An Overview of Sound & Vibration

Sound baths, sound healing, sound therapy, singing bowls, frequencies… What’s it all about? Read on for an overview of how music affects the physical body and emotions!

“In ancient times music was the foundation of all the sciences. Education was begun with music.”

- Cicero (106-43 BC)

Sound has been used for thousands of years to relax the body and heal the mind. Today, sound therapy is making its way back into hospitals and homes to help relieve pain, reduce stress, energize, and speed healing. Try thinking of sound as vibration, and healing as harmonizing. A consistent, pure frequency can help guide a discordant cell back toward radiant health. All systems in the body and mind are encouraged to sing in harmony together.

How Vibrations Affect The Human Body

Everything is vibrating at a specific frequency.

Frequency is the rate of vibration. This is not woo-woo spirituality, this is physics. All matter is made up of energy, moving at different cycles per second (aka frequency). And the human body is made up of hundreds of thousands of cells, and each cell contains water. This liquid is moving under the influence of the frequencies around us at any given time, the way that a stone dropped into a pond creates ripples in the water.

Our cells are affected by vibration, and we are surrounded by vibrations: from the electricity humming in the walls, to the sounds of nature, to loud city noises, to the Schumann Resonance, a frequency entering the atmosphere every time lightning strikes somewhere on earth. The water in our cells is affected by the vibrations around us. It’s not so much about what the ears are picking up, but what the cells of the entire body are exposed to. Vibrations have the ability to make us feel good or feel sick, giving us energy or relaxing us.

One wonderful benefit to utilizing sound as therapy is for pain management. Pain receptors can only handle so much information. When the right sounds are introduced, they can fill up the pain receptors to the point that pain is no longer felt!

Another great example is the treatment of gallstones. A high sonic blast is sent into the body, which implodes the gall stones, breaking them up into smaller pieces that can then be passed. This is possible because the specific resonant frequency of gallstones has been found! Using an electronic device, this frequency is played back at a volume much higher than humans are capable of, causing the gallstone cells to explode, but without harming the surrounding cells. Scientists are currently trying to discover the resonant frequency of cancer cells, among many other things, in order to be able to destroy the with high frequencies.

Frequency and Our Mental States

There are four main brainwave states: beta, alpha, theta, and delta. These states relate to how fast our brainwaves are moving, and correlate to different states of arousal or relaxation.

Delta (0.5 to 3 Hz) waves are very slow, generated when we are meditating or sleeping very deeply. External awareness is suspended, and the system is able to go into a deep state of restoration and healing. Theta (3 to 8 Hz) occurs while meditating, or when dreaming or just drifting off to sleep. This state is the key to learning, memory, and intuition. Alpha (8 to 12 Hz) is the resting state of the brain, when we are very present. In this state we are calm yet alert. Our thoughts flow quietly, and we are coordinated and able to learn and integrate. Beta (12-38 Hz) waves are even faster, our normal waking state when we are focused on cognitive tasks and the outside world. Here we are very alert, excited or anxious, and focused on a task, judgement or decision making process.

“Consciousness is somehow a by-product of the simultaneous, high frequency firing of neurons in different parts of the brain. It’s the meshing of these frequencies that generates consciousness, just as tones from individual instruments produce the rich, complex, and seamless sounds of a symphony orchestra.”

- Francis Crick (1916-2004), Molecular Biologist and the co-discoverer or DNA

Many diseases and mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, and ADHD are now being treated with sound therapy in order to harmonize disordered brainwave states. Spending more time in Delta and Theta states help encourage the body and mind to relax and heal itself.

Clinical research has shown that within a few minutes of listening to frequencies within a certain brainwave state, our brain will begin to raise or lower itself to match it. By hooking someone up to an EEG machine, you can actually see brainwaves being led, or entrained, from one frequency to another.

Entrainment, the Basis of Sound Healing

The general premise behind using sound to heal or affect change in the system, is through the concept of entrainment. Entrainment is the phenomenon where two different frequencies try to come into alignment, or synchronize with each other. Sound healers often aim to find and match the resonant frequency of a brain state, diseased organ, or energetic blockage, and then lead it toward a more harmonious one. Kind of like the Pied Piper lured rats away with his magic pipe.

Think about when you’re around a person who is extremely positive and happy. Their mood can seem infectious, making us smile back without knowing why. The same goes for encountering someone who is very angry and negative. It can feel like they are dragging us down, putting a frown on our face.

Pure, consistent vibrations have the ability to harmonize discord in the mental, emotional, and physical bodies. Sound can also be used to release stuck emotions or blockages within the body or mind.

“Emotions of any kind can be evoked by melody and rhythm; therefore music has the power to form character.”

- Aristotle (384-322 BC)

Sound Healing Instruments

Some of the most popular and most accessible sound healing instruments are those that generate a very consistent, smooth sound wave form without a lot of harmonics:

• The human voice (singing, chanting, toning vowel sounds)

• Crystal or metal singing bowls

• Tuning Forks

• Tone generators

• Nature sounds, natural or synthesized

Crystal Singing Bowls

These instruments are usually used to encourage harmony, though they can also be used to break up stuck energy blockages or cause cell death, as in the gallstone example. Other sound therapy vibrational tools can include:

• Harps and other string instruments

• Chimes, gongs, and tingshas

• Pan flutes and other woodwinds

• Drums, shakers and rattles

Sound therapy is developing and spreading through research and scientific advancement. But you only need to put on your favorite song, or listen to ocean waves, or simply hum, to experience it for yourself.

Find a guided meditation using crystal singing bowls here.

More resources can be found through the Sound Healing Institute in San Francisco, California.