What is Sound Healing and what is a Sound Meditation?
Healing vs Meditation
What’s your role in someone’s healing process?
Ego vs. Humility
Victimhood vs. Empowerment
Blaming vs. Ownership
The Yoga of Sound = “Nada Yoga”
Sound travels in the body through fluid currents, nadis
Nad = vibrate or resonate
The nadis provide a network for sound transmission and the syllabic sound of mantra serves to amplify vibratory rhythms throughout the body.
Paraspanda the “Supreme Vibration” lies at the source of all life and tonal coherence through Nada Yoga brings about greater mind-body integration
Benefits of working with Sound:
Quiets the mind
Stress relief
Encourages receivers to disengage from emotional, mental, and physical habitual patterns
Access and release traumas
Establish a state of resonance
Triggering and enhancing the ability to dream
Empowers cognitive change
Holding space for inner transformation
Awareness and consciousness expansion
Transcendental and psychedelic states through sound
Active participation meditation
Active listening, processing, diaphragmatic breathing
Sound Meditation - no singing or speaking
Shamanic Sound Journey - singing songs or guided meditation
Sound meditations promote healing and calming through a participants engagement in the process, as the practitioner you facilitate the space, the participant chooses healing or not.
Brainwave Entrainment:
When the wave of one thing affects another.
Entrainment is the process by which two or more independent rhythmic systems synchronize with each other.
EX of Entrainment: women’s menstrual cycles synching up, heart rate adjusting to music tempo, etc, circadian rhythms aligning with day/night cycles, etc.
In Sound Meditation you can use the drum or bowls ½ a step a part to create a binaural beat (E&F) (D&D#) (B&C)
Binaural Beats:
2 different frequencies in each ear
Our brain creates the difference between 2 frequencies, if one is 10 and the other is 5, the difference is 5 and your brain creates a new frequency
Isochronic Tones:
One singular tone
Works by pulsing the same frequency and the brain switches it on or off
Brainwave Frequencies:
Delta (0.5-4 Hz): Deep sleep
Theta (4-8 Hz): Meditation, creativity
Alpha (8-13 Hz): Relaxation, light meditation
Beta (13-30 Hz): Alert, focused
Gamma (30-100 Hz): High-level information processing
Bija Mantras
Bija Mantra is a one-syllable seed sound for each chakra and by intoning each sound the “Flower essence” of each chakra blooms. Each chakra symbol includes a lotus and as you move from Root to Crown the number of petals increases
Root Chakra, Muladhara: LAM
Sacral Chakra, Swadisthana: VAM
Solar Plexus, Manipura: RAM
Heart Chakra, Anahata: YAM
Throat Chakra, Vishuddha: HAM
3rd Eye, Ajna: OM
Crown, Sahasrara: AUM or AH
Science of Sound
Vagus Nerve or the Wandering Nerve
The longest cranial nerve, running from the brain through the face and thorax to the abdomen. It's a key part of the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps control relaxation, digestion, and other "rest and digest" functions.
Responsible for restoring relaxation after stress/danger response (sympathetic nervous system is activated)
Possible effects of a Sound Meditation on the Vagus Nerve:
Auditory stimulation: The sounds can directly stimulate the auricular branch of the vagus nerve in the ear.
Relaxation response: The calming nature of a sound meditation can trigger the parasympathetic nervous system, of which the vagus nerve is a major component.
Resonance and vibration: Low-frequency sounds may create vibrations that can be felt in the body, potentially stimulating the vagus nerve.
Breathing changes: Sound meditations often lead to slower, deeper breathing, which can stimulate the vagus nerve.
Stress reduction: By lowering stress levels, sound meditations may reduce inflammation, a process partly regulated by the vagus nerve.
Mindfulness: The focused attention during a sound meditation may enhance vagal tone.
Heart rate variability: Sound experiences can influence heart rate variability, which is linked to vagus nerve activity.
Initiation Invitation:
Find a Binaural Beat recording and sit in meditation following how your brain responds to the frequencies.
Consider how your brain creates the difference in frequency and then consider how your brain creates stories, patterns, and responses to situations. Start to learn the moment your brain switches into another gear and get curious about that.
Journal about your experience.