Sound Therapy
Sound Therapy, through various techniques and technologies, is the educated and conscious use of the energy of sound to reach identified goals and promote wellness in the human system. Sound Therapy is founded on the premise that all matter is vibrating at specific frequencies. Science has proven that sound, or vibration, has a strong impact upon substance. For example, the study of Cymatics has shown how sound creates geometric patterns in matter. Many ancient civilizations and modern indigenous cultures have used sound to heal and access higher levels of consciousness for thousands of years.
There are a wide range of techniques that utilize sound as a tool for healing and health. The most common and basic use of sound is for meditation and relaxation. Chanting, toning and overtone singing are some of the most powerful methods for resonating sound throughout the body. The use of nature sounds and natural instruments, such as crystal bowls and tuning forks, have specific healing frequencies and harmonics.
Drumming and rhythm are now used by corporations to release stress and build team consciousness. Sound is now being using by clinical psychologists to help children with certain learning disabilities. Binaural beat frequencies are used to entrain people into very specific states of consciousness. Sound is used to alter brainwave states to help people with sleep disorders and facilitate creative expression.
Sound and music are also used to help with difficult life transitions, including birth and death. The medical community also uses sound and music in a variety of applications such as during surgery to relieve pain.
Music has always been recognized as having a powerful effect on human consciousness. But in the past few years, there has been more research into the science of sound, and how it can be used to improve our lives. We are learning why different kinds of music and sounds have the effects that they do on the body, emotions, mind, and spirit.
Ancient Sound Healing Traditions
Many ancient cultures recognize the importance of music and sound as a healing power.
*The Tibetans still use bells, chimes, bowls, and chanting as the foundation of their spiritual practice.
*In Indonesian traditional thinking, the Gamelan is sacred and is believed to have supernatural power. The Gamelan, gong and drum are used in ceremonies to uplift and send messages.
*The Australian Aboriginals and Native American shamanism use vocal toning and repetitive sound vibration with instruments created from nature in sacred ceremony to adjust any imbalance of the spirit, emotions or physical being.
*In Ancient Egypt, the Priests knew how to use vowel sounds to resonate their energy centers or chakras. There is a direct link between different parts of the body and specific sounds.
Binaural Beats
Binaural beats are created when two tones are detuned from each other by a small amount. For example, if you have a tone generator creating 60 hertz and another one putting out 67.83 hertz you will hear the difference between the two tones which is 7.83 hertz (which is the Schumann Resonance - the resonant frequency of the earth's atmosphere between the earth and the ionosphere). When you have two speakers playing the two different frequencies simultaneously, the two sounds cancel each other out as they physically meet in space. However, when you wear headphones, the two sounds never meet, as the physical brain is in the way. In order to make reality consistent, our brain creates a third frequency on its own. Because the frequency in the left ear goes to the right brain, and the frequency in the right ear goes to the left brain, this third frequency created by the brain connects the two sides of the brain. When this occurs, the Corpus Collossum, which functions to connect the two sides of the brain, lights up. When the left and right sides of the brain are connected you are operating at your highest potential. Therefore, we commonly use binaural beats in headphones to synchronize the brain and light up the Corpus Collossum. The healing music and mediation/visualization music that is available in the Medicine Yoga store uses binaural beats.
Binaural beats reportedly influence the brain in more subtle ways through the entrainment of brainwaves and can be used to produce relaxation and other health benefits such as pain relief.
The sensation of binaural beats is believed to originate in the superior olivary nucleus, a part of the brain stem. They appear to be related to the brain's ability to locate the sources of sounds in three dimensions and to track moving sounds, which also involves inferior colliculus (IC) neurons. Regarding entrainment, the study of rhythmicity provides insights into the understanding of temporal information processing in the human brain. Auditory rhythms rapidly entrain motor responses into stable steady synchronization states below and above conscious perception thresholds. Activated regions include primary sensorimotor and cingulate areas, bilateral opercular premotor areas, bilateral SII, ventral prefrontal cortex, and, subcortically, anterior insula, putamen, and thalamus. Within the cerebellum, vermal regions and anterior hemispheres ipsilateral to the movement became significantly activated. Tracking temporal modulations additionally activated predominantly right prefrontal, anterior cingulate, and intraparietal regions as well as posterior cerebellar hemispheres. A study of aphasic subjects who had a severe stroke versus normal subjects showed that the aphasic subject could not hear the binaural beats whereas the normal subjects could.
Binaural beats may influence functions of the brain besides those related to hearing. This phenomenon is called frequency following response. The concept is that if one receives a stimulus with a frequency in the range of brain waves, the predominant brain wave frequency is said to be likely to move towards the frequency of the stimulus (a process called entrainment). In addition, binaural beats have been credibly documented to relate to both spatial perception & stereo auditory recognition, and, according to the frequency following response, activation of various sites in the brain.
Perceived human hearing is limited to the range of frequencies from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. Infrasounds - sound below 20Hz - still have scientifically observable effects on humans; however, it is not readily audible, especially at low volume levels. The frequencies of human brain waves are below about 40 Hz. To account for this lack of perception, binaural beat frequencies are used. Beat frequencies of 40 Hz have been produced in the brain with binaural sound and measured experimentally.
When the perceived beat frequency corresponds to the delta, theta, alpha, beta, or gamma range of brainwave frequencies, the brainwaves entrain to or move towards the beat frequency. For example, if a 315 Hz sine wave is played into the right ear and a 325 Hz one into the left ear, the brain is entrained towards the beat frequency (10 Hz, in the alpha range. Since alpha range is associated with relaxation, this has a relaxing effect or if in the beta range, more alertness. An experiment with binaural sound stimulation using beat frequencies in the Beta range on some participants and Delta/Theta range in other participants, found better vigilance performance and mood in those on the awake alert state of Beta range stimulation.
Binaural beat stimulation has been used fairly extensively to induce a variety of states of consciousness, and there has been some work done in regards to the effects of these stimuli on relaxation, focus, attention, and states of consciousness.Studies have shown that with repeated training to close frequency sounds that a plastic reorganization of the brain occurs for the trained frequencies and is capable of asymmetric hemispheric balancing.
Frequency range Name Usually associated with:
> 40 Hz Gamma waves Higher mental activity, including perception, problem solving, fear, and consciousness
13–40 Hz Beta waves Active, busy or anxious thinking and active concentration, arousal, cognition
7–13 Hz Alpha waves Relaxation (while awake), pre-sleep and pre-wake drowsiness
4–7 Hz Theta waves Dreams, deep meditation, REM sleep
< 4 Hz Delta waves Deep dreamless sleep, loss of body awareness