How Can Sound Healing Help With Anxiety?

I suffered from anxiety from a young age. It was all the way into my late 20s until I knew what anxiety was. When I realised it was anxiety I’d been experiencing all these years, I wanted to get rid of it. Rather than finding ways to manage it, I really believed there was a cure, that I’d find it and then be free of these symptoms. How wrong I was back then. 

My anxiety was so bad that I would wake up with palpitations, suffer panic attacks and have awful nightmares. As a result of this, I struggled to digest food, my stomach was constantly in knots and I didn’t have a menstrual cycle for 10 years. My poor nervous system was a mess. 

I saw different doctors and had various tests over the years, tried lots of types of therapy, but nothing really helped. It wasn’t until I changed my whole lifestyle and targeted things from a holistic perspective that things really started to change. 

After a few years of practising solely transcendental meditation, I went to a sound bath and had a big ah-ha moment. I noticed the sounds/frequencies of the singing bowls took me to a meditative state, that calm and peaceful place, so much quicker than the meditation I’d been practising all this time. I knew then that sound was something I had to integrate into my life.

Here’s how sound healing helps me manage my anxiety. 

How does sound healing help anxiety?

Sound healing can refer to a variety of instruments and sounds that are used to help people relax, reset and restore, both mentally and physically. The sound healing tools that have been central to helping me manage anxiety are crystal singing bowls. Their sounds have all sorts of benefits. I cover the wider range of crystal singing bowl benefits here. For now, I’ll focus on how it helps with anxiety. 

The power of crystal singing bowls is in the sound waves they emit when played. When you’re in the presence of these waves, your body absorbs them and your mind starts to synchronise with them. It’s this amazing phenomenon called brain wave entrainment. The waves inside your brain fall in step with the waves outside them. So, when someone plays a relaxing soundscape with the bowls, they create an environment where your brain switches off. The mental chatter and constant worry quieten. 

Most of the time, we’re in a beta brain wave state. This is when we are alert and active. To be able to calm down and relax, we need to move into the slower brain wave states. That’s what crystal singing bowls do, moving the brain into alpha, theta and sometimes even delta which is the state of deep sleep. 

Crystal singing bowls literally help our brains to slow down. But that’s not all. There’s an effect on the body too. 

When we’re stuck in a cycle of anxiety, we feel it in our bodies. It’s not just the tension. I also experienced IBS and irregular periods when I was most anxious during most of my teens.. That’s because the body is stuck in fight or flight. Our rest and digest system can’t function properly. We need to move into the parasympathetic nervous system so the body can relax and take care of itself. 

In response to the crystal singing bowls and the transition to slower brain wave states, the body finds relief and eases into rest, digest and repair mode.

When I started experiencing crystal singing bowls regularly, it became an important part of how I calmed my anxious mind and helped my body truly rest. 

How can you weave sound healing into your self-care routine?

I’m so glad I discovered sound healing through crystal singing bowls. So much so, I set up I Know This Girl to help other people discover the healing vibrations of singing bowls and the tangible effects they can have on our health and wellbeing. If you’d like to explore them further, here’s what I’d recommend. 

Do some research

You might want to know a little bit more about sound healing and crystal singing bowls before you do anything. I go into more detail about how all this works in A Beginner’s Guide to Crystal Singing Bowls. This is a free 5 email series where I break down the different elements of sound healing and using crystal singing bowls. Start whenever you’re ready and the emails will get sent out when you sign up. 

There are plenty of other great resources out there too. Here are some of my favourites:

• Jonathan Goldman & Andi Goldman - The Humming Effect and the 7 Secrets of Sound Healing

• Mitchell Gaynor, MD - The Healing Power of Sound

• Farzana Ali - Sound Healing: How to Use Sound to Beat Stress & Anxiety

• Interviews with Dr Jeffrey Thompson in the ‘Heal’ documentary on Netflix and multiple podcasts

• ‘The Art and Science of Sound Healing’ podcast with Thomas Orr Anderson

  
  

Go to sound baths

Nothing beats experiencing it for yourself. Soak in the healing vibrations and see how you like it. Look for sound baths near you or retreats where there will be sound bath sessions. Some sound practitioners offer one-to-one sessions as well. Lie back, relax and see how the vibrations of crystal singing bowls affect you. If this is something you enjoy, you can go to sound baths regularly like you would a yoga class. Or you can bring them into the comfort of your own home. 

Play singing bowls

It might be more convenient for you to have crystal singing bowls at home so you can play them whenever you have time. A set of 3 would do quite nicely for giving yourself a moment to find calm and peace. If you intend on playing for others, it’s important to be trained. But if you just want to play for yourself, one of my workshops will set you up with all you need to know. 

I’m always amazed at how quickly my mind can find peace and my body relaxes when I’m in the presence of singing bowls. I go to this floaty, dream-like state where I can just be. I’d think it was magic if I didn’t know the science behind it! It’s been a great tool to have in my self-care kit as I have learned to manage anxiety. It works with the body’s natural responses to switch off the stress reaction and switch on soothing processes instead. 

If you’re curious about learning more, I’m here to guide you. Book a discovery call and we can talk about the bowls that could work for you and how you can bring them into your self-care routine. Have a little listen to the sound library first because I’ll ask you which notes you were drawn to in the call.