The term "Sound Bath" is becoming trendier as our world turns to healing from the effects of the pandemic and life as a whole.
On my exploratory journey to living a balanced lifestyle, I was given the opportunity to learn more about sound healing.
I have always known that music is a powerful force and can be a mood changer and pain reliever.
What I had no idea about is the science behind how vibrations and frequencies work to change the body, even at a cellular level and the rich history behind using sounds as a way to thrive!
In quantum physics, each cell is made up of vibrating matter brought together by magnetic forces. Illness can effect these vibrations, changing their frequency.
The vibrations created during sound baths help rebalance these and restore the body. Sound vibrations open, clear, and balance the chakras and release stuck energy.
Sound bath instruments
Instruments that make deep, resonating vibrations are popular instruments used for sound baths.
These include:
-crystal bowls
-Tibetan singing bowls
-bells
-gongs
Each instrument creates a different frequency that vibrates in your body and helps guide you to the meditative and restorative state
The use of music for healing is nothing new. From Tibetan singing bowls to Aboriginal didgeridoos, music has been used for its therapeutic effects for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks used sound vibration to aid in digestion, treat mental disturbance, and induce sleep.
At end of the 19th century, researchers began to focus on proving the correlation between sound and healing. These studies proved that music could lower blood pressure, decrease pulse rate and assists the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for digestion and some metabolic processes.
Mental health benefits
Sound baths may help treat mental health conditions, such as depression and anxiety.
One 2016 study of 62 adults gauged their feelings before a sound bath, and again after a meditation session that included a sound bath. The researchers found that tension, anxiety, and negative moods decreased significantly after the therapy. A 2018 study with 60 participants asked 30 of them to listen to the music of Tibetan singing bowls before getting surgery and gave the other 30 headphones with no music.
The analysis found that heart rate and other vitals that indicate anxiety improved in those who were given the headphones with music.
In a 2020 research review that analyzed four studies, improvements in distressed mood, tension, anger, and confusion were seen in study participants after a sound bath with Tibetan singing bowls.
Physical pain reduction
Participants in the previously mentioned 2016 study were also asked whether they were in pain, and to rank their pain on a scale from 1 to 5 if they did feel pain.
Before a sound bath, these study participants tended to rank their pain higher than they did afterward. More research is needed to confirm whether this trend in pain reduction would reach clinical significance, though.
In the 2020 review, physical symptoms such as blood pressure and heart rate also saw improvement. The review concluded, however, that more research is needed to definitively say sound bath has these effects on most people. A sound bath is a meditative practice that’s safe for most people to try.
There isn’t a lot of evidence to suggest that negative side effects are a possibility of this practice.
A sound bath can be easier than other meditative practices because it doesn’t require a lot of discipline or patience to learn how to do it — all you have to do is listen.
Ways You Can Practice Sound Healing
Invest in a Himalayan or Crystal Singing Bowl Instructions: Set an intention before you begin playing it. What do you wish to release? What do you wish to call in? For example: “I release fear and anxiety. I call in courage.” Connect with the sound. Observe where you feel the vibration in your body. Neutrally witness what sensations and emotions the vibrations create. Lean into the sound, feel yourself merge with it, until you become one. Breathe deeply and fully. After you finish playing, observe any changes in your mind, body and soul.
Bowls at Cape Cod Healing Transformations
The easiest and most natural form of sound meditation: Simply meditating in nature Put away your phone. Take off your socks and shoes. Sit cross-legged on the ground in comfortable position. Draw the shoulders back ever so slightly, and allow them to fall away from the ears. Allow your palms to lie gently atop each knee, facing up towards the sky. Close your eyes. Feel the root of your spine connect with the earth beneath you. Scan from your head to your toes, observing any tension present in the body. Be a neutral observer without labels or judgement. Tune into the sounds of nature around you, observe how they impact your inner state. Being in nature, tuning into the sounds, connecting with the earth realigns us and creates equilibrium in seconds. It re-entrains our brainwaves to a slower, more harmonic and meditative frequency of 432 Hz—the frequency of nature. Put on headphones and listen to binaural beats or solfeggio frequencies, particularly 432 Hz or 528 Hz Sit cross-legged or lie down. Breathe deeply and slowly. Relax your body from head to toe, allowing it to melt into the surface beneath you. Feel your body connecting with the surface you are laying on. Inhale to the crown, exhale to the soles of the feet. Shift your awareness to the sounds you hear. Begin to observe the sound as a vibratory sensation. Notice where in the body you feel it. Become aware of how you interact with the soundscape in a vibratory way. Lean into it. Merge with the sound until you become one with it. Surrender to the sound, allowing it to take you on a journey within.
Find an energy healer to work with!
If you're on Cape Cod, I can recommend Kristine Callahan owner of Cape Cod Healing Transformations, Certified Professional Coach, Reiki Master & Certified Sound Therapy Practitioner. She helps people get through life's road blocks so they can live more balanced fulfilling lives.
Nothing can replicate the experience of working with someone who has the education and skills to fine tune the sounds just for you. Kristine used her singing bowls and drum with me and boy could I feel the vibrations all over my body! It's such a cool thing to feel, if you never have before you have to try it!!
Kristine at Cape Cod Healing Transformations in Yarmouth off historic 6A.
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