IN SOUND WE ARE BORN, IN SOUND WE ARE HEALED.
TIBETAN SOUND HEALING
WHAT IS A TIBETAN SOUND HEALING LIKE?
A biofield therapy treatment is both a passive and participatory experience. The passive aspect is that you become more relaxed by laying down and slowing your breath.
By doing this, you prepare yourself to become the receiver of sound. It’s in this place of stillness that you participate by becoming more open and aware of each sound that comes in.
Sound helps create the pathway to this place of stillness the same as a mantra helps you to arrive at the still point of meditation.
It’s important to note that awareness plays a huge role in our own healing.
Some tools used are gongs, tuning forks, and Himalayan singing bowls.
SOUND
Sound frequency is the base and foundation of all creation, connection, being, and living.
Sound is frequency and vibration that make up our entire existence. Everything physical has a resonance that also resonates with the sounds around us. Therefore, the sounds we listen to have an impact on our mind, soul, and body.
KATSINA LOVE BHATIA
Yoga Teacher, Tibetan Sound Healer in Training
A combination of the science of sound and our nervous system’s response, sound therapy is effective in not only achieving a state of relaxation but also as a way of moving through blockages in the body.
It’s been found that sound and music can be effective healers for a range of mental, emotional, and even physical ailments, and has been a valuable treatment for several conditions including depression and anxiety disorders.
During the practicum phase of my Tibetan Sound Healing training, I will be seeing students at a discounted rate.
HOW IT WORKS – THE SCIENCE BEHIND HEALING WITH SOUND
Sound baths help to facilitate shifts in our brainwave state by using entrainment. Entrainment synchronizes our fluctuating brainwaves by providing a stable frequency to which the brainwave can attune. By using rhythm and frequency, we can entrain our brainwaves and it then becomes possible to down-shift our normal beta state (normal waking consciousness) to alpha (relaxed consciousness), and even reach theta (meditative state) and delta (sleep, where internal healing can occur).
This same concept is utilized in meditation by regulating the breath, but with sound, it’s the frequency that is the agent which influences the shift.
Research supports sound therapy for the relief of both physical and psychological pain. 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, 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.
Meta-analyses also support the benefits of sound on health. Researchers at the University of Bonn in Germany found evidence among 30 separate studies to support the use of binaural beats to reduce anxiety. And, analyzing 400 studies, scientists from McGill University linked playing and listening to music with improved overall mental and physical health.
Coherent sonic environments such as sound baths recalibrate moods and nervous systems.
Sound meditation seems to work in part by switching off the body’s fight-or-flight stress responses — the same ones that are activated by loud or unpredictable noises. Sound healing counters this [stress] response by invoking the parasympathetic nervous system, which slows heart rate, reduces blood pressure and activates healing in the body.
THE HEALING POWER OF SOUND AS MEDITATION …
Research suggests sound is a powerful tool to reduce pain, anxiety, and more. Sound has an ancient kinship with meditation and healing. Sound healing has ancient roots in cultures all over the world, including Australian aboriginal tribes who used the didgeridoo as a sound healing instrument for over 40,000 years to ancient such as Tibetan or Himalayan singing bowl spiritual ceremonies.
Sound meditation is a form of focused awareness type of meditation. One kind that has become more popular is called “sound baths,” which uses Tibetan singing bowls, quartz bowls, and bells to guide the listener. These practices highlight themes of how the experience of sound manifests not only through hearing but through tactile physical vibrations and frequencies.
A study published in the Journal of Evidence-Based Integrative Medicine found that an hour-long sound meditation helped people reduce tension, anger, fatigue, anxiety, and depression while increasing a sense of spiritual well-being.
One study of people with fibromyalgia found that ten treatments (twice per week for five weeks) of low-frequency sound stimulation improved sleep and decreased pain, allowing nearly three-fourths of participants to reduce pain medication.
