What is Sound healing?
Sound healing uses specific sound waves to promote relaxation, healing, and balance (resonance) in the body.
How Does it Work?
Sound healing works by using sound frequencies to stimulate the body’s own natural equilibrium of resonant frequencies. Sound healing uses rhythmic frequencies, inducing deep relaxation, giving an opportunity for the body to relax back into its own natural resonant frequencies. This can be achieved through various methods, including:
- Listening to specific music or sound waves to restore the body’s natural frequencies.
- Using sound-emitting devices, such as tuning forks, gongs, singing bowls, or digeridoos to apply vibrations to the body, with intention, and to stimulate the body's own return to equilibrium and natural resonance.
- Practicing sound meditations and sound baths, which involves lying down and being attentive to the various sound waves that come and go, while feeling and noticing the vibrations that move through your body.
- Attention and intention, of the sound practitioner, as well as the listener(s), affects how the sounds are given and received. The attentional space of sound, with mind and body, is greatly affected by its own reciprocal nature. In other words, within a quantum space where the outcome is directly affected by the observer's participation of it. (For more information on this, look up the double slit experiment and for a quick explanation of it go here).
Why Does it Work?
There is still more research to be done but there are a few prevailing ideas as to why sound healing is so helpful:
- Brainwave Entrainment. Sound baths may elicit brainwave states where individuals experience deep relaxation and healing, especially in longer sessions. These states include 'Theta' brainwaves which occur at 4-8 Hertz and in light stages of sleep, meditation or relaxation; and, 'Delta' brainwaves, occurring at less than 4 Hertz and in stages of deep sleep or meditation. Brainwave entrainment encourages the listener's brain waves to naturally sync with inputted sound waves in order to promote deep relaxation.
- Binaural beats. Binaural beats are an auditory phenomenon created by playing two slightly different frequencies in each ear. When the brain perceives these slightly different tones, it produces a third frequency known as the binaural beat, the difference between the two hertz levels. So if you had one frequency at 20 hertz and another at 15 hertz, the difference would be 5 hertz. And this hertz level is equivalent to the 'Theta' brainwave state.
- Biofield. The biofield refers to an energy or electromagnetic field that is believed to surround and interact with the human body (everything is energy; everything is connected). This concept suggests that within this field may lie answers in accessing one’s overall health and well-being. In this way, sound waves exiting the vibrational instruments to interact with the purported biofield could also affect change in the biofield.
- Vagus nerve activation. The vagus nerve, also known as the tenth cranial nerve, plays a pivotal role in regulating numerous involuntary bodily functions, including one’s heart rate, digestion and respiratory rate. Stimulating the vagus nerve is integral to activating the body's relaxation response, as it can induce a state of calmness and counteract the “fight-or-flight” stress response. This nerve plays a key role in maintaining overall physiological balance and well-being and research suggests that it may be activated during sound healing sessions, creating an optimal state for healing to take place.
Benefits of Sound Healing:
Sound healing has been shown to have numerous benefits, including:
- Reducing stress and anxiety
- Promoting relaxation and calmness
- Improving sleep quality
- Reducing pain and inflammation
- Improving mood and emotional well-being
- Enhancing cognitive function and focus
- promoting good self-care
Types of Sound Resonance Therapies:
There are many different variations of sound healing techniques. Some of the main types sound healers employ are:
- Tuning forks: uses calibrated (weighted and non-weighted) metal tuning forks to apply specific vibrations to the body and/or accoustically.
- Singing bowls: uses singing bowls that create specific frequency sound waves to promote resonance with the body.
- Gong Baths: using gong(s) and the different sound wave frequencies they emit to entrain listeners into deeper relaxation and more relaxed brain states.
- Sound Baths (or Sound Journeys): involves lying down and listening/attending to sound waves (various instruments can be used alone, or in combination) and/or vocal direction (guided meditation), while feeling the vibrations throughout the body and maintaining awareness of sounds without analyzing, judging, or getting carried away, (crucial for building mindful listening and effective communication skills).
- Music therapy: uses music to promote relaxation and healing.
- Vibro-accoustic therapy: promotes physical and emotional well-being by passing low frequency sine wave vibrations into the body via a device with embedded speakers by stimulating vibratory perception through therapeutic sound waves and brainwave entrainment.
Conclusion:
Sound healing is a powerful tool for promoting deep relaxation and balance in the body by using specific rhythmic sound frequencies to stimulate the body’s own natural resonance frequencies. Sound healing can have a profound impact on both physical and emotional well-being as it creates a safe and supported space that allows the stimulation of one's own healing processes. Whether you’re looking to reduce stress, improve sleep, improve focus, or enhance your overall mood, sound healing is a valuable addition to your regular self-care routine.
Supportive Research:
Allen, L., & Shealy, N. (2005). An exploration of the effects of toning and quartz crystal bowls on the energetic balance in the body as measured electrically through the acupuncture meridians. Subtle Energies & Energy Medicine Journal Archives, 16(2).
https://journals.sfu.ca/seemj/index.php/seemj/article/view/65
Bekniyazova AZ, Kadralinova A, Konkayeva ME, Yeltayeva AA, Konkayev AK. Case Report: Complex Treatment Using Vibroacoustic Therapy in a Patient With Co-Infection and COVID-19. Front Med (Lausanne). 2022 Jun 7;9:893306.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9210955/
Eley, R., & Gorman, D. (2010). Didgeridoo playing and singing to support asthma management in Aboriginal Australians. The Journal of Rural Health, 26(1), 100-104.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20105276/
Goldsby, T. L., & Goldsby, M. E. (2020). Eastern Integrative Medicine and Ancient Sound Healing Treatments for Stress: Recent research advances. PubMed, 19(6), 24–30. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33488307
Goldsby, T. L., Goldsby, M. E., McWalters, M., & Mills, P. J. (2016). Effects of singing bowl sound meditation on mood, tension, and well-being: an observational study. Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine, 22(3), 401–406. https://doi.org/10.1177/2156587216668109
G Y Trivedi, Saboo B. (2019) A Comparative Study of the Impact of Himalayan Singing Bowls and Supine Silence On Stress Index and Heart Rate Variability. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Mental Health 2(1), 40.
https://openaccesspub.org/jbtm/article/1181
Maman, Fabien (1997), The Role of Music in the Twenty-First Century, Redondo Beach, CA.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2314740
Masala D., Merolle V. The Tuning Fork and the " Soundtherapy " Senses Sciences 2017:4 (2) 365-370.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317503571_The_tuning_fork_and_the_Soundtherapy .
Rio-Alamos, C., Montefusco-Siegmund, R., Cañete, T., Sotomayor, J., & Fernandez-Teruel, A. (2023). Acute relaxation response induced by Tibetan Singing bowl sounds: a randomized controlled trial. European Journal of Investigation in Health Psychology and Education, 13(2), 317–330. https://doi.org/10.3390/ejihpe13020024
Kim, S., & Choi, M. (2023). Does the sound of a singing bowl synchronize meditational brainwaves in the listeners? International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(12), 6180. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20126180
Walter, N., & Hinterberger, T. (2022). Neurophysiological effects of a singing bowl massage. Medicina, 58(5), 594. https://doi.org/10.3390/medicina58050594