What is sound?

There are many definitions for sound. Wikipedia defines sound scientifically as “a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through some medium (like air or water), composed of frequencies which are within the range of hearing,” and in Greek mythology “Ekho (Greek: Ἠχώ, Ēkhō, “echo” from ἦχος (ēchos), “sound”) was an Oread (a mountain nymph) who loved her own voice. Zeus loved consorting with beautiful nymphs and visited them on Earth often. Eventually, Zeus’s wife, Hera, became suspicious, and came from Mt. Olympus in an attempt to catch Zeus with the nymphs.”

Music is sound, but sound is not always music. One could say that music is organized and/or intentional sound.

Different ways to use sound in healing

The use of sound and particularly sound healing, has roots that go back tens of thousands of years and it still has a significant role in every culture in our planet. Every religion uses sound and voice as a significant part of its ceremonies, but sound itself is still universal. The early chants of Tibetan Bon tradition are still sung today, as well as Sanskrit chants in India, Icaros healing songs in Peru and Joiks by the Sami people in Lapland. Many westerners have adapted these old traditions and sound healing methods as well, mixing and expanding both the cultural and healing aspects of these sounds.

We use sound in a variety of ways. In most religious or spiritual settings, sound is used for evoking, honoring or connecting with the spirits. We listen to or perform sounds to express variety of emotions from sadness to joy, anger to calm. We also energize ourselves or others with sound. We sing to babies or at the bedside of elders in the hospice. Even astronomers use sound waves to ignite solar ring of fire in space. We use ultrasound in a variety of ways in the hospitals. If you spend time in anechoic chamber (room without echo), you can hear your nervous system and the liquids moving in your body. There simply is no place to hide from sound.

Links to my news letters and press

October 2020 – Finding your center
December 2019 – Remembering joy and happiness
September 2019 – Structure and freedom in our daily lives
March 2019 – Living in a time of increased anger and fear
January 2019 – How to make decisions based on my values
June 2018 – Empowering practice of giving and receiving
May 2018 – The powerful practice of Inner Joy
March 2018 – Article in the Oakland Magazine
January 2018 – Setting an intention to contemplate on through out the year.
December 2017 – Reflection and integration rising from the body
November 2017 – Self empowerment in the time of need
October 2017 – Time for change – are you ready?
July 2017 – Is wellbeing a luxury or necessity?
June 2017 – The subtleties on being in the moment
May 2017 – Are your thoughts real?
April 2017 – Teaching your body to relax

Links to my community, friends and collaborators

• Claudia Bartsch, San Francisco, CA (yoga therapist)
• Kayse Gehret, Santa Rosa, CA (founder of Micro dosing for healing)
• Kirsi Laitinen, Kuopio, Finland (yoga teacher)
• Angela Madonia, Berkeley, CA (yoga teacher)
• Bettina Maureenji, Ibiza, Spain (certified Sound healing practitioner, vocal coach, musician)
• Elizabeth McKinley, Salinas, CA (yoga teacher)
• Thuy Nguyen, Berkeley, CA (licensed acupuncturist, owner of BCA)
• Outi Ohman, Mikkeli, Finland (yoga teacher)
• WePlayWellTogether, Lagunitas, CA ( Sound Healing Instruments online store)
• Anne Woods, Albuquerque, NM (cranio sacral-, yoga- and occupational therapist)
• Tone Pool App by Matt Levine (composer and producer)

https://uval.com/demos/Some great talks about sound, meditation and wellbeing

• Daisy Fancourt: Effects of arts and cultural engagement
• Charles Limb: Music, brain and improvisation
• Julian Treasure: The 4 ways sound affects us
• Evelyn Glennie: How to truly listen
• Yoav Medan: Ultrasound surgery – healing without cuts
• Anthony Holland: Scattering cancer with resonant frequencies
• TedEd: How stress affects our brain
• Richard Reed Parry: Music for heart and breath
• Peter Gabriel: Life lessons from a rock star
• Richard Davidson: Wellbeing is a skill
• Science Nature: What Music does to your brain
• Grace Leslie: Making music with your brain and body
• Kathleen Riley: How heart coherence affects performance

Research and studies on health benefits of meditation

Meditation is nothing new. It has been practiced all over the world in different formats for thousands of years. In the recent years, there has also been more and more scientific studies conducted concentrating on the health benefits.

