Music therapy, vibrational and sound healing may all sound like buzz words but the reality is these transformative tools are tried and true

Sound healing therapy stimulates sonic senses to support physical, emotional, and mental health. Chances are you have already practiced some form of sound healing. If you’ve ever sang along in the shower, listened to music to alter your mood, or have been soothed by the sounds of a storm then you have experienced the subconscious benefits of sound healing.

Heal frequencies have resounded across cultures for centuries. The history and health benefits of vibrational therapy are traced to ancient aborigines and the deep contemplative practice on the continent of Africa. Tribal communities use drumming, humming and dance as vibrational healing tools. Across the Atlantic, indigenous cultures utilized ancient acoustic and percussion instruments in various ceremonies and rituals. Eastern wellness traditions and medicine therapies in China and Japan all incorporate sound frequencies to sharpen focus and attention, connect to the body and breath, and alter consciousness. Music was used as medicine to cure mental disorders in ancient Greece, and in the modern western world, scientists have worked to validate the efficacy of healing with sound.

Recent research links music to lowering stress levels, boosting the immune system, and improving a wide variety of health outcomes. Sound therapy techniques have been time-tested and proven to increase calmness and physical relaxation. The practice promotes emotional balance and enhances practitioners' overall health and well-being. Music therapy can be a simple solution to stress during demanding lives. There is no "one size fits all" approach to vibrational therapy or a right or wrong way to do it. The best practice is the one that fits your lifestyle so that you can be consistent and develop healthier habits over time.

This article will explore sensory therapy in the forms of sight and sound, how vibrational frequencies impact human brains and bodies, the health and wellness benefits of color therapy and sound healing, and what to expect in a session with an experienced practitioner.

Sensory Therapy | Sound

Sensory therapy is using one or more of the five senses (touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste) to improve a person’s emotional, mental or physical health. For the purpose of this entry the following terms will be used interchangeable to explore auditory therapies: sound, music, and audible frequencies. All three are things we hear that impact our mood, mental, and physical health. Music and sound are universal which is why there is centuries old evidence across cultures of music being used to promote physical and psychological health and well-being.  

There are many subtle forms of sound healing that people naturally incorporate into their everyday lives. Some examples would be:

• Listening to Music

• Singing along

• Dancing

• Meditating

• Playing an instrument

• Listening to ambient white noise

All of these forms of can evoke emotions ranging from ease, exhilaration, energizing and empowering. Emotions are subjective; people often share anecdotal evidence that music helps to regulate moods ranging from sadness to joy, fear to comfort, relaxation, peacefulness, or tranquility.

Science also supports the impact of sound healing on the human brain and body. Given the Universe of a brain, neuroscience research is still in the infancy stages, but early studies have shown that sounds stimulate suppression and production of certain chemicals in the brain and body. Sounds illicit a biochemical response in our bodies. For example, listening to exhilarating uplifting music increase the flow of feel-good hormones dopamine and neurotransmitters like serotonin and suppress the stress hormone cortisol. While lower vibrational frequency music lowers cortisol levels creating a more calming and relaxing listener experience.

Cortisol is commonly referred to as our stress hormone and is also regulated by our circadian rhythm. Circadian rhythm naturally releases cortisol at different times throughout the day. It kicks in at about 4 am to help wake us up in the morning; then peaks early afternoon. Many people feel a dull drag in their energy levels when their cortisol starts to slump later in the afternoon.

Cortisol and adrenaline also kick in to help us to stay on high alert and get ready for physical activity such as running or fighting. When we feel stressed in a healthy way, we are prepared for sporting events and getting out of dangerous situations or emergencies. In these situations, stress is a vital survival process but when we stay in stressed state for long periods of time, it takes a tremendous toll on our minds and our bodies. When our sympathetic “flight, flight or freeze” nervous system is constantly activated because we don’t feel safe, have unprocessed trauma, or are worried excessively, all these lead to chronic stress. Chronically stressed people frequently suffer from high blood pressure, heart disease, stomach, and digestive problems, ulcers, immune disorders, diabetes, insomnia, depression.

