Sound Healing
Every single thing in the universe, alive or not, has a core frequency. Everything has a precise note at which it will vibrate in tandem with the sound. When that note plays, achieving natural resonance within our body, we’ll feel a vibration. You’ve probably felt it at live concerts - the deep vibration in your bones, in your heart, through your tissues, in every cell.
When something outside of us plays our note, the core frequency within us plays louder. The strength of the note within us becomes louder, clearer, fuller. The scattered energy surrounding you harmonizes and retunes to center, and your authentic self emerges more clearly.
There are many ways we use sound to tune our bodies to its natural healed state. Below I discuss four main modalities: sound baths, tuning forks, Solfeggio frequencies, and binaural beats. These modalities are wonderful on their own but are also commonly used in conjunction with other modalities including massage, yoga, meditation, crystals, and psychotherapy.
Sound Baths
Speaking from personal experience, sound baths are one of my favorites. Hearing live music playing from the sound bowls is so immersive, it feels almost other worldly. While lying on a mat, the bowls often help me find mental clarity and peace of mind and heart, while gongs rumble the lower half of my body and I feel connected with a deep emotional release. I often leave with stronger resolve, a clearer knowing of my next steps in life, and an overall sense of well-being.
The origins of sound baths are quite ancient, traced back thousands of years to Egypt, Greece, and India. It is a full-body meditative experience and has been used for healing and balance as well as to reconnect individuals with their spiritual essence, induce an awakening, or reach altered states of consciousness. Practitioners can use any variety of bowls, chimes, gongs, drums, didgeridoo, rain sticks, or tuning forks. The different tones and instruments used are meant to help you find different meditative-like states, and since we each have our own core frequencies, some will resonate with us more, or differently, than others.
You can find recorded sound baths online, but I highly recommend finding a live session near you!
Few studies have been conducted on sound baths, but users report it aids well with sleep, anxiety and depression, stress, PTSD, pain management, focus and concentration, emotional release, and feeling more balanced and grounded.
Tuning Fork Therapy
In this modality, the tuning fork is struck and held against specific points in the body to relieve pain, reduce inflammation, bring greater balance, stimulate healing, and encourage relaxation. Some practices target acupressure points, others will apply the tuning fork directly to where you’re feeling symptoms of discomfort or disease (joints, tissues, or organs). Even others will ring the tuning forks over your chakra centers for direct recentering of your energy body and break up feelings of stuck energy.
Tuning fork therapy has been reported to alleviate chronic pain, headaches, insomnia, exhaustion, cramps, digestive distress, and anxiety. Some also say it can assist the immune system and jump start or rebalance the body’s natural healing process.
You can purchase your own tuning forks and try it yourself, or meet with an experienced healer near you.
Solfeggio Frequencies
Can you believe a musical scale was created that harmonizes with the frequency of Earth, many hundreds of years before it could be measured? The Schumann Resonance is the frequency that plays between the magnetic surface and the electric part of the atmosphere (the ionosphere) and is often referred to as Earth’s heartbeat. Solfeggio Frequencies got their start in the 8th century, while it wasn’t until the 1960’s that the Schumann Resonance could reliably be measured.
The Solfeggio Frequencies were lost for some time but re-discovered in the 1970’s as a nine note scale. Since its creation these notes have been considered to be healing to the mind, body and spirit, with each note targeting a certain type of healing. With it’s nine note scale, associations have also been made to the chakras, or main energy centers in the body (see below graphic).
Did you know?
Recent studies have shown that DNA exposed to these notes increase UV light absorption, which is essential to healthy functioning, as well as improve heart rate and emotional and mental states in participants.
Tuning ourselves with the Schumann Resonance has proved to be powerfully important, even more so now that we’re receiving many clashing frequencies from electronics. Scientists believe that our bodies evolved to use the Schumann Resonance as a synchronization signal to stabilize brain activity and heart rate.
You can listen to these frequencies anywhere you get your music. Have it on in the background while you work or relax, put it on just before bed, or use them to help you meditate! Check out the image and search for audio here for more.
Binaural Beats
Rather than the Schumann Resonance, binaural beats tune in on the frequency of different brainwave states. You’ve probably heard of brainwave states when reading about sleep - Alpha, Theta, and Delta waves are created in the brain as we fall asleep and reach deeper levels of restorative sleep. Beta waves, on the other hand, are active for most of our waking hours, reserving the highest Gamma waves for times of concentration or peak experiencing. With the use of binaural beats, you can induce a desired brainwave state, helping you sleep better or perhaps reach new levels of creativity.
In 1839, physicist Heinrich Wilhem Dove discovered that when the brain is exposed to two different frequencies, one through each ear, it will cancel out what it can and focus on the difference between those two frequencies, creating a third signal experienced in the brain, a binaural beat. As your brain works to create and maintain the binaural beat, it will begin resonating with the frequency of it. Say you heard 300Hz in one ear and 310Hz in the other, creating a binaural beat of 10Hz. As you listen to the frequencies, your brain would naturally shift to the Alpha wave state (which covers frequencies between 8 and 13Hz), promoting relaxation, positivity, and openness to new information.
Remember, you’ll need headphones and a proper playlist to effectively create a binaural beat inside your brain.
Did you know?
The superior olivary complex, located in the brainstem, is the first structure that processes sound input from your ears and synchronizes various activities of the brain. This is the part that signals the rest of the brain to resonate with the binaural beat.
