What everyone should know about sound therapy.

 
Are you looking for an easy way to relax and rejuvenate?   Then you're looking for sound therapy! 

What is sound therapy? 
 It is the therapeutic use of sound and music to promote healing. 

What benefits can you expect?

    * Better sleep
    * Reduced stress and its related disorders 
    * Improved mental concentration and creativity

How does it work?
By encouraging your body to resonate at a cellular level, and at a specific frequency, for each gland, organ, system and subtle body.  This helps your body to relax and balance itself, returning to a state of homeostasis and more optimal functioning.    

Why does this happen?
There is an incredible amount of circumstantial and anecdotal evidence supporting the benefits of sound therapy.   Researchers are working to bring this evidence to bear the weight of standard scientific scrutiny.  Below is a sampling of the many areas being investigated:

1.  Our whole universe, including our bodies, is made up a extremely tiny vibrating strings.  This idea is known as string theory and describes our universe as being composed of vibrating filaments (strings) and membranes (branes) of energy.  They vibrate and twist into different shapes, connect together and break apart.   This theory has important implications in modern energy healing arts and its concepts are similar to many ancient healing traditions.    Patricia R. Spadaro has more on the science of energy here:  The Science of Energy

2.  Our cells vary in size, and are giant compared to those theoretical strings.   The Centre for Neuroacoustic Research has studied direct stimulation of living cellular tissue with sound frequency vibration.   Since the human body is over 70% water, and since sound travels 5 times more efficiently through water than through air, sound frequency stimulation directly into the body is a highly efficient means for total body stimulation, especially at a cellular level.   They have also found that sound frequency pulse waves played directly into the body has a profound effect on the nervous system.   Far-reaching possibilities are inherent in using this type of vibrational technology in the areas of massage, energy work, physical healing, emotional release work, hypnosis, stress reduction, relaxation and meditation.

3.  Japanese scientist Masaru Emoto has studied the effects of sound by photographing water crystals.   He plays different kinds of music next to the water samples, then freezes the samples resulting in crystals.  These crystalline structures are remarkably different, depending of the type of music they were exposed to.   To see some of his many beautiful photos click here.

A little mystery

In an age where science is king, we've become gobblers of scientific sound bites, snippets of information fed to us by experts.  This is reductionism -  the reducing of complex systems to the interaction of their parts.   The standard scientific method of objective, peer-reviewed experimentation is reductionism at its best, and it's the bedrock of modern science and medicine.  Reductionism is a great tool.  Using it has rocketed us to the moon, wiped out deadly diseases,  and transplanted a baboon heart into a human.  In fact, it's working so well, it's the only tool we're using.  This is a mistake.   Many doctors working in alternative medicine end up there because they see this mistake first hand.  They come to understand that people are more than a collection of organs, bones and muscles wrapped around a personality.  They reach into their traditional western medicine tool box for help and come up empty-handed.

Thomas Moore, in is book Dark Nights of the Soul spends some time exploring the edges of the known and describes it as  "... the pulling apart of meaning to reveal the mystery."   Mystery.  Isn't this exactly what reductionist science is out to eliminate?  As a practitioner in alternative healing modalities, I see that much of what my clients experience during treatment falls into this category of mystery.  They describe physical sensations like tingling, swirling, pulling or vibration.  They report relief from pain, nausea, headache, tremors, and depression.   When viewed only through the lens of reductionism there is no explanation for these experiences, so it is concluded that the treatment is a sham, and the resulting benefits are just the placebo effect.  (It's interesting and somewhat ironic to note that scientists are currently using reductionism to validate and measure the placebo effect.)

I'm not suggesting we go back to a time when there was nothing but mystery and superstition.  Reductionism has served us well, and will continue to do so.   But it needs to scootch over just a bit , and make room for something else in our collective consciousness.  What should that something else be?  I think, as Thomas Moore suggests, we should all adopt a style of awareness that includes the mysterious and the unexplained.  How about you?  Do you have space for a little mystery in your life?

Energy Healing or the Placebo Effect?

