What is Sound Therapy?

Experience the Ancient Power of Sound Therapy for Deep Healing and Wellness

Sound therapy is more than a modern trend—it’s an ancient practice dating back thousands of years. From chanting to the use of singing bowls, many cultures have harnessed the transformative power of sound, voice, and vibration to promote holistic health and wellness.

Today, sonic instruments such as singing bowls, gongs, chimes, tuning forks, and especially the human voice create a profoundly immersive, full-body listening experience. This therapeutic sound quickly calms the mind, guiding brain waves into a deep, restorative state that can be difficult to achieve in our daily lives. By the use of specific frequencies and vibrations, sound therapy helps reset the nervous system, offering lasting stress relief and building resilience for whatever day to day challenges we face.

See article on Mystic Mag The Transformative Power of Voice and Sound Therapy

3 Common Forms of Sound Therapy

• Music Therapy, which uses therapist-guided sounds to enhance memory and alleviate stress 

• Tuning Fork Therapy, which helps your body respond to vibration by aligning and balancing energy flow

• Binaural beats, which involve playing two separate tones in each ear, which are perceived as a single tone by the brain. 

All forms of sound therapy work much in the same way - sound relaxes, energizes, and restores us.

Sound therapy can be experienced in-person or virtually, either in an individual or group setting. Sound therapy sessions can vary widely depending on the practitioner and the goal.

Every day we react to sound frequencies and vibrations at some level. Some can be jarring and damaging to our systems and incongruous with our natural state of being. These non-harmonious effects do not stop with the cessation of these disturbances. They can continue to lower our resonant vibration, which can cause low-level irritation and anxiety. 

When our resonant frequency is low, we can get sick. Therapeutic sound frequencies can, through the principle of resonance, make our cells vibrate again in their original state and create heart/brain coherence. Resonance and entrainment, the cornerstones of sound therapy, occur naturally between the heart and brain, and help balance the subtle natural frequencies of your body.

It is believed that our thoughts and feelings also have an energetic signature and can be influenced by higher frequencies. Emotions we consider uncomfortable, like anger or sadness, vibrate at relatively low levels. Elevated emotions, like love and joy, vibrate at higher levels. Emotions resonate with the vibrational frequency that they generate. The higher the frequency, the higher the energy generated (life force). The lower the frequency, the lesser the life force energy.

There are five basic types of brain waves that range from very slow to very fast. When we are in a state of relaxation, deep meditation, hypnosis, or dream state, brain frequency is reduced to alpha and theta brain waves.

Your brain produces alpha waves when you’re not focusing too hard and feeling relatively calm and relaxed. These waves measure between 8 and 12 Hz.

When you’re sleeping lightly or when you’re extremely relaxed, as in a sound therapy session, your brain may produce theta waves, measured between 4 and 8 Hz. When in theta, you may experience lucid dreaming, the release of repressed emotions, subconscious memories, or visions. 

These lower brain wave patterns induce feelings of calm, focus, increased creativity, and enhance your ability to absorb new information. Research has found that they may also be beneficial for reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression.

The ancient art of sound healing has been around for over 5,000 years. Sound and music have been used in many cultures around the world for ceremonies, prayer, transformation, celebrations, and healing. In Australia, the Aboriginals played the didgeridoo; the Egyptians chanted with the sacred vowels, and Buddhists have long used Tibetan singing bowls for meditation. 

Singing bowls originated in Mesopotamia and made their way to the regions of Tibet, Nepal, and India, which all have singing bowls in their history and culture dating back some 2,000 years. Most of the world’s metal singing bowls still originate from these areas today.

For the past 30 years, quartz crystal bowls have been used as crucibles in the semiconductor industry to grow microchips due to the electrical properties of quartz.  By accident, it was discovered that the quartz crucibles were extremely resonant and could make beautiful tones.

You’re essentially a symphony of frequencies. Every organ, bone, and cell in your body has its own resonant frequency. Sound therapy uses audible vibrations to shift those subtle frequencies to restore your nervous system and balance the resonance of your biofield, which is the energy field surrounding your body. 

The benefit of sound healing therapy are many and may include:

• Increased blood circulation

• Lowering blood pressure and heart rate

• Facilitating the release of endorphins, melatonin, and nitric oxide

• Synchronizing the brain hemispheres, promoting increased cognition, focus, and creativity

• Triggering the relaxation response of the parasympathetic nervous system

• Improves mental clarity, focus, and quiets mind chatter

• Reducing stress, anger, depression, and fatigue

• Increasing vagal tone for emotional resiliency

• Promoting a resting brain state where deep restoration and cellular repair takes place

These benefits make sound therapy very effective in helping to ease the symptoms associated with anxiety, insomnia, depression, and PTSD, among others.

