Sound healing uses music, chanting, singing, drumming, and other rhythmic practices for the purpose of healing.
Why and how does sound healing work?
Human beings are rhythms. Breath is rhythm. Heartbeat is rhythm. Cells are rhythm. Before birth, inside the womb, we experience the rhythms of our mother. We begin to feel our own as well. All of life is rhythms and cycles. Day and night, light and dark, birth and death, seasons, and the ocean are examples of life’s organic, rhythmic, wave-like ebb and flow. Rhythms are the essence of life and who we are. Over time, we may lose our connection with our rhythms. Disconnect, disharmony, and dismemberment can result.
Sound and song contain rhythms with vibrations. Sounds of Healing by Mitchell Gaynor, MD explains that ancient holy men have said “the entire cosmos is ‘an ocean of vibration,’ the source of all manifestation.” We know the energy of waves with vibrations and experience healing when we connect into it. Some sound and song, movement practices such as the 5Rhythms, and supportive healthy lifestyle choices help move us back to the resonance of our natural rhythmic vibrations of connection, harmony, and remembering.
The rhythms of sound and song can alter our state of consciousness. Brain waves move from beta to alpha and theta resulting in deep relaxation. Sound and song helps us find greater balance and internal equilibrium (homeostasis) from the inside out.
- When is the last time you breathed really deeply?
- When is the last time you tuned into your heartbeat?
- How do you feel your rhythms on a daily basis?
- What types of sounds and songs make you feel enlivened?
- How and where do you feel rhythms of music in your body?
- How and what do you feel when you place your attention in your feet when listening and moving to music?
What are the benefits of songs, singing, and other sounds?
Singing releases voice and feelings, including what is stuck in our throats and deeper recesses of our bodies. They help us to practice saying what we otherwise may not express. You can sing along to songs that connect you with your emotions or make up your own.
Chanting and toning, including humming, support the patterning of the body into its natural rhythms and vibrations. Every cell in the body feels rhythmic sounds. Compromised of seventy percent water, the human body is conductive material for vibrations that balance biological rhythms into harmony.
- What genres of music do you enjoy the most?
- Who are your favorite musicians?
- When did you last belt out into song—yours or that of someone else?
What are the potential benefits of sound healing?
Research studies referenced in Sounds of Healing by Mitchell Gaynor, MD indicate a range of health benefits from music therapy for people with cancer, including better quality of life, communication about fears, sadness, or other feelings, management of stress, as well as alleviation of physical pain and discomfort. Dr. Gaynor has also published The Healing Power of Sound: Recovery from Life-Threatening Illness Using Sound, Voice, and Music.
Music has been associated with an increase in immune cell function, a decrease in stress hormone levels, and a boost in natural opiates in studies evaluating healthy people or individuals with noncancerous health issues.
Neurologist Barry Bittman, M.D. and his research team discovered that a specific group drumming approach called HealthRHYTHMS protocol significantly increased the disease fighting activity of circulating white blood cells called natural killer cells that seek out and destroy cancer cells and virally-infected cells.
What is the history of sound healing?
Sound healing can be traced back at least to the third millennium B.C.E. to Greece and has been used since then throughout the world across cultures.
