Certain sound frequencies, produced with bowls or electronic synthesizers, promote a pleasant experience of relaxation. They can improve mood and help achieve deep and regenerating meditative states Sound Baths.
Who has not felt embraced by music and transported by it to a place far from everyday concerns. While the music plays we feel that something good is happening inside us. It is not strange that we associate memories of magical moments with music. It is the power of sound, which can be used as a medicine.
WHAT IS A SOUND BATH?
Many yoga rooms, spas and alternative therapy centers offer sound baths as an experience of relaxation and deep reconnection with oneself. They are performed with traditional wind and percussion instruments that cause vibrations and resonances in the body.
With your eyes closed, the sounds of gongs or singing bowls create a space around you. You feel as if you were inside a cave made up of layers of sounds, some closer and others farther away. You can perceive how the vibrations reach and resonate in the brain and the entire body.
HOW DO YOU TAKE A SOUND BATH?
The mind and body have to remain relaxed to receive the impact of the deep, resonant vibrations of metal or crystal bowls, bells, gongs or tuning forks. It is not unusual for emotions that had been contained to emerge during a sound bath. It can, therefore, help process complicated emotions.
Sound baths can be done alone or in a group. Live sound is always more effective than a recording and, on the other hand, as in meditation, when the experience is shared it is usually deeper. The atmosphere created by the therapist and the commitment to the other members of the group – we are not going to get up to do something else – encourage us to let ourselves be carried away and enveloped by the sounds.
BENEFITS OF THE SOUND BATH
A study at the University of California in San Diego, led by Dr. Tamara Goldsby, found that a sound bath with Tibetan bowls can reduce anxiety, fatigue and depression.
In another research from the University of Foggia (Italy), the authors asked whether the low frequencies that predominate in sound baths can have a direct effect on the body. They concluded that they act on the endocrine system and the central nervous system and are capable of inducing relaxation and analgesia, so much so that they are useful in preparing for surgical operations. Their study confirmed the effect on pain perception, heart rate, blood pressure and other vital signs. But the effects may go much further.
SOUND MODIFIES THE STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Sound has always been used to cause changes in the state of consciousness, says doctor and researcher Elvira Brattico, from Aarhus University. Sound baths rich in harmonics lead to a positive and relaxing experience because “they allow you to detach yourself from the cognitive part of the brain.”
The sounds that create an immersive and repetitive soundscape activate the so-called “default neural network”, a set of brain regions that collaborate with each other and are responsible for much of the activity developed while the mind is at rest. This activation causes a pleasant experience that takes us away from tension, and explains why we don’t want the sound bath to end.
Exposing yourself to sounds is a meditative practice, which helps to disconnect from the mind and connect with the body and the subconscious. Sound can take us very far. While listening to Hindu mantras, Gregorian chants or those of Tibetan monks, you can achieve spiritual experiences. Sound baths can be used simply to relax and emerge refreshed from a session or, in the context of a spiritual tradition, to move closer to enlightenment.