Sound therapy is an ancient healing technique that can enhance relaxation and promote the natural healing process. Here, industry experts discuss the physical, emotional and spiritual benefits of offering sound therapies at your spa.
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Sound therapy is an ancient healing technique that can enhance relaxation and promote the natural healing process. Here, industry experts discuss the physical, emotional and spiritual benefits of offering sound therapies at your spa.
How does sound therapy benefit the body?
Kathleen Haden, CEO of Good Vibrations Music Co.: There are many benefits of sound therapy, including stress relief, improved sleep, lowered blood pressure, better pain management, reduced risks of stroke and heart disease, and much more.
Nikki Miller, director of Kohler Waters Spas (Global): Sound therapy is an ancient healing technique. It utilizes audible frequencies to bring the body to a harmonious and relaxed state by slowing down the brain waves and activating internal self-healing. A person’s mental and physical state are intrinsically connected, so when the emotional state undergoes a healing process, the physical body follows and vice versa. Sound therapy can reduce chronic pain, lower blood pressure, relieve headaches and migraines, aid digestion and improve sleep tremendously.
The Team at Earthlite: Sound and music enhance and support relaxation, restorative sleep and the natural healing process. Therapists in the fields of vibrational medicine, music, sound and acoustic resonance therapy are finding that sound and music can help with insomnia, pain management, stress and anxiety. Sound therapies can also calm patients during painful procedures, increase movement and flexibility, improve mental and emotional clarity, and ease muscular tension.
Kristen N.M. Johnson, BSN, RN, LE, owner of The Eclipse Spa, Westminster, Maryland: There are several observational studies that reflect the physical benefits of sound therapy, including lowered tension throughout the body and less mental fatigue. In my practice, patients often report feelings of deep relaxation and stress reduction.
What spiritual or emotional benefits does sound therapy offer?
Adora Winquist, founder and CEO, The Soul Institute for Quantum Living: Einstein believed the music of Mozart “was so pure that it seemed to have been ever-present in the universe…” We now know the many cognitive benefits of classical music, including boosting brain function. Tibetan and crystal bowl sound baths can create delightful harmonies that move from relaxation into deeper brainwave states. You can further pthis experience by engaging multiple senses, like providing aromatherapy to engage the limbic system, which regulates mood, memory and emotion, and will anchor the experience in the brain and body, holistically.
Alex Casillas, yoga instructor, The Well Spa at Miramonte, Indian Wells, California: The emotional and spiritual benefits of sound therapy are many. We can practice deep listening, and recalibrate system parts within the soma and psyche. Sound therapy opens the door to the rotation of consciousness; it has melodies that are simple, tonal configurations that reflect a sacred unity with nature and have the power to heal. They are intuitive medicine, melodies that come to us as spontaneous transmissions. They’re found in all traditions around the world: lullabies, Gregorian chants, Hebrew prayers, mantras, ragas, Tibetan ritual prayers, zhikrs of the Sufis, Buddhist sutras and tantric chants, indigenous songs like icaros and healing songs from Africa and the Americas.
Earthlite: Feeling the natural harmonies of the music resonate through the body and mind simultaneously provides a more holistic sensory integration experience that eases mental and emotional stress, thus soothing the soul and setting the stage for a deeper, more regenerative and integrative relaxing experience. Music and nature sounds have been used throughout the ages to calm the body and mind simultaneously.
Miller: Sound therapy provides vast emotional healing benefits by balancing the chakras, energy centers within the body known to regulate emotions. Vibration and sound therapy reinvigorate the chakras to realign the mind, body and spirit. In addition to being extremely relaxing, the most common benefits include reduced stress, anxiety and depression. Many individuals who experience sound therapy feel a calm, happy and a renewed sense of well-being.
How can spas add sound therapy into their programming?
Johnson: Sound therapy is an incredible modality that blends well with many spa services for an incredibly immersive experience. There are several academies that offer initial training. Often, sound therapy begins with a single instrument in the treatment room and grows from there. At The Eclipse Spa, we often pair Starry Night Sound Baths with facials, reiki, massages and spa retreats. It also complements our Recovery Lounger, which includes hot stones, PEMF, negative ion therapy and far-infrared therapy, as well.
Haden: Spas can incorporate singing bowls, tuning forks, frequency-infused music and vibrational products. Regardless of the tools, the most important thing is the practitioner’s intention; when frequencies are added, it creates healing.
Casillas: Spas can weave sound therapy into their body-mind practices and offerings. I suggest adding a sound therapist to the team and also providing space for clients to vocalize what’s in their body. Normalize sighing, moaning and singing during therapy sessions. Another beautiful way to incorporate sound is by offering sound baths, personalized treatments and workshops, or honorably adding soundscapes—with sound therapy instruments or recordings of healing mantras—that can be played in the lobby.
Earthlite: Acoustic resonators can be added as a stand-alone or integrated treatment. Spas and wellness clients are increasingly seeking unattended, effective experiences to augment traditional spa, medical and beauty services.
What are your top tools?
Johnson: My array of ambient harmonizing instruments includes a deep breath gong, bright alchemy bowls, meditative crystal singing bowls, shakers, ocean drums, waterfall chimes, soft pala seed chimes, purifying tingsha bells, a lotus drum and a large selection of tuning forks. It would be impossible for me to pick a favorite! I just love the balance that these tools create together throughout the body.
Miller: Many of our services include audible and vibrational elements to enhance the physical benefits of a treatment. One of our most popular treatments, the Vibrational Sound treatment incorporates traditional, hand-hammered Himalayan singing bowls to guide the rhythm of a full-body application of CBD oil; this promotes total relaxation and realign the chakras. Singing bowls are excellent tools that can be added to various treatment offerings to enhance relaxation, including massages, facials, hydrotherapy and more.
Singing bowls are my favorite tool for sound therapy because the vibrations are so effective for guiding individuals into a meditative state that is conducive to emotional healing. Singing bowls create a variety of tones and frequencies, each with a different purpose, which makes this tool very customizable.
Casillas: In this current time of globalization, we can go online and have instant access to sacred instruments from the Himalayas or Amazon forests—those used by shamans, healers or monks that are typically culturally appropriated. It is very important to honor the lineages of the tools used during sound therapy and to have a connection with those tools.
For me, the voice is my favorite tool for sound therapy because it comes from within, is authentic and is accessible. Voice is the embodied expression of the soul. Like asana yoga postures, using our voices can become a practice that we do regularly as a way to tune ourselves. It has been recorded that certain mantras and healing chants have been recited every day by someone in the world for the past 3,000 years.
I have the privilege of playing drones and have access to the instrument known as the shruti box, which originates from India and beautifully accompanies songs, chants and mantras. In terms of shape and practicality, I love tingshas from Tibet because they are small and quite cute, but energetically they clear up space with their high frequencies, which is what I imagine fairies sound like.
Winquist: As a facilitator, my favorite tool in either private or group sessions is the use of toning. Very early in my career as a healer, I would find myself guided to tone specific harmonics into the chakras. The response of my clients and students has been profound. Toning accelerates the process of clearing energy blockages and establishing greater harmony in the physical, emotional and spiritual body. It is similar to taking a high speed elevator to the top floor of a building, rather than taking numerous stairs.
Haden: I personally prefer bowls, forks and our Sonic Immersion Table to create sound healing sessions based on clients’ needs. The table can be a stand-alone treatment or used in conjunction with another service to bring someone back into coherence and harmony. We also do concerts using all types of tools for a fully immersive experience. I love it all!