The placebo effect.  Is it just "all in your head"?  Not according to an experiment reported at http://www.physorg.com/news105029324.html.  The experiment, led by Tor Wager, Columbia professor of psychology, found when scientists applied a placebo cream to volunteers’ forearms,  opioid release occurred in brain areas associated with pain relief.    Wager explains: “These results extend our knowledge of how beliefs and expectations affect the brain's neurochemistry and show that one's mental response to a challenge can affect the brain and body in ways that are relevant to health.”

Even the folks at http://www.skepdic.com/placebo.html admit there is something more to the placebo effect than pure psychology.  They report that according to Dr. Walter A. Brown, a psychiatrist at Brown University:    " ...there is certainly data that suggest that just being in the healing situation accomplishes something."  Dr. Brown and others believe that the placebo effect is mainly or purely physical and due to physical changes that promote healing or feeling better. 

Physical changes..... caused by our beliefs....... that result in healing?  How do we tap into this unbelievable power?   Many of us already are!   Practitioners of Reiki, Sound Therapy, Shamballa and other healing energy arts draw on this power during every treatment.  The therapeutic effects are real: opioid release reduces pain; endorphins, cortisol and adrenaline changes result in reduced stress.  Stress reduction prevents or slows further harmful physical changes.   Does this explain everything that happens during an energy treatment?  Absolutely not.  But understanding there is a direct link between our psychology and our physiology is one more tiny step along the path of understanding.

Seeing the Energy of Sound

The science and art of cymatics, a process for making sound waves visible, is demonstrated by Evan Grant.  Cymatics is useful for analyzing complex sounds (like dolphin calls), it also makes complex and beautiful designs.



What does Cymatics mean for energy healing?   According to Biosonics.com cymatic sound patterns help us visualize the behaviors of energy fields.   Energy Medicine practitioners observe physical, emotional, and mental patterns to arrive at an understanding of the energy field that causes those patterns.  When we listen to sound in the right setting it tunes us to a specific vibrational field. Within that energy field our awareness will shift, the tone of our nervous system will change, and the connective tissues throughout our body will vibrate to the sound.  Now there's scientific evidence, found at Sound Therapy Induced Relaxation, showing this sets off a cascading resonance of physiological events causing our cells to rhythmically puff nitric oxide, which then signals the release of the consciousness altering molecules. 

Even without modern scientific evidence the ancients understood the healing benefits of sound.  In ancient Greece music and sounds were played in spiritual temples where people came for healing.   The intervals of Gregorian chants sung in the great churches of Europe were designed to resonate with the physical proportions of the church.  These spiritual spaces were like tuning forks, leading people to higher states of consciousness.

Healing Intentions

Did you imagine a new world on Nov 11th?  If you missed it, you can still be part of the global consciousness.     The New Reality Transmission continues with daily meditation at 11:11 p.m. for the 11 days following Nov 11th.  Just click on the "Heal the Earth" link in the previous post and join in.

Or you can try Jonathan Goldman's "Temple of Sacred Sound".  There are three toning chambers where you can listen to different tones, watch some interesting visuals and meditate on healing the earth.  There's even an option to join in using your own microphone.     Enter the Temple of Sacred Sound

Creating a better future through positive intention.  Let's give it a try!

New Reality Transmission

Heal the Earth on November 11th

This inspirational video invites you to join the New Reality Transmission - a group whose goal is to have one million people across the globe mentally project a unified vision of a new paradigm for our species... a new reality.  The very real physics that connects human consciousness with molecular structure will be harnessed en masse during the largest scale simultaneous manifestation transmission in recorded history.

Can we create a better future by imagining it into reality?  Can we really visualize world peace into existence?  Is it worth a try?

The Science of Energy Healing

Here's a quote from Zhuang Zi's "Inner Chapters" (4th century BCE)

"There must be some primal force,
but it is impossible to locate.
I believe it exists, but cannot see it.
I see its results,
I can even feel it,
but it has no form."

This is a reference to chi, but if you think about it, applies equally today to something we all take for granted - gravity.   Scientists can tell us the effects of gravity, and there are numerous gravitation theories, but no one has found the "gravity particle" or any other energetic evidence of what makes gravity work.   So it's not surprising that science can't really explain the energy healing arts either.  But the information at the following links is a really good start! 

The Human Energy Field

The Science of Energy Healing