How Sound Therapy Is Used to Heal
/By Laurie Wondra — Last Updated: March 20, 2024
Edgar Cayce, an American attributed clairvoyant, in the first half of the 20th century, predicted that sound would be the future of medicine. Since ancient times, though, sound therapy and sound healing had been used across the globe and in almost all cultures by Tibetan Lamas, Jewish priests, Nomadic Shamans, a cantor. The field of sound and sound healing has been studied and pondered seemingly forever.
According to the Conscious Wealth Institute, "Shamans used chanting and drumming to heal people, while ancient mystery schools in Greece, Egypt, and India developed Sound into a sacred science. The ancient Greeks used the flute and the lyre to heal the body and soul and to treat illnesses such as gout and sciatica. Pythagoras is known to have used specific songs and incantations to cure diseases of the body and mind. There are even theories suggesting that the great Pyramids were constructed using Sound."
Chants and mantras are believed to have positive healing effects. Wellness Vibe, an organization that combines ancient yoga teachings with modern science, says, "Mantras with Sanskrit sounds are used to balance the chakras and heighten consciousness."
Sonorous or lithophonic rocks are rocks that resonate like a bell when struck. These chime-like sounds come from geological phenomena known as ringing rocks that were formed more than 200 million years ago, and when tapped lightly, they reveal their sonic secret.
Studies have been repeated on the effect of sound on water in which ice crystals show each sound or frequency's patterns. NASA continues to explore Sound and vibration in space and what the Universe emits. Yes, there is a Galactic Heart Chakra, considered the 11th Chakra where your subtle body is located and connects to different realities, dimensions, realms, and consciousness.
A principal law of the Universe is that all matter is eternal energy, which is in a constant state of vibration or resonance and is the foundation for all existence. Sound therapy is often used as a "complementary" medicine alongside orthodox medicine. Sound healing is one of the most common forms of vibrational medicine; sound has been used for centuries as a healing or calming tool.
Sound therapy or sound healing, an alternative or partner to modern medicine, involves using musical instruments or the human voice to heal certain afflictions.
The Natural Resonance Center believes that music can alter our physiology. According to it,
"Soothing music can produce a response characteristic of relaxation in which autonomic, immune, endocrine, and neuropeptide systems are altered. Likewise, it produces desired psychological responses such as reductions in anxiety and fear. Some responses have been linked to effects on the hemispheric functioning of the brain and the limbic system. High psychophysiological stress levels inhibit or block learning. Thus, music can be the catalyst to facilitate mental suggestion and enhance our learning ability and self-healing capacities."
How sound therapy works
Everything has a sound, a vibration all its own, whether we hear it or not, that includes ourselves as we all make sound. This sound is called resonance, the frequency at which an object naturally vibrates. Each part of our bodies has its natural resonance. Vibrational medicine, such as sound therapy or sound healing, is based on the concept that a specific type of disease will surface when our natural resonances get out of tune.
Sound therapy uses tonal and rhythmic instruments and voice to create therapeutic sound and sound therapy techniques like Himalayan and crystal singing bowls, gongs, tuning forks, drums, chimes, and other instruments. For vocal techniques such as mantra, toning, and overtoning. Toning is a form of singing with one tone only, which usually utilizes a vowel sound. Overtoning uses more than one tone while simultaneously singing. Mantra is the chanting of Sanskrit words.
What is sound therapy used for?
Sleep disorders: Sleep disorders such as insomnia can be treated through sound therapy which helps minimize or stop mind chatter, allowing the mind to move naturally into the slower rhythms that lead to sleep.
Depression: People with depression have been found to possess lower levels of serotonin or dopamine, which are responsible for helping people experience happy emotions. Sound therapy or sound healing is believed to enable the brain to produce more neurotransmitters, including dopamine and serotonin. With more of these neurotransmitters, the feelings of depression decrease, and positive feelings increase.
Anxiety: Sound therapy can help you alleviate anxiety by re‐training your brain to relax, pacifying your "fight‐or‐flight response," and nurturing your "relaxation response”.
Stress Management: Sound therapy can help reduce stress and its physiological effects by replacing brain energy with high-frequency sound. Sound therapy calms the brain and nervous centers through the delivery of the energy required for the various brain centers’ neurochemicals to be more balanced.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PSTD): Music has long been proved to help in the treatment of PTSD. According to studies, music triggers the brain to "release chemicals to distract the body and mind from pain." Aside from music, songs with words, whether sung or spoken, affect PTSD patients, and low-pitched or slow music and sounds seem to work best.
