Listen to “What is Sound Healing?“
“If you want to find the secrets of the Universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”
– Nikola Tesla –
Our bodies contain ‘energy frequencies’, which can be re-tuned using sonic frequencies when they go off key. Fundamentally, music is nothing more than organised sound, and sound therapy aims to deconstruct music into pure sound, harnessing the powerful effects sound has on our emotions.
Sound has been used as a healing or calming tool for thousands of years. The use of sound as a form of healing dates back to prehistoric times when shaman chanted and drummed to heal people.
Most ancient cultures used the incredible power of sound to heal.In the ancient schools of Greece, India, Egypt and other centres of knowledge, the use of sound and music for healing was a highly developed pure science.
Himalayan singing bowls have been used throughout Asia for thousands of years in prayer and meditation, and are now used to promote relaxation and wellbeing.
Just as sound healing was disappearing in the West, acoustic researchers in the 1930s discovered ultrasound and its medicinal properties.
Although invisible, sound is highly structured. Cymatics is the study of sound and vibration made visible.
Typically, sound can be visualised through a particular medium such as water, air or sand. Today, scientists are also using cymascopes.
Cymascopes are designed to reveal the geometry within sounds. Studies in this field show that harmony exists at all levels in the Universe and a coherent relationship exists between the sound of a star, a single cell, a human heartbeat and the harmonious sounds from a musical instrument.
Cymatics shows that sound frequencies can directly alter the vibration of matter with particles adjusting to different frequencies.
Japanese Dr Masaru Emoto’s experiments on water memory found that human vibrational energy, thoughts, words, ideas, and music affect the molecular structure of water and can dramatically shape the way water crystallises. Given that our bodies are 65% water, we can expect musical frequencies to alter our vibrational state.
Sound healing is beneficial in restoring the body’s natural frequency and acts as a starting point to address many different ailments.
There are many things we might come in contact with in our daily lives that negatively affect our natural frequency. Such factors may be subtle, and we may not even recognise that they make us feel unsettled or uneasy. They could even be making us physically sick!
The basis of sound healing is the understanding that all forms of matter, right down to our cells, thoughts, and emotions, vibrate at different frequencies. Factors such as stress, sickness or depression cause cells and organs within our body to vibrate at suboptimal frequencies. Since sounds come at different frequencies and we too emit our own waves, healing with sound happens by matching frequencies of different sounds to those that are necessary and conducive to healing and relaxation.
Below are the most popular sound therapies that are used today:
- Tibetan Bowls
- Gong Bath
- Om Chanting
- Deep Sleep Music
Whether you are looking for an alternative method of healing to coincide with traditional medicine, or are simply looking for a new way to relax, recuperate, and rejuvenate your mind, sound healing has many possibilities that you are guaranteed to find something that suits you.
Sound therapy was formally introduced to the UK in 2000 with the establishment of the British Academy of Sound Therapy.
