What is Sound Therapy/ Healing ...

Full body immersion in music or in specific sound frequencies (as distinct from listening with headphones), activates several beneficial biological mechanisms, four of which are briefly summarised as follows: 

 

• Enhances nitric oxide (NO) production through active and passive acoustic stimulation of the sinus cavities and lungs by specific sound frequencies and music, resulting in a broad range of health benefits.

 

• Promotes pain mediation through stimulation of the body’s large A-beta fibres or A-alpha fibres in the area experiencing pain, thus causing the pain ‘gate’ to close.  

 

• Increases the availability of oxygen binding to haemoglobin molecules by low frequency sound pressure, thus breaking the pain-spasm-pain cycle or ‘splinting cycle’ by increasing the availability of oxygen to affected tissues.

 

• Activates the meridian system, via ‘sonopuncture’, with many health benefits, including pain mediation and anxiety mediation.

 

• Promotes stress reduction with consequent reduction in blood pressure and cortisol levels, and induces a state of joy with consequent increase in dopamine levels, leading to a proliferation of leukocytes, thus boosting immune system efficiency.

 

• The vagus nerve is stimulated, thus regulating internal organ functions, including digestion, heart rate and respiratory rate, as well as promoting vasomotor activity and anti-inflammatory effects. Specific very low (sub audible) frequencies may also be applied by full ear headphones, combined with music.

 

Brief Western History of Sound Therapy

Several ancient cultures used the seemingly magical power of sound to heal, but sound therapy had almost disappeared in the West until 1927 when Professor R. Wood and his assistant, Loomis, discovered ultrasound—high frequency sound—and its medical properties. With this discovery, research burgeoned and it is now established fact that ultrasound has powerful medical properties including its use in breaking up kidney stones and even shrinking tumours. In hospitals and sports injury clinics, in all parts of the world, therapeutic ultrasound is used to support or accelerate the healing of soft tissues and broken bones.

Audible sound is intrinsically safe and cannot be “overdosed,” while ultrasound, if not properly applied, can cause severe internal burning.

In the 1960s, English osteopath, Dr. Peter Guy Manners, developed a Cymatic Therapy device that proved to be effective for the support of a wide range of ailments. The name of his device was inspired by the work of Dr. Hans Jenny, the Swiss medical doctor who coined the word “cymatics” to mean visible sound. John Stuart Reid interviewed Dr Manners at his clinic in Bretforton. England, and learned that the frequencies used in his cymatic device were the result of research carried out by a team of German physicists employed under the Nazi regime. An elderly German physicist gifted research documents to Dr Manners in the late 1940’s, following the end of World War II.

 

In 1997, during acoustics experiments in the Great Pyramid, what seemed like a miracle occurred. John Stuart Reid had walked (or more accurately crawled) into the pyramid in severe pain, due to a back injury sustained three weeks earlier, but within 20-minutes of beginning acoustics experiments, which involved making sound in the King’s Chamber, all the pain left him. It never came back. So began his 20+ year quest to discover how he was seemingly miraculously healed.

Example of modern sound therapy

At Riuniti hospital in Ancona, Italy, neurosurgeon, Dr. Roberto Trignani performed an operation to remove a double tumour in the spinal cord of a ten-year-old boy, while molecular biologist and pianist, Emiliano Toso, played a grand piano in the operating theatre.

Monitoring the boy’s brain activity via an encephalogram, suggested that the boy perceived the music. Dr. Toso said, “We tried stopping then restarting the music, noticing the patient’s response. Despite the fact that the boy was under total anaesthesia, his brain appeared to perceive the music and this was very exciting.” Dr. Trignani, head of the neurosurgery unit of Riuniti Hospital, commented, “Everything went well, there were no complications and there was a magical atmosphere of complete harmony in the Operating Room”.

 

Brief Ancient History of Sound Therapy

Aboriginals

The Aboriginal people of Australia are reported to have used their “yidaki” (modern name, didgeridoo) as a healing tool for thousands of years and one tradition holds that its primordial sound created the world and everything in it. Stories passed down through many generations of their culture tell of healing broken bones, muscle tears and many kinds of illnesses using their enigmatic musical instrument. Some studies of the benefits of playing the yidaki instrument have been conducted, one of which is a paper in the Journal of Rural Health concluded that yidaki playing alleviated the symptoms of asthma in school children. Another study, reported in the British Medical Journal, concluded that it helped sleep apnea.

Egyptians

The Egyptians built sanatoria (hospitals) in all major towns and there is some evidence that one of their methods of healing involved sound, since the mere sounds of words was considered a potent and creative force in Egypt, as noted by R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz, in his book Sacred Science.  Apart from their known use of vocal sound and conventional musical instruments such as the drum, harp, flute, lyre and tambourine, the Egyptians also employed ‘sistra’, a type of rattle with metal discs, which emit significant levels of ultrasound in the 40 to 60 kHz range. The Dendera Sanatorium features small healing chambers that would have had excellent reverberate qualities due to their parallel facing walls and flat stone surfaces, in which instruments such as the sistra could have been used to good effect. Such small chambers would have had similar acoustics to modern day tiled bathrooms. Each healing chamber featured a basin containing water that had been poured over a statue of one of their healing gods, charging the water with healing energies, which was then imbibed.

Acoustics research conducted by John Stuart Reid strongly suggests that the Egyptians designed their chapels to be reverberant in order to enhance sonic-based ceremonies; the chapels at Deir el-Bahari, where the sick made pilgrimage, have strong reverberant qualities and therefore it seems reasonable to hypothesise that sistra and other musical instruments, along with vocalisations, played a significant role as a healing modality in such healing chapels.

Therapeutic ultrasound has been used in hospitals and sports injury clinics, worldwide, for decades to accelerate healing of soft tissue following major physical traumas, even though the underlying biological mechanisms are poorly understood.  It seems possible that the ancient Egyptians utilized the therapeutic qualities of ultrasound thousands of years before it was re-discovered by western medicine. The fact that the ancient Egyptians had experimented with the design of musical instruments for millennia does not in itself imply a focus on controlling the acoustic environment in their sacred spaces, but many textual indicators suggest that reverberance in their temple chambers was desirable, perhaps even essential for their rituals.

Indian Culture

The Indian culture also has a long and rich history of using sound for healing illness, stretching back around 3,500 years. In the Vedic period, (1500-600 BCE) specific mantra chants were prescribed for specific maladies. The Ayurvedic practitioner was called “vaidya”, meaning a person of profound knowledge, who held a magical power over gods through their mantras, using this power for healing purposes.

 

Sound Therapy/Healing spans thousands of years, the history and knowledge of this phenomenon is far too extensive for me to list here.

I implore you to do your own research if you would like to know more about this truly fascinating subject.

 

Sources:

https://cymascope.com/sound-therapy-101/

https://cymascope.com/sound-therapy-201/

International Sound Therapy Association. http://istasounds.org/about-us/about/

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-hospital-piano-idUSKBN27X2HU