Reduces Blood Pressure and stress

Researchers say, that high-risk patients who meditated cut their risk of heart attacks and strokes roughly by half compared with a group of similar patients who were given more conventional education. Other benefits of meditation follow from stress reduction, which could cause changes in the brain that cut stress hormones like cortisol and dampen the inflammatory processes associated with atherosclerosis. (Study by Dr Schneider 2009, Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, New York Times November 20, 2009) (link).

Stress release, memory and learning

Researchers reported that those who meditated for about 30 minutes a day for 8 weeks had measurable changes in gray-matter density in part of the brain associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. (Study by Britta Hölzel, a psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Jan. 30, 2011 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging).

Allocating attention

Researchers have found neuroscience evidence that the ability to release thoughts that pop into mind frees the brain to attend to more rapidly changing things and events in the world at large. (Study by Richard Davidson, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin).

Research on music and sound healing

Music and Mind

Explore the 19-episode series featuring renowned soprano and arts & health advocate in conversation with scientists and practitioners working at the intersection of music, neuroscience, and healthcare. This program is part of the Sound Health initiative, in association with the National Endowment for the Arts, explores and brings attention to research and practice at the intersection of music, health, and neuroscience.” In 2019, she received $20M grant to be spend over the next five years for music and neuroscience research.(The Kennedy Center, Washington DC).

NeuroArts Blueprint

The NeuroArts Blueprint was launched on late 2019 and is building an interdisciplinary community to coalesce knowledge about how art influences the body and the brain and to translate that knowledge into tools that can promote health and well-being. During the first phase of the initiative, we are mining the research and engaging thought leaders in science and art, medicine and technology, education and community development, policymaking and philanthropy—and using the insights we glean to strengthen, standardize, and propel the neuroarts field forward. (An initiative of the Aspen Institute and Johns Hopkins University)

Sound therapy induces relaxation

The use of music as a means of inducing positive emotions and subsequent relaxation has been studied extensively by researchers. A great deal of this research has centered on the use of music as a means of reducing feelings of anxiety and stress as well as aiding in the relief of numerous pathologies. (Study by Elliot Salamon, Minsun Kim, John Beaulieu and George B. Stefano at Neuroscience Research Institute, State University of New York)

Music gives us an oxytocin boost

Oxytocin is a neuropeptide affiliated with breast-feeding and sexual contact, and is known to play an important role in increasing bonding and trust between people. Now researchers are discovering that music may affect oxytocin levels in the body.

In one experiment involving a breed of “singing” mice, mice that had their oxytocin receptor sites artificially knocked out by researchers engaged in fewer vocalizations and showed marked social deficits when compared to normal mice, suggesting a link between singing, oxytocin, and socialization. In a study with humans, singing for 30 minutes was shown to significantly raise oxytocin levels in both amateur and professional singers, regardless of how happy or unhappy the experience made them. Perhaps this explains why new mothers often sing lullabies to their newborn babies: it may help encourage bonding through oxytocin release.

Researchers have also found that listening to music releases oxytocin. In one study, patients undergoing coronary bypass surgery were asked to listen to experimenter-selected ‘soothing’ music for 30 minutes one day after surgery. When tested later, those who’d listened to music had higher levels of serum oxytocin compared to those who were assigned to bed-rest alone. Though the study was more focused on the relaxation properties of music than on oxytocin specifically, it still suggests that music directly impacts oxytocin levels, which, in turn, affect our ability to trust and act generously toward others—factors that increase our social connection.

Music strengthens our ”theory of mind” and empathy

In one study (2009), Koelsch and a colleague hooked up participants to an fMRI machine and had them listen to a piece of music that they were told was either composed by a human or by a computer (even though it was actually the same piece of music). When participants listened to music they believed was composed by a human, their “theory of mind” cortical network lit up, while it didn’t under the computer condition. This suggests that our brain doesn’t just process sound when we hear music, but instead tries to understand the intent of the musician and what’s being communicated.

In a more recent study (2013), a group of primary-school-aged children were exposed to musical games with other children for one hour a week over the course of an academic year, while two control groups of same-aged children received either no games or games with the same purpose, but involving drama or storytelling instead of music. All of the children were given various empathy measures at the beginning and end of the year; but only the music group significantly increased their empathy scores, suggesting that music may have played a pivotal role in their empathy development.

