Sound has been used as a healing tool for centuries and is still regularly used by many alternative health care centres and cultures with rich ancestral traditions. Tibetan singing bowls, tuning forks, drumming therapy, and even chanting are all used in sound therapy, and many participants experience strong emotions during therapy sessions. Advocates of sound healing claim that it has the power to heal mental illness, arthritis, autoimmune disorders, and can even shrink cancerous tumors.
Scientific research has proven that an hour long sound meditation helps people reduce tension, anger, fatigue, anxiety and depression while increasing a sense of spiritual well-being. The sound meditation used a range of Tibetan singing bowls, crystal singing bowls, gongs, Ting-shas (tiny cymbals), dorges (bells), didgeridoos, and other small bells. The main instrument used was the singing bowls for 95% of the session. People who had never done sound meditation experienced significantly less tension and anxiety after their first experience and it repeated for those who had done it before.
Sound can support healing by bringing harmony to the body, mind and spirit. Sound-based vibration treatment has been shown to help people with pain from arthritis, menstrual pain, postoperative pain, knee replacement pain. Sound-based treatment has even been found to improve mobility, reduce muscle pain and stiffness, increase blood circulation, and lower blood pressure. Binaural beat therapy is an emerging form of sound wave therapy. It makes use of the fact that the right and left ear each receive a slightly different frequency tone, yet the brain perceives these as a single tone.
Binaural beats are out bodies internal natural tones and beats. The deliberate use of sound to modify the mind has been chronicled throughout history (Aboriginal didgeridoo, Tibetan singing bowls, Native American flute, Tribal drums) and used as powerful tools of transformation. Today neuroscientists have found audio entrainment brings about these same binaural beats and tones to enhance learning, improve memory and creativity.
If the rhythm becomes fast and consistent enough, it can start to resemble our natural internal rhythms, called brainwaves. The brain then responds by synchronizing its own electric cycles to the same rhythm, also called the Frequency Following Response (FFR).
There are five different categories of frequency pattern:
- Delta pattern: Binaural beats in the delta pattern operate at a frequency of 0.5 to 4 Hz with links to a dreamless sleep. In a study, people who received a delta pattern frequency during sleep entered a deeper stage of sleep, according to electroencephalogram (EEG) brain scan results.
- Theta pattern: Practitioners set binaural beats in the theta pattern to a frequency of 4 to 7 Hz. Theta patterns contribute to improved meditation, creativity, and sleep in the rapid eye movement (REM) phase.
- Alpha pattern: Binaural beats in the alpha pattern are at a frequency of 7 to 13 Hz and may encourage relaxation.
- Beta pattern: Binaural beats in the beta pattern are at a frequency of 13 to 30 Hz. This frequency range may help promote concentration and alertness. However, it can also increase anxiety at the higher end of the range.
- Gamma pattern: This frequency pattern accounts for a range of 30 to 50 Hz. The study authors suggest that these frequencies promote maintenance of arousal while a person is awake.
Sound has also been made into music, every culture in the world has developed their own version of music. Music is a harmonious sound, or sounds crafted to evoke emotional reactions. Music is often referred to as the universal language.
Music therapies of various types have been shown to positively affect stress reactions and performance. For example, Baroque music helps to balance the nervous system and enhances learning. Specifically, it enhances the ability to visualise in the mind’s eye and understand the relationships between objects. This has been called “The Mozart effect” and is a wonderful support for children with developmental issues.
Gregorian chants, which use the Solfeggio scale, caused the DNA to absorb significantly more light. Rock music, on the other hand, had no such effect. The Solfeggio frequencies include, but are not limited to, six different tones. A recent double-blind study from Italy showed that music tuned to 432 hz slows down the heart rate when compared to 440 Hz. This frequency fills the mind with feelings of peace and well-being, making it the perfect accompaniment for yoga, gentle exercise, meditation, or sleep.
Experiments concluded that Solfreggio played at 528 Hz have the ability to heal DNA all on its own, and is used by biochemists for just that. Apparently, 528 Hz’s effect on the surrounding water helps heal the DNA’s helix. Solfreggio frequencies at different herts are used for different physical benefits.
