Blocked chakras? 7 signs your energy is stuck (and how to fix it)

There are those mornings when, the second you wake up, you’re already calculating how much caffeine you need to feel human or which meetings you can sleepwalk through because your “get up and go” has simply stayed in bed.

Nothing is technically wrong. And yet something clearly is.

That gap between “I should be fine” and “I don’t feel fine” is exactly where blocked chakras live—disruptions in the flow of energy through your body’s seven main centers.

You see, chakras are energy centers running along your spine, each governing a different dimension of your physical, emotional, and spiritual life. When energy flows freely through them, you feel grounded, creative, confident, loved, heard, clear, and connected. When it doesn’t, you feel the opposite.

According to Anodea Judith, Ph.D., one of the world’s leading chakra experts, even a single imbalanced chakra sends ripples through your entire energy system.

“If your foundation is off,” she explains in her Mindvalley program, Chakra Healing, “everything else is compensating because they’re all interconnected.”

So what’s the antidote? Understanding what blocked chakras actually feel like, chakra by chakra, is where that changes.

7 signs and symptoms of blocked chakras

These stagnant centers don’t always announce themselves loudly. More often than not, the signs of blocked chakras show up as patterns, like recurring emotional reactions, physical tensions that won’t resolve, or areas of life that feel perpetually stuck, no matter what you try.

So if you feel “off” but can’t figure out why, your body’s likely manifesting one of these specific patterns:

• Physical fatigue that even the soundest sleep schedule doesn’t fix. This often signals a lack of vitality in the lower centers.
• Emotional volatility. As one of the psychological signs of blocked chakras, this can show up as snapping at your partner for no reason or feeling sudden waves of unexplained sadness.
• A sense of directionlessness or feeling “stuck” in a career or relationship, even when you have options.
• Creative drought, where every new idea feels like pulling teeth, or you feel completely disconnected from your passion.
• Chronic tension in specific areas, such as a tight throat when you need to speak or lower back pain that lingers.
• Financial anxiety or a constant feeling of being unsettled and unsafe in your environment.
• Brain fog and a lack of intuitive mental clarity that makes it seem impossible to make simple decisions. 

Which of the seven chakras do these patterns affect? A simple and quick body scan can help you here. Sit quietly, close your eyes, and move your awareness slowly from the top of your head to the soles of your feet.

Notice where you feel heat, tension, numbness, or constriction. Those sensations map directly onto the chakra in that region of the body and onto your human energy field.

Why do chakras get blocked?

When your energy encounters resistance, that’s the “blocked chakra” meaning in a nutshell. And when this resistance happens, there’s usually a human story behind it. The most common culprits are:

1. Emotional suppression 

When an experience is too painful or threatening to process in the moment, your nervous system archives it.

Dr. Candace Pert, Ph.D., spent decades at the National Institute of Mental Health mapping how emotions are stored as biochemical signals throughout the body. Her foundational research showed that when unresolved grief, anger, shame, or fear go unprocessed, your body holds them.

This creates a kind of energetic scar tissue that disrupts the flow through the chakra closest to where that emotion was held.

2. Chronic stress 

Research by Dr. Richard Davidson, Ph.D., founder of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has shown that long-term stress changes how your brain works and how you handle your emotions. It’s a finding that other reseach has has since reinforced, like a 2024 systematic review on the impact chronic stress has on the brain.

And so, when your nervous system is constantly braced for threat, it can’t support the open, relaxed state that healthy energy flow needs.

3. Physical illness

This may include injury, poor diet, and disconnection from your body, which can also disrupt your chakra function. So can major life transitions, toxic relationships, and patterns you absorbed in childhood.

Now, here’s the thing: Many people turn to chakra practices looking for relief, but end up using them to sidestep the very emotions causing the blockage. As Anodea puts it bluntly, “A lot of people want to live a well-balanced life, but they haven’t cleaned out the basement. They haven’t healed their issues.”

In other words, they’re spiritual bypassing. And it gives the feeling of healing without any of the substance.

But real chakra work? It asks you to look at what’s actually there.

How to know if your chakras are blocked (and what to do about it)

“Which of my chakras are blocked?” you might ask. The clearest way to identify them is to look at which area of your life feels most stuck.

The reason for this is, each chakra governs a specific life theme. When one is blocked, that theme becomes a recurring problem, and the energy supporting that area simply isn’t flowing freely.

Allow yourself to be aware of your own awareness.

— Anodea Judith, trainer of Mindvalley’s Chakra Healing program

A quick way to spot blocked chakra symptoms, as well as signs, is to track your patterns. It could be something like the same argument, the same creative wall, the same knot in your stomach before you speak… Notice what keeps coming up.

And then, as the table shows, locate which exact energy center it’s blocking.

