SOUND HEALING

“Sound healing balances and clears the mind, and leads to a renewed sense of purpose, well-being, calm, and happiness.” —Susy Markoe Schieffelin, sound healer

If you’re looking for a NATURAL way to relax, find peace and calmness; sound healing may be the answer for you! Everything in this world, even you, has a vibrational frequency. Sound frequencies naturally influence our emotions, that’s why particular songs and types of music often bring about specific types of emotions from us. Therefore, sound healing is a type of therapy that uses sound vibrations to improve your health and well-being. Sound healing has emerged as an alternative therapy people seek in the case of stress, anxiety, or to deal with pain. If you are looking for an alternative therapy to help you relax, reduce stress, or improve your overall health, sound healing may be right for you. It’s a wonderful compliment to your health and wellness practice.

Sound healing, which is an ancient healing technique that uses tonal frequencies to bring the body into a state of vibrational balance and harmony, plays upon this as well.

The sound frequencies slow down brain waves to a deeply restorative state, which activates the body’s system of self-healing. Singing bowls, gongs, Tibetian bowls, tuning forks, and drums are the instruments that practitioners most often use in sessions. However, says sound healer, Reiki master, and yoga and meditation teacher Susy Markoe Schieffelin, “if used with the proper intention, almost any instrument can be used in sound healing”.

Each instrument serves a different purpose. Crystal bowls, for example, are tuned to the notes of the seven chakras. The gong is said to help stimulate the glandular and nervous system, the vibrations assist in releasing tension in the body.

Although sound healing has grown in popularity in recent years, it is a healing modality that dates way back. “From vocal chanting to instruments such as Tibetan singing bowls, shamanic drums, and more, you will find some form of sound healing in every culture on Earth,” Schieffelin says. “It is said that sound healing can be traced back 40,000 years to when indigenous Australians used ancient didgeridoos for healing. One of my favorite historical examples of sound healing is the sound chambers created by the ancient Egyptians in the pyramids.”

Sound healing synchronizes brain waves to achieve profound states of relaxation, helping to restore the normal vibratory frequencies of the cells in our bodies. This simply involves using sound vibrations to relax your mind and body. “To heal is to make sound,” says Gong Master Martha Collard of Red Doors Studio. “Sound can shift frequencies from low energy of guilt and fear to higher vibrations of love and joy. Sound healing is the use of sacred instruments or voice to release energetic blockages inducing a state of ease and harmony in the body.”

While there are many types of sound therapy, all of them produce vibrations that alter your brain waves. Malbert Lee, a Hong Kong-based Crystal Bowl and Gong Master, says vibrations are especially useful for healing the body. “The adult body is 75% water, and water is a great conductor for sound vibration,” he notes. “When vibrations travel through the body, they promote circulation, energy flow, and rejuvenation. The frequency of the sound synchronizes with the brainwaves and activates destress responses in the body. ”

“Vibrations move through water in the body,” says Dr. Buathon Thienarron, a Thai wellness practitioner who offers sound healing with Tibetan singing bowls. “When this happens, it helps stimulate circulation to allow muscle relaxation and improve lymphatic flow.” This particular type of sound healing has been found to reduce stress, anger, depression, and fatigue.

Sound healing is an effective and natural way to heal the body, mind, and spirit. It    can be used to treat a wide variety of conditions, both physical and mental.

Sound has an ancient kinship with meditation and healing. Sound healing has ancient roots in cultures all over the world. Sound meditation is a form of focused awareness type of meditation. One kind that has become more popular is called “sound baths,” which uses Tibetan singing bowls, quartz bowls, and bells to guide the listener. These practices highlight themes of how the experience of sound manifests not only through hearing but through tactile physical vibrations and frequencies. 400 published scientific articles on music as medicine found strong evidence that music has mental and physical health benefits in improving mood and reducing stress. Sound meditation helped people reduce tension, anger, fatigue, anxiety, and depression while increasing a sense of spiritual well-being. The sound meditation used a range of Tibetan singing bowls, crystal singing bowls, gongs, Ting-shas (tiny cymbals), dorges (bells), didgeridoos, and other small bells. The main instrument used was the singing bowls for 95% of the session. People who had never done sound meditation experienced significantly less tension and anxiety afterward, as well as those who had done it before.

There are many different theories that attempt to explain why sound experiences can be linked with deep relaxation and physical pain relief. One theory is that sound works through the vibrational tactile effects on the whole body. Sound could stimulate touch fibers that affect pain perception. One study of people with fibromyalgia found that ten treatments (twice per week for five weeks) of low-frequency sound stimulation improved sleep and decreased pain, allowing nearly three-fourths of participants to reduce pain medication. Sound-based vibration treatment has been shown to help people with pain from arthritis, menstrual pain, postoperative pain, knee replacement pain. Sound-based treatment has even been found to improve mobility, reduce muscle pain and stiffness, increase blood circulation, and lower blood pressure. Another theory on the benefits of sound rests on the concept of “binaural beats” or “brain entrainment” which hypothesizes that listening to certain frequencies can synchronize and change one’s brainwaves. (From Psychology Today)

Sound healing can help you clear energetic blockages and thus facilitate healing on a physical and mental level. Some of the benefits of sound therapy include:

lower stress levels, mood swings, blood pressure, pain and cholesterol

improve sleep, deep relaxation, increase circulation

reduce anxiety, depression, PTSD, anger, fatigue and dementia.

It’s super-relaxing:

Deep relaxation is one of the most significant and universal benefits of sound therapy. “The sounds permeate our system returning it back to harmony,” Sarhangi says. The sounds pervade our system, restoring equilibrium. As calming as a spa, sound healing helps you find your harmony. So if you take nothing else away from a sound healing session, relaxation on its own is worth it. With our busy schedules and so much going on in the world, we can all use some chill vibes.

It helps clears energetic blockages:

Some people experience deep healing during sound therapy as the sound vibrations open, clear, and balance their chakras and release stuck energy. Schieffelin describes it as an “energetic deep tissue massage”; that leaves you feeling balanced and replenished. “When [a healing] happens, you may also feel physical sensations like tingling in your hands or feel or a sense of being hot or cold,” Schieffelin says. “Breathe into the sensations without attaching to them or labeling them. Instead, focus on your breath as you allow them to pass.”

It boosts your health:

That’s right—it’s not completely woo-woo. “Research has already demonstrated that sound healing can be incredibly beneficial when working with [a variety of] patients,” Schieffelin says. Benefits can include improved sleep, reduction of chronic pain and blood pressure, lowered cholesterol, and a decreased risk of heart disease. (Although, for professional help with these ailments, please see a certified medical practitioner.)

It supports mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being:

It also heals on the mental and emotional levels. “Sound healing helps reduce stress, anxiety, and depression,” Schieffelin says. “It balances and clears the mind, and leads to a renewed sense of purpose, well-being, calm, and happiness.”

 Stress, anxiety, and depression can all be reduced with sound healing. Sound healing restores mental balance and clarity, resulting in a revitalized sense of purpose, well-being, peace, and enjoyment. (Estrada, 2020)