How can sound help us to heal?

How can sounds help us to heal? It’s true that practitioners of sound healing and music therapy use the power of sound to heal themselves and their patients. It’s also equally accurate to say that the person being healed is actually manipulating their own mind and body using music as a tool to increase their own sense of happiness and well-being. People can use music and sound to deeply move themselves, reaching hidden depths of emotion and affecting themselves in countless different ways that are beneficial to their health.

How does this work? There is a lot of literature available on what’s really happening when we listen to sounds. Topics range from vibrations affecting our energy body to sounds realigning our chakras – for now, let’s just focus on the more basic, immediate details. What’s happening in your brain when you listen to music you like?

Music has been conclusively proven to release dopamine in receptive listeners. Dopamine is the substance in the brain that allows us to feel happiness, pleasure and excitement – the ability to produce this feeling at will without resorting to narcotic solutions makes both music and sound powerful tools in cultivating happiness and well-being in an instant.

While an estimated 3-5% of the world’s population suffer from musical anhedonia and are incapable of feeling a strong emotional reaction to music, the vast majority of us are able to use music as a tool to immediately relax our muscles, our mind, alleviate symptoms of pain and depression. There are countless benefits to practicing sound healing on yourself, or treating yourself to session with a therapist or a healer. Music can bring us to tears in instants, releasing emotional pain and trauma, soothing negative feelings. With the advent of music technology bringing music to almost every aspect of modern life, it can be easy to take music for granted and overlook its potent healing effects.

There are many studies demonstrating that music can alleviate physical pain. Patients are capable of distracting themselves from the experience of pain by focusing on music that moves them, manipulating their own body to a superior state of well-being. Other studies demonstrate that music is an effective method of reducing stress and anxiety.

The beauty of sound healing is that it empowers so many people to heal themselves using something that they love. You don’t need to be a singer or a musician – playing a gong that resonates with you, using singing bowls and tingsha cymbals, chanting, and even listening to your own favourite music whether it was designed with sound therapy in mind or not – these are things that just about anyone can do for themselves to great benefit if they are receptive to the sounds being produced.

Yes, a sound healer can work absolute wonders on your mental and physical state if you can manage to get a session with one – but music is something that can be used daily in the meantime to positively reinforce your mental well-being on your own as well.Traditional sound healing instruments produce powerful resonances, but some people will be just as helped by jazz, pop, mantras – different things will benefit different people according to their taste. Music is a key – finding the right key for you can be a fun and empowering journey that will unlock deep wells of emotion and inner peace.

At the end of the day, the question is one of personal taste and association. Are you someone who is deeply moved by sound and music? If you are, then you are capable of using these sounds to alter your mood and increase your own well-being. Many of you, of course, don’t need me to tell you that! You share a deep connection with music and use it all the time to change the way you feel and increase your happiness.

However, being bombarded by music constantly as we so often are in modern society can unfortunately result in us tuning it out over time. So, there are many more people who could use a gentle reminder that music is a truly powerful tool that you likely have easy access to. Music was created and passed on through the passion of our ancestors as a means to experience and connect with strong, powerful emotions - don’t forget to use it wisely!