Disclaimer: The symptoms described here are not a substitute for professional medical or mental health care. If you are experiencing persistent physical symptoms or emotional distress, consult a qualified healthcare provider.

Chakra	Theme	Blocked symptoms	Clearing practices
Root	Safety, belonging	Anxiety, financial fear, lower back pain	Grounding, movement, nature
Sacral	Creativity, pleasure	Creative block, intimacy issues, emotional numbness	Dance, water, pleasure practices
Solar plexus	Personal power	Low confidence, digestive tension, control patterns	Core yoga, decisive action, sunlight
Heart	Love, connection	Resentment, emotional walls, loneliness	Gratitude practice, compassion meditation
Throat	Expression, truth	Fear of speaking up, throat tension, feeling unheard	Chanting, journaling, honest conversations
Third eye	Intuition, clarity	Brain fog, poor decision-making, lack of direction	Meditation, visualization, reduced screen time
Crown	Spirituality, meaning	Disconnection, cynicism, existential emptiness	Silence, prayer, contemplative practice

Learn more from Anodea Judith:

1. Root chakra

Color: Red
Element: Earth
Position: Base of the spine

The root chakra governs your most fundamental sense of safety: physical security, belonging, financial stability, and the felt sense that you have a right to exist and take up space.

Signs of a blocked root chakra:

• Persistent financial anxiety or scarcity thinking
• A feeling of being abandoned or fundamentally unwanted
• Chronic tension in the lower back, hips, or legs
• Difficulty feeling at home anywhere, including in your own body
• Anger or shame directed at your physical self

When your root chakra is open, you may feel more grounded. You find it easier to trust that your needs will be met. 

“When you balance the chakra, you have a sense of trust in the world and trust in yourself,” says Anodea. Your relationship with your body becomes more accepting, and your sense of security grows from within.

It turns out, that belief is measurable. A 2025 study in Translational Psychiatry found that people who felt in control of their lives were more resilient, less stressed, and physically healthier.

To clear this particular blocked chakra, spend time earthing, such as bare feet on grass and hands in soil. Prioritize consistent physical movement, especially activities that connect you to the ground beneath you. 

Pair it with positive affirmations that speak directly to safety and belonging. They can help rewire the belief patterns underneath.

2. Sacral chakra

Color: Orange
Element: Water
Position: Below the navel

The sacral chakra is the seat of your creative and emotional life. It governs pleasure, sensuality, the quality of your relationships, and your capacity to feel and to let yourself enjoy feeling.

Signs of a blocked sacral chakra:

• Creative block or a persistent sense that your ideas have dried up
• Difficulty with emotional or physical intimacy
• Guilt or shame around pleasure and desire
• Toxic relationship patterns that repeat regardless of who’s involved
• Emotional numbness or dramatic emotional swings

When your sacral chakra is open, creativity flows easily. You enjoy pleasure without guilt. And your relationships feel mutual and nourishing, and you experience life as something to savor, not just endure.

So, to clear it, engage your body in fluid, expressive movement, like dance, swimming, or any activity that invites sensory awareness. A 2019 meta-analysis in Frontiers in Psychology found that such movement practices significantly improved emotion regulation, interpersonal connection, and body-mind integration. 

And, as Anodea points out, “when we feel comfortable, the energy flows through unencumbered.”

3. Solar plexus chakra

Color: Yellow
Element: Fire
Position: Above the navel

Sitting just above the navel, the solar plexus chakra is your center of personal power. It determines how confidently you act on your own behalf, how clearly you hold your boundaries, and whether you trust your own judgment.

Signs of a blocked solar plexus chakra:

• Chronic self-doubt or difficulty making decisions without external validation
• Digestive tension, nausea, or a “gut” that never settles
• Giving your power away in relationships to avoid conflict
• A pattern of starting things but abandoning them before completion
• Anger that manifests as control rather than assertion

“Our purpose here,” says Anodea, “is to find our power, to develop the strength of our will, to develop strength in our bodies, to increase the amount of energy we have, and to be able to really direct that energy into the activities of our choice.”

That’s what happens when your solar plexus chakra is open. You act from a place of grounded confidence, you don’t need approval to move forward, and you can hold power without needing to wield it over others.

What steps can you take to clear it? Build physical core strength through yoga or movement that activates the abdominal area. Then practice making decisions without seeking consensus first. A 2023 study in BMC Public Health found that confidence grows through repeated small successes.

Start simple, like choosing where you eat, what you wear, and how you spend 30 minutes. Even spending time outdoors in the A.M. can be beneficial. Research published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism found that morning bright light exposure produces an immediate elevation in cortisol levels—it’s what gets you out of bed, sharpens focus, and primes your body for the day. 