It’s no secret that stress and anxiety can flood your body with cortisol and adrenaline, which can compromise your immune system.  When we use sound healing therapy, the body returns to a place of homeostasis, which facilitates your body’s ability to heal itself. 

As beautiful as they are, you don’t have to have a room full of singing bowls to experience the therapeutic effects of sound. If it calls to you to invite a singing bowl into your home, 1 or 2 bowls, played with intention, can offer you a beautiful, meditative experience. Notable sound therapist, Jonathan Goldman created a formula:

Frequency + Intent = Healing - whether with 1 or 50 bowls!

As a former voice teacher and performer, my go-to instrument was my voice for years before I became a sound therapist. Your voice is a very powerful tool for healing and empowerment. It vibrates you from the inside with frequencies that are custom-made just for you! 

A woman’s average voice frequency starts at 165 Hz. Viruses, pathogens, and disease cannot thrive above 58 Hz. So just by making sound with intention - humming, singing, toning, or just making organic sounds - you can keep your resonant vibration high enough to support your immune system. 

Learn more about the potential of your voice for healing and empowerment with my online program:

Healing with Your Wise Magical Voice

Who can benefit from sound therapy? It's been found that sound and music can be effective for a range of mental, emotional, and even physical ailments and has been a valuable treatment for several conditions such as:

• Anxiety and stress 

• PTSD

• Autism spectrum disorders

• People with learning difficulties

• Sleep disorders

• Aches and pains

• Fibromyalgia

Also, sound therapy can induce a dreamlike, altered state, very similar to a deep trance or meditation. In this state, if the client wishes, they may gain a deeper awareness of their inner landscape, a sense of presence, and the self-perceptions that are not serving their highest good. 

While sound healing holds promise as a therapeutic modality, certain individuals may be better served by exploring alternative approaches to wellness. Those who fall into the following categories should exercise caution or avoid sound healing altogether:

• Individuals with severe mental health disorders or psychological vulnerabilities.

• Individuals with sensory sensitivities or auditory disorders.

• Individuals with a history of seizure disorders or epilepsy.

• Pregnant individuals, particularly during the first trimester, due to potential risks to fetal development.

Tibetan (Himalayan) Singing Bowls: Originally used by Tibetan monks for spiritual ceremonies, these metal bowls are believed to propel the mind into a deeper meditative state, and can be placed on or nearby your body. These bowls are designed to produce an ambient sound which is heard rather than felt. 

Zen Singing Bowls: These bowls are therapeutically designed to vibrate down into your body, producing an effect like an inner vibrational massage. Their vibrations are both felt and heard. These are mostly used in the 1:1 in-person sessions.

Crystal Singing Bowls: Usually made of pure silica quartz crystal, these bowls produce a sine wave, which envelops the listener in very pure tones. They are typically used in group sound baths. Different sizes project different frequencies, which are said to correspond to the seven chakras. 

Gongs: Large brass or bronze instruments with a big sound. Clients have said they actually feel the sound waves reverberating through their bodies, which can help clear mental chatter and alleviate pain.

Drums: Used for thousands of years, the rhythm helps focus attention and triggers the relaxation response. 

Chimes: These celestial instruments are used as a complement to the above instruments. 

Tuning Forks: Invented as a way to tune instruments, tuning forks come in different sizes with different pitches. They can be used around and on the body to unblock stagnant energy.

Rainsticks: These percussion instruments are traditionally made from hollowed-out cactus branches filled with small pebbles or beans. When shaken, they simulate the therapeutic sound of falling rain.

More and more compelling research supports sound therapy for the relief of both physical and psychological pain. 

Neuroscientists have found that the more we can access a resting brain state, the more it can help us achieve heart-brain coherence. This is an optimal state associated with increased cognition, emotional stability, and resilience. I always tell my clients that sound therapy is like a nervous system reset — like bringing your body/mind back to its factory settings!

A recent study found that singing bowl therapy reduced stress, anger, depression, and fatigue. Other studies have shown that sound therapy helps people with the pain of arthritis, muscle strain, and postoperative pain.  

Another research published in the Journal of Evidence-Based Integrative Medicine discovered that a session, one hour long, of sound meditation (in which singing bowls were used 95% of the time), helped people reduce not only their stress or tension.

One study by researchers from the University of California found that meditation aided by Tibetan bowls noticeably decreased stress and anger—especially among people who were new to this kind of practice. 

Another study, focusing on patients with fibromyalgia, noted that low-frequency sound stimulation significantly increased the number of times participants could both sit and stand without pain.

Even though science has not thoroughly studied the benefits of sound therapy, there is a wealth of experiential evidence that indicates definitive positive physical, mental, and emotional effects on the human body.