Evidence-based sound science supports the fact that we can rewire our neurological make-up with music to resist stress and enhance an easeful existence. Lifestyle choices that support stress reduction are conducive to restoring balance in the body and protecting against disease. Music therapy practices activate our built-in relaxation response which lowers cortisol levels and leads to lower heart rate, blood pressure, and even more restful sleep. “Relaxing music” is subjective, but slow tempo, low pitch instrumentals have been proven to reduce stress and anxiety. Ambient music is used during medical procedures like surgery and dental office visits to sooth patients, reduce sedation, modulate moods, and muscle tension. This usage suggests that sound healing supports pain management and application in psychotherapy related practices.

There is a tactile experience to sound therapy too. Euphoria is not just the 2nd most popular show in the history of HBO, it’s also a feeling that music can help produce. People have reported feeling spinal chills and thrills stimulated by sounds and the most moving music simultaneous evokes two or more emotions. This phenomenon involves the cellular stimulation by sound frequencies. Albert Einstein’s iconic equation E = mc2 proves that energy and mass are the same which means that all things are made of energy.  Organic matter like humans, animals, plants and crystals are all created from cellular vibrations. These energic fields and frequencies are the foundation of vibrational therapy and music medicine which can be experienced just by listening to specific sounds or tuning into certain frequencies.

Sensory Therapy | Sight and Color Therapy

You might be wondering how now we are shifting from sound to sight. Visualization plays a role in sound therapy…

Ancient observation chromotherapy is a centuries-old concept. The history of color medicine is as old as that of any other medicine. Phototherapy (light therapy) was practiced in ancient Egypt, Greece, China, and India. The Egyptians utilized sunlight as well as color for healing (4), and color has been investigated as medicine since 2,000 BC (5). People of that era were certainly unaware of the scientific facts of colors as medicine known today, but they had faith in healing with colors. They used primary colors (i.e., red, blue, and yellow) for healing as they were unaware of the mixing up of two colors.

Be intentional about color choices. When picking colors for anything, from the color of the walls in your room to the color of clothes you wear, choose colors that you find stimulating, uplifting or that elicit positive emotions.

Named after Helen L. Bonny, PhD, the Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music (GIM) classical music and imagery helps explore personal growth, consciousness, and transformation. A 2017 study showed promising evidence that a series of GIM sessions could improve psychological and physiological health in adults with medical and mental health needs.

Hopefully you arrive at a point in your inner journey, when you realize you are part of the hologram of life, surrounded by an aura or energy field that radiates distinct color and vibrations. When measured with proper scientific methods, and interpreted by a trained interpreter, the measured aura of your fingertips can give relative clues and insights into your soul and reflects your goodness, wellness, mental stability, maturity, emotional/inner turmoil, or peaceful fulfilment. More of each of these qualities, peace, wellness, stability, maturity, and fulfilment may become your ever-present precious possession by the application of color’s power in your daily living (23).

Same as sound, each color we can see has its wavelength and unique frequency. Each unique frequency has a different effect on people and is used for different purposes. Warm colors are typically used for stimulating effects, while cool colors are used for calming effects. Sound and color frequencies coincide and go hand in hand in various ranges.

• Red: Red is used to energize or invigorate a person who might be feeling tired or down. However, red may also trigger people who might already be tense, which is why it’s used carefully in color therapy.

• Blue: Chroma therapists use blue to treat depression and pain. Darker shades of blue are also thought to have sedative properties and may be helpful for people who experience insomnia or other sleeping disorders. 

• Green: Green is the color of nature, and according to Chroma therapists, it can help relieve stress and relax a person. 

• Yellow: Yellow can be used to improve your mood and make you happy and optimistic. 

