The Science and Alchemy of Sound Healing
Sound is a powerful tool for healing. It has been for years. Like listening to the rain fall on a window, the sound of crashing waves, or the beats of your favourite song. Sound can make you feel calm, elevate your energy, or change your mood. When we hear these sounds, our mind and body react in conscious and unconscious ways.
Recently, I’ve been exploring sound healing meditations. It’s an immersive experience that brings me a deep sense of relaxation. I found myself asking, what makes the soft sound from the crystal bowls so deeply relaxing and how does it promote any sort of healing? Today I’ll aim to answer those questions.
The Science of Sound Waves
Sound affects us on more levels than our hearing. It can trigger memories, give us an emotional response, and stimulate our nervous system. While plants can’t hear like we can, studies have shown that they still react to sound. Some research suggests that plants can even grow quicker to different types of music. This is because of the impact sound has on a cellular level.
Sound travels like waves in the ocean (hence why they are called sound waves), they create ripples of vibrations that create the noise we hear. If you put a glass of water on top of a speaker, you can see the water moving with the vibrations of sound. That’s because the sound waves permeate air, water, and the tissues in our body.
Frequency on a Cellular Level
Different sound waves travel at varying frequencies, influencing the speed and intensity of their vibrations.
If we look at quantum physics, we recognize that all matter, including our cells, vibrates at their own distinct energetic frequencies. Some research suggests that even different cells in our body vibrate to their own different frequencies. Everything around us, impacts these natural frequencies, such as our activities, the food we eat, and the sounds we hear.
Sound healing aims to move our natural frequencies to an optimal vibration by applying two main concepts: resonance and entrainment.
Resonance and Entrainment
All objects have their own natural vibrational frequency, this is their resonance frequency. If you have two objects with the same resonance frequency, and make one vibrate at a higher frequency, the other will start to vibrate at a higher frequency.
For example, if you have two guitars side by side and pluck the string on one guitar, the string on the other guitar will also vibrate and make a sound - this is resonance.
Entrainment is when you synchronize one vibrational energy to a higher or lower vibrational energy of another. If you had two swinging pendulums both swinging at different rates, they will both eventually sync up and swing at the same rate.
We’ve all heard the saying ‘raise your vibrations’. Sound healing suggests that we can do just that through resonance and entrainment. The sound vibrations are used to change the cellular vibrations in the body.
Research has shown that listening to music at a certain frequency has the ability to lower our heart rate. Other studies show that different types of sound can alter our brain waves. While many studies support this, there is still more research needed to fully understand the science behind it.
Sound for Healing
Sound healing suggests that our vibrational frequency impacts our mental and physical well-being.
After a Tibetan singing bowl meditation session, participants felt significantly less tension, anger, fatigue, and low moods. This is because the brain waves are moving from beta waves (a state of high alertness and stress) to alpha and theta waves (calmer more relaxed states of mind).
Pairing sound healing with other modalities like meditation can have even more profound impacts. A study found that when Tibetan singing bowls were paired with visualization meditations and deep breathing, they could support emotional and psychological healing.
Not only can sound heal us on an emotional level, but it also can heal physical ailments. Forms of sound healing are being used to treat diseases in the body. One example is Vibroacoustic Therapy which uses sound vibrations to reduce the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
Sound has the power to help improve our overall health through sound vibrations but more research is needed to understand its full potential on a scientific level.
Rooted in Ancient Practices
Sound healing is nothing new. It’s been around for many years and has been used in different ways by different cultures.
Australian aboriginals have used the didgeridoo as a sound healing instrument for around 60,000 years. Ancient Egyptians used instruments and singing in ceremonies to promote healing. Chinese Traditional Medicine (TCM) uses the vibrational sounds of the voice to heal different parts of the body.
There are so many more examples of how sound healing was used before it reached modern-day scientific exploration in the late 19th century.
What makes sound healing so effective is the use of specific frequencies. It’s not just about using any sound for sound healing, it’s about being intentional with the sound frequencies used.
The ancient framework of the Solfeggio Scale suggests that different frequencies can be aligned to different parts of the body and different emotions. As an example, this scale of frequency is used when we look at crystal singing bowls, each bowl matching a certain frequency. We can also see this scale in other practices like Buddhist mantras, with each syllable in the mantra capturing a different frequency.
While science has yet to explore this in much detail, ancient sound healing uses specific frequencies to bring us into alignment with our optimal frequencies. It’s about promoting balance and harmony through sound.
Embracing Sound Healing
Sound healing continues to evolve. While its historical roots are deep, its exploration in modern science is still relatively recent. It works because the vibrational sound frequencies interact with the energetic frequencies of our body. This can help us improve our physical and mental well-being.
Here’s an invitation to explore sound healing for yourself. See what impact it can have on your well-being. Remember that everyone is different and what works for someone else might not work for you. There are many different sound healing forms to try, it’s all about embracing it with open curiosity.
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