How to Use Sound Healing in Your Life

There are a handful of ways to use sound therapy for your own personal healing. The most popular techniques that are being used today are:

1) Singing Bowls & Bells
Whether made out of Tibetan metal or quartz crystal, singing bowls make a soothing ringing sound when a felt-tipped mallet is rubbed around the edge. Rhythms can also be produced by striking the edge of the bowls and bells. The vibrations and tones that are emitted can slow down breathing, brain waves, and heart rates. This produces a deep sense of calm and well-being.

2) Gong Bath
A gong bath is an ancient Asian sound healing technique in which the participant is surrounded by gongs that are struck. Gong baths feel like massages because they vibrate all of the water within the body, which produces an amazing sense of well-being.

3) Om Chanting
The sacred, familiar “aum” is known as the mother tone, which comprises the frequencies of all other sounds. Repetitive chanting of this tone is the first step to meditation. Research shows that chanting can stabilize heart rate, lower blood pressure, produce endorphins, help the mind focus, and alleviate stress levels.

4) Humming
This simple sound greatly affects our emotion. It can keep us healthy by reducing stress, enhancing sleep, and producing happy chemicals in the brain such as oxytocin. It can also improve airflow between the sinuses and the nasal cavity, which helps circulate oxygen throughout the body, and can protect the health of sinuses.

5) Classical and Soothing Music
Classical and soothing music can be used to enhance learning and creativity, for pregnancy and child development, and to help alleviate high blood pressure and muscle tension.

6) Kirtan
Kirtan is a form of music that narrates, recites, tells, and describes an idea of a story. In a kirtan practice, a leader sings the mantra and the audience sings it back. Through this exchange, the audience is able to connect with each other. Kirtan allows for meditation, free expression, giving and receiving, and safe vulnerability. These abilities lead to inner healing.

Our bodies, minds, and spirits always want to be in a state of balance, yet outer stimuli and noises can distract and prevent us from maintaining a state of harmony. Sound has the power to bring us to the source of the inner peace we all desire.