Tibetan Singing Bowls In Meditation Or Yoga Practice

Explore the history of using Tibetan singing bowls in meditation as well as research results pointing to the benefits of sound baths. Discover how the sound of singing bowls can influence your body and mind and calm your mind with popular audio singing bowl pieces.

Tibetan singing bowls, or sound baths, in which one is immersed in the sound of bowls and gongs, provide relaxation and have been shown to reduce anxiety, stress, and depression. The sounds of a Tibetan singing bowl offer respite from the everyday churning of the mind, and so does meditation and yoga. Thus it’s not surprising that these practices are frequently co-mingled. Explore the benefits of using singing bowls in meditation practice.

The History Of Making The Bowl Sing

Despite marketing claims to the contrary, the use of bowls, or standing bells as “singing” instruments, by running a mallet around the bowl’s outer rim and edges, is a decidedly Western practice.

While the standing bell dates back thousands of years to the geographical regions of China and Mongolia, it was historically used as a gong, by striking the bowl with a wooden or felted mallet. Some Tibetan Buddhist monasteries used the bowls in this way to mark time or the end of a meditation.

The method of making the bowls “sing” by gliding a mallet around the bowl’s upper rim is relatively new. While musicians have been playing the rim of crystal glasses, or the glass harp, since the 14th century, historians point to New Age music recordings from the 1970s as the point in time when the popularity of singing bowls began to sharply rise.

Today, sound bowls come in all shapes, materials, and sizes to provide a range of tones and frequencies. There are crystal bowls and metal alloy bowls, the latter of which are often marketed as Himalayan bowls, or Tibetan singing bowls. While these metal alloy bowls are sold at souvenir shops in Nepal, India, and Tibet today, this phenomenon is more in response to Western demand, than out of historical context.

Ever Tried Sound Therapy with Tibetan Singing Bowls?

It’s a widely known fact that classic will always stay in fashion- and we’re not just talking about clothes. In the realm of health and wellness, traditional therapies have become increasingly popular. Recently, we’ve had the opportunity to try acupressure treatments- treatments that Tibetans have been using for hundreds of years.

According to many philosophies of Eastern Medicine, happiness is when the cells and the organs of the body work on the same rhythm. As such, diseases are often caused by the imbalance of ‘chakra’ energy in the body. That’s where Tibetan Singing Bowls come in. These bowls are used to help fine-tune the rhythm of the organs back to their original state.

How do Tibetan Singing Bowls work?

The sound waves that they produce will modify your brainwaves on a theta level- the wave that enhances instinctive awareness, and keeps your mind clear and focused. By restoring the waves’ normal rhythm, your body’s energy system will be reinvigorated too. Unsurprisingly, this method is used by Tibetan monks during meditation. Moreover, many therapists and clinicians also use Tibetan Singing Bowls because it helps control one’s heart rate, stimulate the immune system and relieve pain. Acting as a diagnostic tool of sorts, the bowls can detect if and when there is a problematic area in your body: the signal? A distorted sound. This is just one of many alternative therapies for cancer patients and patients dealing with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Of course, we are also aware that the term “alternative therapy” can and should be controversial. Those who are interested in such methods should depend on their own judgment and experiences. We at L’Officiel had the opportunity to try Tibetan Singing Bowls at the Asaya in Rosewood Phuket and we highly recommend it. As well as emerging energized and refreshed, it also proved an interesting experience. Here, you’ll have a choice of many alternative treatments addressing almost every component of holistic wellbeing. That being said, the key to achieving holistic wellbeing will always start with self-understanding: taking a good look at oneself and figuring out what the problem is that you’d like to resolve. Only then would we suggest choosing the appropriate treatment.

“We as a society are trained to get rid of symptoms without ever asking why they’re there in the first place. This isn’t the right approach,” Harvey explains. “We want guests to learn how to listen to themselves and to their bodies again, focus on understanding yourselves instead of relying on the judgment of other people. That is the key to healing and we, at Asaya, are but companions to help you on your way.”

This is the concept behind Asaya, the Sanskrit word for ‘understanding our past.’

Healing Effect of Tibetan Singing Bowls

Singing bowls are made either from bell metals or crystal and played with a mallet by gliding it around the bowl to produce sound. The bowls are often referred to as Tibetan Singing Bowls or Himalayan Singing Bowls by Westerners. However, the use of these bowls originates in China. Tibetan Singing Bowls have been used in both Buddhist and Taoist practices for meditation purposes.

What's in a singing bowl

At one time they may have also been used to place offerings at altars for worship. In the West, the use of Tibetan Singing Bowls is largely relegated to “new age” spiritual practices. Although they are most commonly associated with Eastern spiritual traditions, research indicates that Tibetan Singing Bowls have a positive impact on health, even to the extent of promoting healing from various illnesses.

Sound healing therapy

Tibetan Singing Bowls have been used in several studies to investigate their usefulness as tools in sound therapy. Sound therapy includes but is not limited to, music therapy, meditation, vibration work, and brainwave entrainment. Sound therapy is a popular method of alternative medicine that has evidence-based efficacy in treating a multitude of illnesses.
Sound therapy can be used to lower blood pressure, reduce pain, treat neurological disorders, and improve sleep. It is also an effective method of therapy for anxiety, stress, depression, mood disorders, and developmental disabilities. Sound therapy is often used in rehabilitation settings for catastrophic injuries and mental disorders.

