As sound healing becomes more popular, more and more people are starting to experiment with it. You have people learning how to chant, listening to specific frequencies, and using singing bowls. It’s not just those of us who are interested in spirituality and New Age concepts that are looking into this ancient Eastern knowledge, but scientists as well, studying these sounds and how they affect the body.
Though sound healing is only now beginning to enter into the mainstream, it’s been used as an ancient healing modality for many centuries in different religions. Even scientists such as Nikola Tesla and Albert Einstein spoke of the importance of viewing everything in terms of vibration, energy, and frequency.
“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”
– Nikola Tesla
Science has proven that everything is made up of energy and that everything holds its own vibration and frequency, which can then be increased or decreased. One person’s vibration that they’re emitting can then affect another person’s energy, and science has proven this interrelation through studying quantum mechanics and our electromagnetic fields or auras. You can read more about the research The HeartMath Institute is conducting on the heart’s aura and how we affect other people here.
With that logic, since sounds also hold their own frequency, wouldn’t it make sense that a specific sound’s frequency would affect that of our own?
The Science Behind Sound Healing
Dr. Herbert Benson, professor, author, cardiologist, and founder of Harvard’s Mind/Body Medical Institute, studied how sound healing, specifically mantric chanting, can help induce the Relaxation Response. The Relaxation Response is defined as an individual’s ability to prompt their body to release chemicals and brain signals that cause muscles to relax, respiration to slow, and blood pressure to drop.
The Relaxation Response can reduce symptoms of IBS and counteract the physiological changes of stress and the fight or flight response, including muscle tension, headache, upset stomach, racing heartbeat, and shallow breathing.
Dr. Ranjie Singh, a neuroscientist, writer, businessman, and global educator, found that chanting specific mantras releases the hormone melatonin, and this in turn offers many benefits, including tumour shrinkage and enhanced sleep.
Chanting has been found to oxygenate the brain, reduce heart rate, improve blood pressure, and calm brainwave activity. It can even cause the left and right hemispheres of the brain to synchronize.
Jonathan Goldman, American author, musician, and teacher in the fields of harmonics and sound healing, says:
Dr. Alfred Tomatis has utilized the sounds of Gregorian Monks to stimulate the ears, brain and nervous systems of clients. His work is very important with regard to the scientific and medical uses of sound and chant. He found that certain sounds that are particularly high in vocal harmonics will stimulate and charge the cortex of the brain and the nervous system. Some years ago, there was a very popular recording of Gregorian chanting that occurred just when this research was being made public. I know that many other types of chanting from different traditions have very similar effects. These are just a few of the hard physical phenomenon of mantric chanting that have been observed. There certainly are others, as well.
Another study performed in 2006 looked at the effects of transcendental meditation (TM), a form of meditation whereby the practitioner continuously repeats a mantra or chants, and concluded that TM can improve blood pressure and cardiac autonomic nervous system tone and decrease risk of coronary heart disease.
A series of experiments conducted by neuro-electric therapy engineer Dr. Margaret Patterson and Dr. Ifor Capel revealed how alpha brainwaves boosted the production of serotonin. Dr. Capel explained:
[A]s far as we can tell, each brain center generates impulses at a specific frequency based on the predominant neurotransmitter it secretes. In other words, the brain’s internal communication system—its language, if you like—is based on frequency… Presumably, when we send in waves of electrical energy at, say, 10 Hz, certain cells in the lower brain stem will respond because they normally fire within that frequency range.
Additional research upholds the beliefs of mind-body medicine in this sense, stating that brainwaves being in the Alpha state, 8 to 14 Hz, permits a vibration allowing for more serotonin to be created.
Why You Should Consider Listening to A=432 HZ Music
Most music worldwide has been tuned to A=440 Hz since the International Standards Organization (ISO) promoted it in 1953. However, when looking at the vibratory nature of the universe, it’s possible that this pitch isn’t actually harmonious with the natural resonance of nature and may generate negative effects on human behaviour and consciousness.
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