• Orange: Orange, much like yellow, can be used to elicit happy emotions from people. The bright warm color is also thought to be able to stimulate appetite and mental activity. 

In addition to this brief overview, we also invite you to view a more extensive entry of ours on how red, yellow and orange colors influence emotions and physical aspects of the body.

Benefits of sound vibration therapy

As we had stated earlier, music and sound therapy can reduce stress and promote relaxation. Some studies revealed and showed them to be more effective than prescription drugs in reducing anxiety levels before surgery. A study published in 2017 found that a 30-minute music therapy session combined with traditional care after spinal surgery reduced pain. 

Music therapy is administered by a credentialed provider who assesses the individual’s needs. Treatment involves creating, listening, singing, or moving to music. It’s used for physical rehab, pain management, and brain injuries.

 Some of the surmised benefits of music therapy include:

•  lowers stress/anti-aging/improves immune function

• decreases mood swings

• lowers blood pressure

• lowers cholesterol levels

• teaches pain management

• lowers risk for coronary artery disease and stroke

• improves sleep

Experimental evidence across a range of physiological markers

One proposed mechanism for the ability of music to regulate stress, arousal, and emotions is that it initiates reflexive brainstem responses [71]. Music modulates brainstem mediated measures, including heart rate, pulse, blood pressure, body temperature, skin conductance, and muscle tension [72]. Stimulating music produces increases in cardiovascular measures, whereas relaxing music produces decreases [73], patterns observed even in infants [74]. These effects are largely mediated by tempo: slow music and musical pauses are associated with a decrease in heart rate, respiration and blood pressure, and faster music with increases in these parameters (e.g., [75]).

Stress and aging have detrimental effects on both immune system responses, leading to a weakening of defenses against new pathogens and increases in systemic inflammation. Compared to the vast literature devoted to stress and aging, relatively little attention has been focused on psychosocial and lifestyle factors that may improve immune system functioning [90]. Positive emotions, such as optimism [91], and stimuli eliciting those emotions, such as humor and laughter [92,93], may mitigate the negative effects of age and stress. Given that Review Trends in Cognitive Sciences April 2013, Vol. 17, No. 4 186 music enhances mood and reduces stress, it stands to reason that it may also improve immune function [51]. 

Sound frequencies support healing

 Music therapy is used to treat symptoms of a number of conditions, including:

• anxiety disorders

• depression

• post-traumatic stress disorder

• dementia

• autism spectrum disorder and learning difficulties

• behavioral and psychiatric disorders

• cancer

One study examined the immediate effects of neurologic music therapy (NMT) on cognitive functioning and emotional adjustment with brain-injured persons. Four treatment sessions were held, during which participants were given a pre-test, participated in 30 min of NMT that focused on one aspect of rehabilitation (attention, memory, executive function, or emotional adjustment), which was followed by post-testing. Control participants engaged in a pre-test, 30 min of rest, and then a post-test. Treatment participants showed improvement in executive function and overall emotional adjustment, and lessening of depression, sensation seeking, and anxiety. Control participants improved in emotional adjustment and lessening of hostility, but showed decreases in measures of memory, positive affect, and sensation seeking.

According to G. C. Peyton, a Bio-energetic and Cymatic Medicine researcher at  www.sensesandsciences.com, the scientist Guy Manners discovered more than six hundred different healing frequencies, with each of them being related to a different part of the body, a specific tissue, a specific organ, a specific gland, a particular pathology, a specific emotional or psychic status.

To explain in details the sound therapy’s principle of operation (also called cymatic therapy, cymatherapy or bio-resonance), Manners’ words could be helpful to understanding: “Generally, when you think about a sound you think about something has to be listened to. In the cymatic therapy, it is not exactly like this: it is literally to transmute and translocate precise sonorous frequencies in the tissues and in the structures of the human body. Every part and every organ of the body produces a harmony, a sound; and this sound is very small and tiny, but it is there.”