And that’s exactly the kind of alert, grounded energy the solar plexus needs to function well.

4. Heart chakra

Color: Green
Element: Air
Position: Center of the chest

Sitting at the center of the chest is the heart chakra. Anodea explains that it’s “the integrator between the upper chakras that are more transcendent and the lower chakras that are more practical.” In other words, it’s the bridge between your body and your spirit.

Signs of a blocked heart chakra:

• Emotional walls built from past hurt that now keep out the good, along with the bad
• Difficulty trusting, forgiving, or staying open in relationships
• Resentment that’s calcified into a permanent background mood
• Loneliness even in the presence of people who care about you
• Physical symptoms, including chest tightness, shallow breathing, or recurrent respiratory issues

When your heart chakra is open, love moves in both directions without effort. You give without depleting yourself and receive without suspicion. Forgiveness feels less like losing and more like finally putting something down.

Practicing gratitude is one of the most evidence-supported ways to open this chakra, provided it’s genuinely felt rather than recited. It’s exactly what a 2023 systematic review in Frontiers in Psychology found: gratitude practices lower heart rate and reduce blood pressure.

Add compassion meditation to the mix, starting with self-compassion before extending it outward. Because the bottom line is, you can’t pour from an empty heart.

5. Throat chakra

Color: Blue
Element: Sound
Position: Hollow of the throat

Every thought you suppress, every truth you soften, every need you don’t voice—all of it lives in the throat chakra. It governs not just spoken words, but the full expression of who you are.

Signs of a blocked throat chakra:

• Swallowing what you really want to say to keep the peace
• Chronic tension, soreness, or tightness in the throat
• Feeling perpetually misunderstood, regardless of how carefully you explain yourself
• Saying yes when you mean no, and living with the resentment it creates
• Creative self-expression that feels blocked or performative

“If your inside was riddled with shame or fear or guilt and you’re not letting that out, you have to put a sentry guard at the throat chakra to check everything that comes out of you,” Anodea points out. “That slows down the whole process and inhibits your creativity.”

An open throat chakra, however, feels like finally exhaling. You speak your truth without apologizing for it, listen as well as you talk, and honesty becomes something you choose rather than something you calculate the risk of.

To get to this point, work from the inside out. Start with Bija mantras and chanting, which create direct vibration in the throat area.

Move to journaling without editing or self-censorship, giving your suppressed voice a safe first outlet. In fact, a 2023 study in Frontiers in Psychology found that writing openly about your emotional experience, without self-editing, consistently is great for your mental health.

Then take it into the world, practicing honesty in low-stakes conversations before working up to the harder ones.

6. Third eye chakra

Color: Indigo
Element: Light
Position: Between the eyebrows

“In order to realize,” says Anodea, “you have to learn to see with your real eyes.” That’s the territory of the third eye chakra. And intuition, discernment, pattern recognition, and your sense of purpose all live here.

Signs of a blocked third eye chakra:

• Brain fog that makes sustained concentration feel impossible
• Difficulty trusting your instincts, even when they’ve been consistently right
• A vague but persistent feeling that something is misaligned in your life
• Chronic headaches or tension concentrated in the brow area
• Decision paralysis, or a sense that you’ve lost access to your own inner compass

Clear the block here, and something shifts in how you see everything. Decisions come easier, you stop second-guessing your instincts, and you see situations and people for what they are.

To unblock, meditation is the primary practice. What a 2024 systematic review in Biomedicines shows is that doing this practice regularly improves focus, decision-making, and cognitive clarity. 

You can also use visualization exercises and deliberate reduction of passive digital consumption, both of which support the same outcome.

7. Crown chakra

Color: Violet
Element: Thought
Position: Top of the head

At the top of the chakra system sits the crown chakra. It’s your point of connection to something larger than yourself, whatever name you give it.

Signs of a blocked crown chakra:

• A persistent sense of existential emptiness or disconnection
• Cynicism that shows up as an automatic defense against anything that requires belief
• Over-identification with status, achievements, and material markers of worth
• A feeling of being spiritually abandoned or unworthy of care
• Tension headaches or migraines with no identifiable physical cause

Something settles when this chakra is clear. You feel held by a larger intelligence, not explained by it. On top of that, gratitude comes easily, and life feels purposeful rather than arbitrary.

If you’re looking to unblock this blocked chakra, start with silence. Prayer, meditation, and time spent in genuine stillness are the practices that build receptivity here. It turns out, research by neuroscientist Andrew Newberg at Thomas Jefferson University found that these kinds of spiritual practices can help increase your focus and reduce your fear response.

“Allow yourself to be aware of your own awareness,” Anodea encourages. Because some things open through surrender, not effort.

