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What is Sound Healing?

How singing bowls help to heal 

Sound healing uses vibrations produced by sound to help reduce stress and create a deep sense of peace, well being and better health.  

Everything in the universe has its own unique frequency and vibrates at its own individual rate.  Tap a wineglass and it gives out a ringing sound determined by its size, shape and thickness.  When a singer vibrates that glass with her voice, she has matched her voice to the frequency of the glass and set it into vibration.  As the singer increases the volume of sound, the resonance becomes too great for the forces that hold the glass together and it shatters.  Luckily, our bodies are more flexible than a glass!

If one tuning fork is struck and placed next to another tuning fork, the second will begin to resonate together with the first. The sound wave from the first tuning fork has imparted some of its energy to the second one.  If the stem of the tuning fork is placed on a metal, glass or wooden object, this object will begin to vibrate. 

Modern medicine uses sound waves to break up kidney and gallstones in the body.  A machine bombards the stones with a specific sound frequency.  Every organ, bone and cell in the body has its own individual frequency.  Together they make up a combined frequency like the instruments of an orchestra.  When one organ in the body is out of tune it affects the whole body.  Sound healing allows us to bring the body back into harmony without the need for drugs or surgery.

Tibetan Singing Bowls

Today, one of the most well known forms of sound healing uses bowls.  These have been widely used since ancient times in Nepal and Tibet, mostly by Buddhist monks, for meditation, ceremonial music, ritual offerings, praying and as traditional musical instruments.

How do the vibrations from the singing bowls help in the healing process? 

Simply put, sound healing puts your physical, emotional and spiritual energies back into alignment.

Many believe that illness is caused by dis-harmony within the body - an imbalance in the cells or a particular organ and that by restoring the normal vibrational  frequencies of the diseased, out-of-harmony parts of the body, we can be healed.  Since all matter is energy vibrating at different rates, by altering the rate of vibration we can change the structure of matter.  During our waking state, our brains operate on the Beta frequency.  Sound healing moves the brain into the deeper Alpha and Theta brain wave frequencies.  These are the frequencies that induce deep meditative and peaceful states, clarity of mind and intuition.

So, how does it work? 

Used during meditation and alternative healing, the bowls are either placed directly on or around the body and 'struck and sung' in specific rhythmic patterns to produce vibrational sound at the correct frequencies.   The sound vibrations are transmitted into our blood, organs, tissues and cellular memory through the 70% water in our system.  These frequencies affect the nervous system and our brain waves synchronize to the vibrations of the bowls.  The vibrations trigger a relaxation reflex and slow down the respiratory, brain and heart rate and inhibit the stress or pain response creating a deep sense of well being.

In addition to the physical effects, healing bowls also affect us on emotional and spiritual levels.  The physical healing is combined with a spiritual awakening that can have profound results on illness, disease and all aspects of our lives.   In fact, mainstream medical teaching facilities like Duke University and the University of North Carolina have added programmes that link mind, body and spirit to the treatment of cancer.  Cancer prevention centres are also utilizing sound as a vital part of the healing process for patients with astounding results.  Dr. Mitchell Gaynor, director of Medical Oncology and Integrative Medicine at the Cornell Cancer Prevention Center in New York has been using sound, including Tibetan bowls and crystal bowls in work with cancer patients for many years.  The medical director of the Deepak Chopra center in California, Dr. David Simon, found that the sound from Tibetan bowls as well as chanting is chemically transformed into ‘endogenous opiates’ that act on the body as internal painkillers and healing agents.

What are the benefits?

Among the many benefits are relief from pain, stress-related conditions and the ability to enter a deep meditative state.  Sound healing is used on patients to counteract the effects of chemotherapy, reduce pain, fight chronic fatigue syndrome and depression.  After sessions clients experience improved memory, clarity, vitality and the ability to take action.  Many report out of body experiences, a deep sense of peace, sleep soundly and feel the effects of the treatment for several days.

Can people who feel fine benefit from a session?

Many people take part in healing sessions to gain clarity on an issue, re-balance their energy and just feel great and more connected to the universe.

Quartz Crystal Bowls

Quartz crystal bowls are made by pounding crystals found in the earth.  This forms a kind of sand, called "silica sand", that is pure quartz in nature.  The bowls are made of silicon quartz.  The sand is dropped into a centrifugal force spinning mould and at the correct moment, in the centre of that mould, there is an electric arc torch that is ignited to several thousand degrees centigrade.  It integrates the individual particles of sand into a solid, which goes from being crystalline in nature to being amorphous - or glass - in nature.

Crystal bowls create a very pure wave form called a sonic wave form.  This pure sonic wave form carries through physical objects quite well.  One reason the pure tones vibrate with our body is that it has a natural affinity to quartz.  The human body is composed of many crystallite substances. The bones, blood and DNA are crystallite in structure as well as the liquid crystal-colloidal structure of the brain.  Even on a molecular level, our cells contain silica, which balances our electromagnetic energies and this is the same formula as natural quartz crystal.

Some bowls are clear and some are frosted.  Each quartz crystal healing bowl is fashioned to be in sync with one specific area of the body and corresponds to an energy centre or chakra point on the body.  There are seven main chakras, between the base of the spine and the top of the skull.  Each chakra, or energy wheel, relates to particular emotions, organs and areas of the body.  Energy blocks in the chakras will eventually result in emotional imbalance or physical disease.  Quartz crystal healing bowls work to balance the chakras and release blocked energy, bringing the body back into alignment, maximizing energy flow and promoting health by enabling mind, body and soul to function optimally.