Recommended books about sound healing:

• John Beaulieu: Human tuning, sound healing with tuning forks – anything you need to know about use and effect of tuning forks and beyond
• John Beaulieu: Sound Healing and Values Visualization – good source of tools how to empower your clients
• Mitchell L. Gaynor, MD: The healing power of sound, recovery from life-threatening illness using sound, voice and music – well written and easy reading book about sound healing including many powerful practices
• Diane Mandle: Ancient Sounds for a New Age – great book how to use Himalayan singing bowls included well explained protocols
• Louise Montello: Essential musical intelligence – full of great exercises
• Silvia Nakkach: Free your voice, awaken to life through singing – a must have book to rediscover the power of your voice. Full of excellent exercises
• Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche: Seven guided practices to clear obstacles, cultivate positive qualities and uncover your inherent wisdom, Tibetan Sound Healing – this book explains in detail one of my favorite and very powerful sound meditation practice

Other interesting books:

• Alejandro Chaoul: Tibetan Yoga for health and well-being
• Ann Marie Chiasson, M.D. and Andrew Weil M.D: Energy Healing: The Essentials of Self-Care
• Baird Hersey: The practice of nada yoga
• Bessel van der Kolk: The Body Keeps the Score
• Bettina Maureenji: The medicine of your voice: Conscious living through voice
• David Whyte: Crossing the unknown sea, work as a pilgrimage of identity – excellent reading if you are planning for a big courier change
• Deborah Dana: Befriending Your Nervous System
• Gabor Maté: When the body says no
• Gabor Maté: The myth of normal (2022)
• Harriet Beinfield, L.Ac. and Efrem Korngold, L.Ac., O.M.D: Between heaven and earth, a guide to Chinese medicine – well written book about Chinese medicine
• John O’Donohue: Anam Cara, a book of celtic wisdom – no doubt the best book about love and friendship I have ever read
• Karla McLaren: The language of emotions, what your feelings are trying to tell you – a different approach how you can build a useful relationship with your emotions
• Lama Rod Owens: Love and Rage
• Lama Tsultrim Allione: Feeding Your Demons
• Mario Martinez: The Mindbody Code
• Peter A. Levine, Anne Frederick: Waking the Tiger
• Reginald Ray: Touching enlightenment, finding realization in the body
• Resnaa Menakem: My grandmother’s hands – Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
• Rob Preece: The wisdom of imperfection
• Stanislav Grof: Healing our deepest wounds, the holotropic paradigm shift – read the concept from the Master himself
• Suzanne Scurlock-Durana: Full body presence
• Swami Rama, Rudoph Ballentine, Alan Hymes: Science of breath

Articles in newspapers and magazines

• Wake Up World May 2017 – The Ancient Power Of Chanting Mantra Validated by Modern Science
• Mindful Magazine May 2016 – How Science reveals that “wellbeing” is a skill

• AlJazeera May 2015 – Why I played the cello at a Baghdad bombsite
• NYTimes Aug 2015- Sound Baths move from metaphysical to mainstream

Some great movies:

• Documentary on brain injury and music therapy – Music got me here, dir Susan Koch
• Documentary series on Qawwali music – Music of the Mystics
• Music and Alzheimers – Alive Inside, dir Michael Rossato-Bennett
• Music and autism – The Horse Boy, dir. Michel Orion Scott
• Documentary on Tom Kenyon, Sound healer – Songs of the new earth
• Documentary on Tibetan folk music and its’ power over politics Tibet in Song, dir. Ngawang Choephel
• Exploration of the Hero’s Journey by Joseph Campbell – Finding Joe, dir Patrick Takaya Solomon
• Documentary on Evelyn Glennie, percussionist and master teacher – Touch the Sound, dir Thomas Riedelsheimer
• Unconsciousness and health – The Edge of Dreaming, dir Amy Hardie
• Incredible man made caves in New Mexico, documentary of Ra Paulette – The Cave digger, dir Jeffrey Karoff
• Political effects of singing – The singing revolution, dir James Tusty
• Documentary of chanting and its’ effect to us – Mantra: Sounds into silence, dir Georgia Wyss