Start your chakra healing journey—unlock a free class with Anodea Judith

3 simple, daily practices to keep your chakras unblocked

You don’t need an elaborate ritual to keep your chakras flowing. You need a few simple practices done consistently. Here are a few ways you can start:

1. Yoga

Yoga is the most complete chakra maintenance practice available. A 2024 systematic review in the International Journal of Yoga found that yoga postures, breathing, and meditation switch your nervous system from fight-or-flight into rest-and-digest.

Different poses target different chakras. Forward folds ground the root, hip openers release the sacral, twists activate the solar plexus, and backbends open the heart. For the throat, third eye, and crown, the breathwork and stillness within yoga practice do the work.

This is exactly what Trent Thomason experienced going through Anodea’s Mindvalley program. Although he came into it with skepticism, he had two major energy releases during the yoga practice. He shares, “My mind and consciousness has grown exponentially, and I’m much more open to life’s beautiful possibilities.”

2. Bija mantras and sound vibration

Each energy center has a corresponding seed sound, a bija mantra, that creates resonant vibration in that energy center when chanted.

• LAM for the root
• VAM for the sacral
• RAM for the solar plexus
• YAM for the heart
• HAM for the throat
• OM for the third eye
• AH for the crown

Sound works on the body directly. Research published in Sensors found that sound vibration calms the nervous system and reduces stress. Specific frequencies create physical vibration in tissue, and that vibration can shift the energetic state of the chakra it corresponds to.

Chanting these sounds during meditation brings focused attention to each center. The same principle applies to chakra mantras more broadly: singing bowls, tuning forks, and frequency-based music all work the same channel.

3. Energy healing modalities

Both Reiki and acupuncture work on the same principle: clearing stagnant energy by stimulating specific points in the body.

A 2024 meta-analysis covering 13 studies and 824 patients found that Reiki significantly reduced anxiety across multiple conditions. And acupuncture? It has a deep and growing evidence base. A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis in the Journal of Clinical Psychology found that acupuncture consistently reduced anxiety symptoms across multiple randomized controlled trials.

Sunil Kumar discovered Reiki during a period of personal stress and has been practicing it since 2019. As he shares with Mindvalley, he’s applied this technique to a number of people and“they felt genuine relaxation in their bodies and soul.”

One thing to remember is that neither Reiki nor acupuncture replaces the daily practices above. But these energy healing modalities can be considered as deeper interventions for blockages that movement, sound, and meditation haven’t fully cleared.

Frequently asked questions

What happens when your chakras are blocked?

You feel it in your body as tension or pain, in your emotions as volatility or numbness, and in your life as patterns that keep repeating no matter what you do. These are all symptoms of blocked chakras. And because all seven chakras are connected, a blockage in one puts pressure on the rest.

How do I know which chakra is blocked?

Look at which area of your life feels most stuck.

Constant money worries and physical anxiety? That’s your root chakra.
Creative blocks and intimacy issues? Your sacral.
Persistent self-doubt? Your solar plexus.

When it comes down to it, where you feel the most resistance is usually where you need to look first.

How long does it take to unblock a chakra?

There’s no fixed timeline. A recent, surface-level blockage can shift after a single meditation or movement session. A deeper one, rooted in old trauma or long-held beliefs, can take months of consistent work to clear.

What matters isn’t how fast you go; it’s how consistent you are. Daily practice, even small amounts, compounds in ways that the occasional intensive session simply can’t.

Find your spiritual superpower

You already know something needs to shift. The question is how.

Anodea Judith, Ph.D., built her Chakra Healing program on Mindvalley for exactly this moment. With a master’s in clinical psychology, a doctorate in mind-body healing, and over four decades of experience, she gives you a complete, structured path through all seven chakras.

In just eight hours, you’ll discover how to:

• Identify exactly which chakras are blocked and what’s keeping them that way
• Release the fear, guilt, and shame stored in your body
• Rebuild your confidence, creativity, and sense of personal power
• Open yourself to deeper love, clearer intuition, and real spiritual connection
• Build a lifelong toolkit for healing yourself whenever life throws you off balance

Take it from Renu Gidoomal, who found Anodea’s teachings to be impactful. The globally recognized singer and spiritual voice from the U.K. appeared successful to the world while privately battling depression, creative depletion, and a profound disconnection from her own power. Within 48 hours of beginning the program, something shifted. As she shares with Mindvalley:

If you only knew the insanity that I encounter everyday, ‘serene’ is not a quality that would be found singing from the rooftops of my energy system! It is as if I deeply know I am now in safe hands, and on a sure road to self-integration and purpose!

Want to get a sneak peek and experience it for yourself? Access a free class from the program and experience Anodea’s approach firsthand.

You’ve spent long enough feeling stuck. Now, it’s time to live.

Welcome in.