wellness / Health
Good Vibrations
Bringing Balance to the Body through Sound
by Jennifer Weintraub
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are the first known culture to use sound to heal, with the didgeridoo dating back at least 1,500 years. Tibetans are known for their singing bowls and gongs, while Chinese traditions used chanting mantras as healing prayers. Ancient Egyptian and Greek cultures used musical instruments and chants to heal various ailments. But, it wasn’t until the late 20th century that sound healing made its way into Western mainstream culture. WHAT IS A SOUND BATH? A sound bath immerses the body with vibrations of sound from crystal bowls, gongs, tuning forks, chimes and other musical instruments to create a relaxing meditative experience. Participants are invited to get comfortable with pillows, bolsters and/or blankets. Sound therapy uses seven crystal bowls that play into the seven chakra energy sources in our body. Each bowl and instrument have a different note and resonate at
a particular frequency, which is used to stimulate and open the energy centers. These frequencies, often known as the Solfeggio Frequencies, date back centuries. BENEFITS OF SOUND THERAPY Just as certain music brings on an emotional response or crashing waves will have a calming effect, sound plays a huge role in our body’s physiological response. Sound therapy allows the body to relax into a more restful state by lowering anxiety, slowing the heart rate, reducing blood pressure and relieving muscle tension. The vibrations of sound can move the nervous system from the sympathetic state, which controls fight or flight response, into the parasympathetic state, known as the rest and digest response. When the body is constantly anxious and stressed, the brain reacts from an emotionally triggered state. By breaking that response, individuals can access their logical brain, which allows for a
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Photos Courtesy of JENNIFER WEINTRAUB
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ound is a powerful energetic force that has been used for healing throughout history. Ideally, our energy centers would exist in harmony, but daily build-up of stress and anxiety throw the body out of alignment. Sound therapy aims to restore internal rhythms by using tonal frequencies in order to recalibrate the body’s energy and emotions back into a balanced state. Kayla Weber, a certified sound healer based in Vail, explains that every organ and bone in the human body generates its own unique resonant frequency. When the body’s frequencies interact with the frequencies in the world around it, it can have a strengthening or dampening effect. Intentional sound vibrations can realign our internal systems on a cellular level to promote health and well-being in the mind and body. For centuries, cultures around the world have tapped into the healing power of sound. The Aboriginal people in Australia
