How Sound Therapy Helps to Maintain Mental Health and Wellness

Stress and tension are part and parcel of everyday life and are dealt with in different modalities by different people. Those under stress experience some level of anxiety, depression, fear, irritability, anger, and frustration. It also affects their cognitive functioning thereby causing difficulty in concentrating, decision making, and memory.
A number of treatments and therapies are suggested by mental health practitioners to cope with daily stressors and improve overall health and well-being and one such therapy is Sound Therapy.

What exactly is Sound Therapy?
Sound therapy is an ancient healing technique that uses various sounds, music, instruments, chanting, mantras, and the like to create a range of vibrations that bring about a sense of tranquility, consciousness, and peace and allows you to better channelize your energies. The technique is beneficial to building concentration and helps one relax by pushing you into a meditative state that in turn has numerous health benefits.

What are the health benefits of Sound therapy?
Sound is known to have positive effects on our mental as well as physical health. Its healing properties are such that they can even cure an ailing patient and improve his state drastically.
Some of its health benefits are as follows:
1. Releases stress
2. Reduces the occurrence of depressive episodes
3. Helps you relax
4. Helps manage Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
5. Lowers blood pressure and maintains your heart health
6. Fixes your sleep cycle
7. Allows you to better deal with anxiety and panic attacks
8. Lets you have a good gut
9. Relieves chronic pains
10. Fastens the process of healing
11. Improves cognition that ultimately leads to improved brain health

Types of sound healing techniques:
1. Music Therapy: Listening to melodies music and preferably classical music is a way that calms your mind, reduces tension, and eases your body muscles. It helps to lower blood pressure and improves blood circulation in the body.
2. Chanting: Chanting simple mantras like OM helps alleviate stress, releases chemicals in the body that support psychological and emotional health, and allows one to connect with their inner self and repressed feelings or emotions. It also promotes mental clarity and diverse thinking.
3. Using singing bowls: Producing a range of rhythms using the signing bowl pushes your brain into a transcendental state promoting a sense of calmness. It further makes you feel in control of yourself and allows you to grasp your surroundings even better.
4. Tuning Forks: The use of tuning forks has long been suggested by orthopedics to detect stress fractures in bones as this technique works on a similar line of acupuncture. A metal tuning fork with the help of sound frequencies is used to stimulate certain parts of the body and can help relieve muscle and bone pain.
5. Brainwave entrainment: This method is useful for stimulating the brain by putting pulsing sound to use with which the brain waves synchronize to slip into an entranced state. Doing so naturally reduces anxiety, improves focus, helps you relax, and ensures you a sound sleep.
6. Drumming: Including a few drums and bringing about newer tunes not only instills a positive feeling but also drives you to a thoughtless state of mind away from the busy city life.

What does a typical session of sound therapy include?
Step 1: A mental health practitioner may typically begin your sound therapy session by initially engaging you in some form of breathing exercise so that you gain control over your breath and your mind starts to declutter itself from all the unwanted thoughts.
Step 2: Once you are comfortable, your practitioner will now slowly proceed to shift your focus on the next step which is exposing you to some beats and vibrations.
Step 3: After your initial exposure to some light tune, your ears will now be involved in some self-focused music and vibrations of varying intensities.

A typical sound session is likely to continue anywhere between 20 minutes to 2 hours as per your preference. Sound therapy is so engaging for the brain, that you would not even realize how time flies.

Other benefits of sound therapy are:
1. Lets you channel your energies
2. You become more receptive to feelings
3. Improves concentration and confidence
4. Increased ability to deal with relationships
5. Refreshing for the brain
6. Brings about a positive change in cognition