While studies have focused on how patients with various health conditions respond to sound therapy, the widest body of evidence on sound therapy is based on its ability to lower stress, reduce tension, and improve mood. Since many illnesses arise or are worsened due to stress, this is a major implication in the justification of more widespread use of sound therapy.

In addition to treating ailments, sound therapy can also be used to promote general physical and mental wellness. Those wanting to reap the benefits of sound therapy can do so at home or under the guidance of a practitioner as part of regular meditation practice. Tibetan singing bowls are a particularly attractive form of sound therapy as patients can also learn to use the sound bowls themselves.

Sound bowl healing

Tibetan sound bowls are used by tapping the bowl gently with a mallet and then circling the bowl with different amounts of pressure and speed to vary the sounds. Sound bowl healing works when the bowls are played to elicit prolonged sounds that emit varying vibrational frequencies. Some sound bowls are made from metals similar to church bells, while others are made from crushed crystals.

Whether metal or crystal, the sound bowls may also be filled with water while they are played. The musicality of the singing bowl itself is relaxing and can induce a meditative state. Once in a meditative state, stress levels are reduced, which can improve hormone levels, blood pressure, and even blood sugar.

The symptoms of mood disorders may also be interrupted or reduced in this state. Increased mental awareness and deeper sleep are also effects of meditation. Additionally, the sounds emitted from Tibetan singing bowls allow the person listening to benefit from sound frequency healing. As described by experts in sound healing, each part of the body has its own frequency. Accordingly, sound frequency healing allows the body to harmonize any out-of-sync frequencies to a healthy state.

Using Tibetan Singing Bowls for Stress Relief

Tibetan singing bowls are a type of bell that vibrates and produces a rich, deep tone when played. Also known as singing bowls or Himalayan bowls, Tibetan singing bowls are said to promote relaxation and offer powerful healing properties.

Buddhist monks have long used Tibetan singing bowls in meditation practice. In addition, some wellness practitioners (including music therapists, massage therapists, and yoga therapists) use Tibetan singing bowls during treatment.

Uses for Tibetan Singing Bowls

People use Tibetan singing bowls for many purposes, including stress reduction and pain relief. Some people use the bowls in combination with other healing practices, such as meditation and deep breathing.

To create sound with a singing bowl, firmly press the accompanying mallet in a circular motion against the bowl's outside edge or rim. When you hear a bright, clear tone, you can slow down the motion. Use your full arm to make the motion, rather than just rotating your wrist.

You can also make the same circular motion against the outside belly of the bowl. Additionally, you can gently strike the bowl before beginning the circular motion.

Many proponents claim that the vibrations of a singing bowl can produce beneficial changes in the body by reducing stress, "harmonizing" the cells, and "balancing the body's energy system." Some also claim that Tibetan singing bowls can stimulate the immune system and produce beneficial changes in brain waves.

Benefits

Very few scientific studies have examined the potential benefits of Tibetan singing bowls, despite their long history of use. One of the available studies is a report from the Swiss journal Research in Complementary Medicine. For the study, 54 people with chronic pain originating from the spine were assigned to either six sessions of singing bowl therapy, a placebo treatment, or no treatment at all.

Study results showed that members of the singing bowl group and the placebo group experienced a significant decrease in pain intensity. The study's authors also found that both the singing bowl therapy and the placebo therapy had a stress-reducing effect on participants. Given these findings, the study's authors concluded that singing bowl therapy's effectiveness for pain relief could not be confirmed.

A preliminary study published in the American Journal of Health Promotion in 2014 examined the benefits of starting a directed relaxation session with 12 minutes of singing bowls and found a greater reduction in systolic blood pressure and heart rate compared to silence before a directed relaxation session.

Where Did “Tibetan” Singing Bowls Really Come From?

In Kathmandu’s tourist district of Thamel sits a planned outdoor shopping area called Mandala Street. Nearly every morning—around when the foreigner-friendly coffee shop Himalayan Java opens its doors—a man blows his conch shell loudly from a second-story walkway. He typically wears flowing white robes and a large turban with a peacock feather stuck in its folds, and sports a beard and mustache curled into near-perfect circles. He is a self-described “sound-bowl healer” who offers to align chakras with specially tuned metal bowls, a technique, he will tell you, that is practiced by an ancient lineage of yogis. The staff of Himalayan Java are suspicious of his sound bowl healings, but some of the visitors are spellbound by him, the picture of the Orientalized South Asian holy man, and a few find their way to his healing table each day during the peak tourist seasons.

These sound bowls, or “Tibetan singing bowls” as they are frequently called, have become nearly ubiquitous in Buddhist contexts in North America and Europe. They are used in mindfulness practices, yoga studios, and even some newer Buddhist rituals, yet a credible consensus regarding their origins is difficult to find. There is no hard evidence that the sound bowls are ancient—and even less that they are Tibetan.

The dubious claims of the bowls’ Tibetan origins have not escaped the notice of the Tibetan community in North America. A handful of blog entries by Tibetan writers in North America have appeared questioning the pedigree of the allegedly “Tibetan” bowls, and as recently as February 18, an op-ed piece by Tenzin Dheden of the Canada Tibet Committee ran in the Toronto Star entitled “‘Tibetan singing bowls’ are not Tibetan. Sincerely, a Tibetan person.” The piece garnered attention on Facebook with one commenter noting, “I’ve always wondered why Injis [foreigners/non-Tibetans] are so fond of these bowls. In the past, I’ve asked a number of Tibetans, including monks, and none of them had heard about [them].”