness: you tend to it, and it changes with the phases of life. Two approaches have proven themselves.

Path 1: One round through all seven

The classical form is chakra meditation: attention travels from the root to the crown chakra, a few breaths at each point, one colour, one syllable. Seven to ten minutes in the evening are enough. You will find the complete guide including guided audio in our article on chakra meditation.

Path 2: One chakra a day

If you prefer to go in small steps, devote one chakra to each day of the week. That way every theme gets its turn once a week, and Sunday is left for a full round. A suggestion:

Everyone has their own thing

In the AURIPURA® team there is no uniform routine, and that is deliberate. One person meditates every evening before sleep, another goes for a walk without a phone in the morning, a third hums while cooking. This is exactly what we recommend to you too: find a practice that does not feel like an obligation. An exercise you enjoy, you will still be doing three months from now. One you only do because it is written in a book, you will not.

Three rules for gentle balancing

• Start small: five minutes, one chakra, one fixed moment.
• Don't force anything: If nothing happens on a given evening, that is a perfectly normal evening — not a sign of a blockage.
• Look at your life, not at the chakra: Whether something changes, you notice by how your everyday life feels — not by a colour behind closed eyes.

What role do stones and rods play?

Gemstones appear in almost every chakra tradition: as an anchor on the bedside table, as a companion in meditation, as a symbol of a theme. They do not open a chakra by themselves, but they give attention a place — much like a candle in meditation. Which stone belongs to which chakra is shown in our article on chakra stones.

How the stones are prepared

Each of the seven AURIPURA® energy rods contains the traditional stone of its chakra. Before they go into the rods, they are prepared by an experienced energy practitioner — in the language of the tradition, “charged”. She has completed a long training and has worked with stones and energy for many years. We chose her because she has a presence you can feel in the room as soon as she walks in. Whether and how someone experiences the charging of a stone is a matter of personal conviction. For us it is part of the care with which every rod is made.

Swap a single rod or stay with one?

The rods can be taken out and put back in individually. This allows two approaches: if you value the complete system, you leave all seven permanently in their place. If you are working with one theme, you begin with a single rod and add more when your phase of life changes — for example the heart first, the root later. Our recommendation: if you are unsure, take the whole set. In the tradition, the seven chakras are meant as an interplay, not as individual parts.

Does the position really matter?

We asked ourselves this question too. In internal trial-lying rounds, we placed the rods in swapped positions as a test, without telling the test sleepers. The feedback was clearer than we had expected: with the rods in the right position, they reported having slept better than in the nights with the order swapped. This is a small, subjective observation and not a scientific study — but it has strengthened us in taking the order of the tradition very seriously.

And there is more to come: we are working on additional stones for the rods, so that the system can be put together even more personally in the future.

Why the night is the strongest place

All the practices in this article have one thing in common: they work through repetition. Five minutes of humming, ten breaths, a gratitude sentence — every day. The honest difficulty is not the exercise, but sticking with it. Everyday life eats up the five minutes faster than you think.

But there is one moment that is guaranteed to come every day and that nobody forgets: the night. For around eight hours we lie in one place at a stretch, with the spine exactly on the line along which the tradition locates the seven chakras. This is exactly where the AURIPURA® chakra mattress comes in: its seven energy rods lie in the order of the chakras, each in its place. So every night you spend eight hours in exactly the right spot — with the right rod under the right chakra.

We do not promise that this opens, releases or heals anything. What we can say: for many of our customers, going to bed becomes a conscious ritual this way, instead of just the end of the day. And if you do the five-minute heart or root practice right in bed in the evening, you combine both in one place. Trying it is risk-free: you can try the Serenity Mattress with all seven rods for a 100-night trial. If you would like to keep your existing mattress, you can complement the system with the Serenity Topper.

→ Find your AURIPURA® sleep system

When is chakra practice not the right path?

Gentle practices are wonderful for well-being. But they have limits that we want to name clearly. If you are sleeping poorly over a long period, are exhausted or low for weeks, or have pain, a racing heart or shortness of breath, medical advice is the right first step — not the question of which chakra is “blocked”. Chakra practice can accompany a treatment if it does you good, but it never replaces it. Serious teachers in the yoga tradition see it the same way.

The 7 Chakras in Detail

Each chakra has a detailed article covering its meaning, colour and symbolism:

Frequently Asked Questions About Opening the Chakras

What does it mean to open the chakras?

A figure of speech from the yoga tradition: consciously giving a life theme room again — stability, joy, strength, connection, expression, clarity, openness. In practice through attention, breath, movement, sound and small rituals, not through a one-off intervention.

How can you tell if a chakra is blocked?

In the tradition, a chakra is considered “blocked” when its theme is getting little room at the moment — for example little stability (root) or difficulty saying things out loud (throat). This is an interpretation, not a diagnosis. Complaints belong in a doctor's hands.

How can you open the heart chakra?

With chest-opening stretches, breath into the chest, a gratitude sentence in the evening, the colour green and the syllable YAM. Five minutes a day carry further than one long session a month.

How can you strengthen the root chakra?

Through grounding: standing barefoot, walking slowly, the mountain pose, fixed daily structures, the colour red and the syllable LAM. Many people also find a regular sleep rhythm grounding.

How long does it take to balance the chakras?

There is no end point. In the tradition, balance is something you restore again and again. After two to three weeks of a small daily practice, it usually becomes natural.

Can a chakra mattress open the chakras?

In the medical sense, a mattress neither opens nor heals anything. The AURIPURA® mattress places seven energy rods in the order of the chakras, so that every night you lie for around eight hours on this line. Many experience this as a calm, daily ritual — what you feel in the process is personal.

Further Reading

• Chakra Meditation: A Guide to All 7 Chakras — The whole round with guided audio, ideal for balancing in the evening.
• Heart Chakra: Meaning, the Colour Green & Symbolism — Everything about Anahata, the most searched-for chakra.
• Chakra Stones: Which Stone for Which Chakra? — The seven stones as anchors for your practice.
• The 7 AURIPURA® Energy Rods Explained — How the rods are made and how to choose them.