The Science of Sound Therapy
Sound therapy has long been used to manage a broad range of health conditions. The treatments are based on the understanding that all forms of matter – including our body’s cells – vibrate at different frequencies. Factors such as stress, depression and disease cause cells and organs within our bodies to vibrate at non-optimal frequencies (Mindworks).
Dr Leonard G. Horowitz talks about how the frequencies of the sound of love (528nm/Hz) can explain miraculous healings of patients. Sound therapy helps to divide the normal landscape of every day life and focus it. The normal web of acoustic every day life is the compression of mechanic sounds, humming of electrical equipment, highways and an accumulation of various sounds that affect the body. Dr Horowitz has explained in his article that ‘genetic signals of sound and light compel physical restoration through a programmed biofield.’ He goes on to say that ‘musical mathematics’ energizes negatively charged ions that prompt the miraculous healings.
Sound is not something we just hear, it is a realm of waveforms with particular frequencies and amplitudes swirling with harmonic resonance, and it penetrates our bodies (Healing with Sound, Case Adams). Sounds arise from consciousness as the landscape of the sound of nature is examined, and it has intention. The bodies of different animals have different mechanisms for picking up sounds, such as the human ear which is tuned to hear from twenty to 20,000 hertz. People who are deaf can interpret sound physically, such as the vibration of the floor to indicate that people are approaching. A deaf person can be trained to understand the emotions of a person by feeling the vibrations of their walking and once these vibrations intersect with the rhythmic body, they can be converted to cortical perception just as sound waves or visual waves might (Healing with Sound, Case Adams).
In a gong bath, the waveforms of the sound are transmitted to the body of the person so that they can expect various workings on their cells, and their DNA. For thousands of years, gongs have been used in Shamanic practice, and recent science has verified the use of sound healing to work on a variety of ailments including depression and anxiety.
Gongs were used as far back as 4000 B.C. Healthline says that using sound as a form of healing dates back to ancient cultures. Records of using gongs have surfaced from as early as ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman times.
“Gongs have been used as shamanic healing tools, celebratory instruments, and a method of communication for thousands of years. Evidence suggests that gong making was known as early as 4,000 B.C. and ancient alchemy sources put the gong as far back as 16,000 B.C.,” says sound healing practitioner Britta Hochkeppel.
A gong bath is so called because it like lying in a bath of water, but the participant lies on a yoga mat covered by a blanket, and is enveloped in the sound waves of the gong, in a passive meditation. The gong bath operates at different frequencies depending on which gong and how it is played by the shamanic practitioner. It is used to offer pain relief, emotional release and relaxation. Gong baths offer a therapeutic modality that can be a safe and complementary therapy for those going through various treatments and possessing different ailments.
Gong baths are offered in either a group setting or individually and can last from 45 minutes to two hours. Typically the participant will experience a deef form of relaxation and calm while listening and meditating on the sounds. Clients who have experienced a gong bath describe it as giving them feelings of exuberance and serenity, and describe it as helping with their various conditions, both physical and mental.