We invite you read a previous entry related to how sound has been successfully employed in cancer treatments, in particular by the late Dr. Mitchell Gaynor.

And speaking of healing frequencies and the body, the topical application of certain instruments such as singing bowls and tuning forks is used by vibrational therapy practitioners in their everyday practice. A therapeutic tuning fork tuned to 128 Hz serves, for example, to heal contractures, muscle aches or bone aches. This frequency is especially helpful to heal local pains and is used in the contracture or painful areas.

The therapeutic tuning fork at 136.1 Hz is used, instead, to equilibrate the internal organs, stimulating the reflected points and their correspondents on the meridians, mapped by the Chinese traditional medicine. The therapeutic tuning fork is used on the points of acupuncture, in the shiatsu therapy, reflexology, digital pressure and auriculo-therapy [30].

In 1977, the French born Fabien Maman became an acupuncture doctor, linking the acupuncture with the music. He created the famous system which uses the tuning fork instead of needles in acupuncture points [24]. Attracted in the first place by the martial art of Aikido, in 1975, Maman had the possibility to study with the teacher Nakazano in Paris. While he was studying with the Japanese teacher, Maman began to learn his teacher’s acupuncture methodology, based on the classic style Nan Jin. Linking his passion for music together with the classic knowledge of acupuncture and the meridian equilibrium art, Fabien Maman conceived a methodology to treat acupuncture channel disequilibrium with different tuning fork and bells placed on the person.

"The vibrations work by 'massaging' every cell in the body," says Hofmann, who notes that it's about more than just the meditative, relaxing effects of sound. "In contrast to a traditional massage, which manipulates the surface tissue of the body, this treatment works all the way through your skin, muscle, tissue, and organs."

Other one-on-one vibrational therapy services use singing bowls placed on the body to create a combination of tones and vibrations that produce a state of tranquility and act as a massage for the nervous system, similar as described above.

What are some types of vibrational therapy methods?

Sound healing, and the modern term sound bath or sound bathing, has ancient roots in cultures all over the world, including Australian aboriginal tribes who used the didgeridoo as a sound healing instrument for over 40,000 years. The Chinese used the gong for all sorts of ceremonial and celebratory purposes with the oldest written record of the gong dating back ca. 4,000 years. The ancient Tibetan or Himalayan cultures used singing bowls, cymbals, bells, drums and other instruments for a variety of spiritual ceremonies and practices.

African healing circles for instance centered around the drum or several drums to sing, dance and chant and reach states of altered consciousness. The ancient Egyptian and Greek cultures built special sound chambers and used those for the higher priests, pharaohs, and members of the social elite to connect with a higher consciousness.

Music and rhythmic sounds play an important role in creating social bonds. An emerging body of evidence indicates that social factors play an important role in human health outcomes [109]. Synchronized activities, such as music, dance, and marching, have long been known to foster feelings of social connection, specifically interpersonal trust, and bonding [9,110,111] (see also [112], for a review of dance as therapy for Parkinson’s patients). Many human and animal activities are rhythmic, including walking, talking, clapping our hands, dancing, sexual activity, and rocking a baby. When rhythmic activities are performed by groups of people, they tend to become synchronized, reflecting social coordination.

It has been our experience that Sound baths and sound therapy are not about one particular sound or set of sounds, but about the practitioner's intention as well as fostering and cultivating intention and receptiveness in the listener.

What does a typical sound therapy session look like?

Depending on the practitioner and the desired goal or outcome, sessions vary widely. Sound baths use instruments like singing bowls or gongs to initiate "a deeply immersive, full-body listening experience." Essentially all types of sound therapy use different aspects of sound to improve the listener’s emotional and physical well-being.

There's music therapy, which uses therapist-guided sounds to enhance memory and alleviate stress. Binaural beats, yet another form, involves playing two separate tones in each ear, which are perceived as a single, almost euphoric tone by the brain.