Pain management: During sound therapy, we are taken from the active beta state to the alpha, theta, and delta states which are states of more profound relaxation when the body begins to regenerate and eventually heal. This is why sound therapy is often used for chronic pains and migraines as well as for more serious illnesses like cancer.
Preventive Health and Healing: Pairing an understanding of the meridian system and chi-energy flow of Traditional Chinese Medicine with sound and vibration provides energetic benefits.
Cellular Memory Healing and Revitalization: Our cells hold memories from seven generations that may be released. During sound healing, it is essential that the practitioner knows this facet of vibration medicine and provides a safe space for healing and rejuvenation. Untrained vibration medicine can potentially unleash unintended emotions, memories, and disease. Practitioners should be aware of aura fields and how to hold the energy of healing within the field.
Clear space: Sound and vibration can be used to clear or uplift space or a person's personal Auric field and can be used in place of sage, palo santo, or Florida water.
Experts believe that sound therapy, which is growing in popularity, is at the cutting edge of healing and that it finally will be in the mainstream just like yoga and meditation. They base this belief on the concepts of our energy bodies and the chakra system. Each chakra point is a gateway of energy, and each of these gateways is aligned with a core scale of notes.
Root/base chakra = Note C
Sacral Chakra = Note D
Solar Chakra = Note E
Heart Chakra = Note F
Throat = G
3rd Eye = A
Crown = B
The concept of sound healing is deeper and more connected than simply a musical scale, however. These sounds with their frequencies and vibrations connect to each other, creating chords, and to all that exists (planets). Simply put, we humans are in essence vibration and how we respond to other vibrations can affect how we feel. When sound is produced with a crystal or Himalayan bowl, gongs, or tuning forks, for example, the body will align to that resonance (sympathetic resonance).
Water holds a place in sound therapy and healing. Both the water content of Mother Earth and the water content of the human body act as a conduit to energy, both positive and negative.
Up to 70% of the human adult body is water,
The brain and heart are composed of 73% water,
The lungs are about 83% water,
The skin contains 64% water,
Muscles and kidneys are 79%,
Even bones are watery: 31%.
If you are outside of your natural vibration for long periods, the body's energies (physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual) become fatigued and then potentially ill. When your brainwave frequencies synchronize with the frequencies produced by sound healing instruments (called brainwave entrainment), uncomfortable emotional states can be calmed and the body’s tissue, organs, and bones can be calmed. Because brainwaves directly link to our consciousness, movement in these waves can create calm or positive feelings. We can use sound to balance the left and right brain hemisphere to help elevate functions such as creativity, problem solving, and communication or cognitive responses.
Acoustics is the branch of physics concerned with the study of sound. Applications of acoustic technology™ include music and the study of geologic, atmospheric, underwater phenomena, and other contributors. My practices are based on Sound Healing and Acoustic technology. I first became fascinated by Ohm's law while working with engineers in a high-tech manufacturing company that built meters to measure anything and everything related to pressure, flow, and temperature.
My ability to see energy stopped me in my tracks and had me inquiring about the science behind what I was seeing in human energy forms. I later encouraged my children to experiment with sound with plants and water. Drumming and other tools began to enter my set of toolbox to explore energy healing and its relationship to the body. The frequencies in water were discovered by Dr. Edmund Gergerian and advanced by David Hulse. Later, Dr. Masaru Emoto, a Japanese scientist, became known for his research on the impact of human consciousness on water. His work demonstrated that environment, thoughts, and emotions shape water.
I close with this fun fact. Pluto vibrates to the Note of C which is believed to be related to the root chakra. During this time of Pluto's migration into Aquarius for the next 20 years, I believe much of our cores will be shaken, evolved, and shifted and that we can use sound and acoustic technology to help us navigate.
Everything vibrates and everything is connected. When we learn about how sound and vibrations work to connect and heal, our journey is supported.
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Laurie Wondra: Psychic Medium, Energy Healer, Metaphysical and Shamanic Practitioner, Teacher, Author, Motivational Speaker and Corporate Executive Consultant.
Laurie’s earliest memories are of talking with Archangel Michael in the hallways of school when she was in second grade. In fourth grade, she began to channel and write with the help of a lovely ‘green energy’ that later became known to her as Archangel Gabriel and the Collective Light. For as long as she remembers she’s been able to see loved ones that have crossed over. Today she uses these gifts as a clear channel while working with people from all over the world to help them connect with their loved ones, angels, and guides. Her ability to tune into the varying frequencies of the universe allow her to share this information and insight about past, present and future.