The Healing Aspects of Sound and Music

Music is a powerful tool that speaks to our souls and can help release and transform emotions when words are not enough. Music improves symptom management, embodies hope for survival, and helps connect to a pre-illness self. Music can also help to access memories of loss and trauma. Almost everyone has experienced music, but focusing on this purposefully, can be a healing modality. Different music arouses different feelings in the listener. Think about how even different pieces in the same genre of music can make you feel. Why do we choose to experience the emotions roused by music? To help us clear our own?

One study of adult cancer patients compared two sessions of interactive music making with a music therapist to two sessions that involved listening to pre-recorded music of choice without the presence of a therapist. Before and after each session, participants reported on their mood, anxiety, relaxation, and pain. The interactive experience of making music was preferred by the majority of the participants, but interestingly, the music therapy group and passive listening group both resulted in improvement of symptoms and emotional expression. Those working with music making reported tapping into inner resources such as playfulness and creativity.

Music is used in conjunction with other therapeutic modalities, like massage, guided imagery and energy medicine, to facilitate relaxation and a deeper healing experience.

Sound Healing

Sound has been used as a healing tool for thousands of years, including many ancient civilizations and modern indigenous cultures. Sound healing is founded on the premise that all matter is vibrating at specific frequencies, and is based on the principle of entrainment through vibration. Sound healing may be defined as the educated and conscious use of the energy of sound to reach identified goals and promote wellness in the human system.

Sound affects all systems in the body through a set rhythm and frequency. A wide range of techniques utilize sound as a tool for change. The most basic use of sound is for meditation and relaxation. Chanting, for example, is a powerful method for resonating sound throughout the body. Nature sounds and certain instruments also have specific healing frequencies.

Try This

Bring music or healing sounds to the hospital or chemo/radiation sessions to decrease anxiety with hospital procedures.

Use for relaxation and pain reduction, shifting mood, engaging your creative self, or as an adjunct to meditation, writing, or art therapy.

Music is a wonderful tool for social gatherings and support groups to uplift or facilitate needed grieving.

Use headphones and your favorite music whenever needed.

You can listen to a 90 second sample of crystal bowl sound healing by Tryshe Dhevney here