How Sound Can Improve Your Wellbeing

"The constancy with which we experience sound even when unaware gives it an outsize place in the stream of information we use to understand the world around us. It also impacts the world within us: our emotional and physical well-being.

Curating your soundscape

There are some aspects of our individual soundscapes that we can control, regardless of where we live. Music, for example, has been shown to impact emotional well-being. Anyone who’s been through a breakup or a loss knows how difficult and/or cathartic it can be to put on a Sad Playlist (we know you have one) and lose yourself in lyrical despair.

• Sound baths primarily use an instrument commonly called the Tibetan singing bowl (which, historians note, are not really of Tibetan origin but rather a mythologized American invention). The bowls are metallic and sometimes colorful, and when rubbed with a mallet produce varying pitches depending on their size. In sessions with her patients, Goldsby uses the bowls along with other vibrational instruments such as gongs and didgeridoos.
• Meditation or mindfulness sessions with singing bowls have been shown in some studies to help slow heart rate and lower blood pressure more effectively than practices involving silence. And unlike most music and instrument-based therapy, any benefits of vibroacoustics are accessible to members of the Deaf community as well.
• Binaural beats are auditory illusions—the ear’s version of staring at a black dot in the center of a screen and seeing a color that isn’t really there. Via headphones, two different low-frequency sounds are played simultaneously, one in each ear. The brain, ever a fiend for patterns and order, attempts to reconcile the two sounds, and, in doing so, becomes convinced that it’s hearing a third sound at a frequency that matches the difference in frequency between the two original sounds. There’s strong evidence that listening to binaural beats can enhance certain brain waves, strengthening electrical activity and leading to neural benefits. Across various frequencies used, binaural beats show small but marked effects on working memory, creativity, attentiveness, decreased stress, and even sleep. If you’ve ever listened to meditation tracks, you may have encountered binaural beats without even noticing.

One of the most famous tracks using binaural beats is “Weightless,” the scientifically engineered “world’s most relaxing song.” The eight-minute tune, which sounds like luxe spa music, made headlines for the pulsating, insistent beat layered underneath the song’s main ebbs and flows, and for the fact that British recording trio Marconi Union had written it with the help of a sound therapist. Over a decade later, in April 2022, external research validated the creators’ claims that simply listening to the song could slow a person’s heart rate.

Instead of stressing about a busy commute or a cacophonous supermarket, think about how you can use sound in spaces you do have control over, no matter how small. Maybe that means turning on quiet music instead of a podcast while cooking dinner. Maybe it means a midday trip to the office bathroom to close your eyes and play some bird sounds. Maybe it even means finding solace in the most foreign soundscape of all: silence."

Read the full article on Time

✨Takeaway: Sound is all around us. You can curate your soundscape by exploring which sounds are the most pleasant to you. For instance, utilizing the power of music, nature sounds, or singing bowls!

✨Reflection: What's your favorite type of sound? (I love the sound of rain)

#Sound #Wellbeing #Sense #Happiness #Wellness #Music #Nature #Noise