Other forms of sound therapy work much in the same way, because skillfully applied sound eases, energizes, and empowers listeners.

Many sound therapy sessions begin with simple breathing exercises, which help slow the mind and shift focus to hearing. For sessions like sound baths and vibrational therapy, participants sit or lie down in a comfortable position, sometimes with an eye mask or covered by a blanket. Sometimes a guided meditation on a specific topic or suggestion is applied. One or more sound practitioners play different instruments such as gongs, singing bowls, flutes, tuning forks, rattles, drums, the didgeridoo and others in a skillful fashion, and unique to their individual style.

Other experiences are more active and may include yoga or tai chi. In one-on-one sessions, sound therapists are more likely to adjust their treatment through feedback, both verbal and nonverbal, focusing the sound on areas of the body that need more help relaxing. Each session can last anywhere from 20 minutes to two hours, or even longer.

Within the context of vibrational therapy, there is a broad variety of how sound therapy, and sound bathing can be applied:  

• Gong baths – one or several larger sized gongs are played with a variety of different mallets in a rhythmic fashion. Depending on the type and size of gongs, a broad range of sound frequencies is produced which essentially “transports” the participants to “otherworldly” realms and provides a deep journey into the unconscious as well as higher consciousness.  

• The same approach can also be taken with sets of Himalayan singing bowls or crystal singing bowls, or a combination thereof or in conjunction with some of the afore mentioned instruments. These are then being played with or without voice accompaniment like singing or chanting.

• In group drumming circles recreational music-making has been proposed as a cost-effective means of improving mood and reducing stress among the elderly [94], healthcare professionals [95,96], and corporate employees [97]. Group drumming is used because it allows for creative self-expression without the need for musical expertise [98]. Participants perform rhythmic sequences of increasing complexity and gradually incorporate directed imagery into their drumming. The sessions involve social interaction among group members, instructor-participant interaction, and humor – any one of which is likely to affect immune responses in participants.

• The method of binaural beats stimulates the brain into a specific state using pulsing sound to encourage your brain waves to align to the frequency of the beat and the premise of binaural beats is that the brain synchronizes its brainwave frequency to the difference in hertz between tones played in each ear, which, depending on the frequency, can lead one to states of deep relaxation associated with beta waves or meditative trance-like theta waves. The method is supposed to help induce enhanced focus, entranced state, relaxation, and sleep. Though more research is needed, there’s some evidence that audible brainwave entrainment reduces anxiety, pain, and symptoms of premenstrual syndrome, as well as improves behavioral problems in children.

• ASMR - Autonomous sensory meridian response (also known as ASMR), is increasing in popularity as a multi-sensory stimulating experience. In an ASMR session, the practitioner makes muted sounds with their mouths, fingers, and other instruments. These gentle whispering, tapping, scratching sounds produce an tingling tactile sensation from the listener’s scalp, neck and upper back. People report feeling more relaxed, calm, soothed after one of these sleep-inducing sessions.

• A very basic and fundamental form of sound therapy can be by just listening to chimes (wind chimes in gardens) as well as church-bells. Or by covering your ears and humming or ‘Oming’ while observing the resonance in your skull cavities and throughout your entire body.

Conclusion

How any of the above works and affects the participant(s) depends on the method, the skill level, as well as INTENTION (by the practitioner as well as listener) being used. Not to mention the multitude of influential aspects due to the alignment of the stars and geomagnetic frequencies…

The main goal however is to facilitate a deeply relaxing, therapeutic, healing, inspiring and invigorating experience at the same time, which as you have seen has been in use over thousands of years throughout human history. All of the above methods are energetic practices that resonate mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally

And if you have not had the chance to experience a sound bath, look one up under ‘sound bath near me’ and you are sure to connect with several options due to their growth in popularity. Or if you wish, check out our schedule. Happy sound bathing ;)

Valuable research for this entry has been contributed by Jewell Singletary - All rights reserved

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