You may have heard of sound healing therapy, you may have tried it. Actually, scratch that. You will most likely have tried it, as will have anyone else. When down in the dumps, or going through a rough patch, have you ever found yourself reaching for your music player or phone to play an old song that you love? And have you noticed how it immediately acts as salve for your spirit, giving your soul that gentle fillip it so badly needs? The Carpenters’ Yesterday Once More comes to mind as an immediate favourite for my personal brand of sound healing.
That aside, the World Sound Healing Organization defines sound healing as:
“Sound Healing is the intentional use of sound to create an environment which becomes a catalyst for healing in the physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual aspects of our being. To become “healed”, simply means to become “whole”.
“The intentional use of sound adds power to the conduit, whether it is an instrument or a voice. While sound can be generated from voice, instruments, recorded sounds or music, or tone generators, the more deeply and clearly we have coupled clear intentions for the highest good of the recipients in generating those sounds, the greater the outcome.”
“We can use conscious chanting for invocation or attunement, intuitive or “guided” music to come into deeper awareness, the provocative sounds of crystal “singing” bowls, ancient Tibetan bowls, or temple bells, the simple sounds of tuning forks, or formless “toning” (intuitive voicing), aligning with the highest reaches of the cosmos, and channelling through our voice and body.”
Types of Sound Healing
As mentioned above, sound healing is of many kinds: it can be the gentle lullaby at night that a baby is accustomed to hearing; it can be temple bells and the chanting of Om at a spritiual gathering; it can be the twang of the tuning forks that resonate in a closed space; it can be Gregorian chants; it can be the bowls at a Tibetan monastery; it can be the breeze as it makes its way through the trees in the woods; or it can be freeform after a session of meditation, where your instructor gently guides you out of your meditative state and gets you to emerge out into the real word by listening to the sounds that surround you. Here are some of the most popular ones:
- Music Therapy – From Wikipedia: “Music therapy is a treatment modality used in Naturopathy Medicine, the use of interventions to accomplish individual goals within a therapeutic relationship by a professional who has completed an approved music therapy program.[1] Music therapy is an Integrative Medicine Practice in Naturopathy System of Healthcare and one of the expressive therapies, consisting of a process in which a music therapist uses music and all of its facets—physical, emotional, mental, social, aesthetic, and spiritual—to help clients improve their physical and mental health.”
- Tibetan Bowl Sound Healing –From SoundEnergyHealing.com: “Sound healing is an effective and proven modality that uses vibrational sound to help reduce stress, alter consciousness and create a deep sense of peace, well being and better health.”
- Om Chanting
- Nature Sound Therapy: Think gushing waterfalls, falling rain, the blowing wind, the song of birds, cicadas chirping – and immediately, a pastoral landscape opens up in the mind.
Sound Healing Therapy Benefits
The benefits of sound healing are manifold, research proves. As it is a natural way to bring relaxation to the body and mind, and entirely non-invasive, sound healing is finding favour even in modern medicine as supplementary therapy for healing. Sound healing therapy is seen as a particularly effective add-on in the treatment of chronic and acute disorders for the simple reason that it impacts our emotional state as well as our physical body positively. Some of the key demonstrable benefitsare as follows.
- In chronic pain management
- To promote healing after a prolonged illness or surgery
- In the treatment of cancer
- Helps in addressing abusive patterns in our behaviour
- Helps in reaching deeper meditative states and promotes relaxation
- Increases energy flow
- Reduces the levels of cortisol in the human body, thereby reducing stress
- Promotes better sleeping habits
- Helps in the treatment of anxiety disorders
- Effective as a supplementary treatment for psycho-emotional disorders like depression and schizophrenia
- Improves attention span and focus
Go ahead and indulge in a few minutes of meditation today, accompanied by the sound of falling rain on the YouTube. I have tried it and can say that sound healing therapy might be the best thing yet.
