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Once a month I offer a “sound bath” sometimes referred to as vibration therapy. The end result for people is deep relaxation or “instant” meditative benefits. Some people also ex"perience pain relief. So, how does a sound bath “work”. While scientific research validates the benefits, it’s not always clear why that happens. Some clues are offered by Eva Rudy James author of Singing Bowls: A Practical Handbook of Instruction And Use.
• “Bells, gongs, cymbals, as well as the bowls that come from Asia, produce far more harmonics that the musical instruments we use in the West,” she writes.
• Sound harmonizes through vibrations. Christian Huygens, a 17th century Dutch scientist was the first to notice and report that two pendulums placed next to each other eventually began to swing in the same tempo.
• Anecdotally, people report feeling better, calmer, more relaxed when listening to singing bowls being played. “This feeling is less strong when recorded,” James notes.
• Singing bowls, gongs, bells and symbols “recreate original harmonic frequency, and stimulate the body to re-discover it’s own harmonic frequency.”
• As a result, “stimulated and taken up by the powerful vibrations of the singing bowl, the body is able to tune into it’s own undisturbed frequency.”