How to use Sound Healing for sleep

Sleep is central to our overall wellbeing and happiness. I know that when I’m only running on a few hours of disrupted sleep, I’m quickly overwhelmed, stressed and disregulated, just not my normal self. The body needs proper rest to keep everything running smoothly. 

But if you have a busy mind, ADHD and a history of anxiety like me, sleep doesn’t always come easily. We can get stuck in cycles of sleeplessness and stress. The more we worry about getting to sleep, the more elusive it becomes. 

If only there were a way to switch off our brains and turn on sleep mode. Well, there kind of is. Sound healing sends me into deep, restorative sleep on those nights when I’m tossing and turning. 

How does sound healing help sleep?

Sound healing is an amazing tool for changing the way we feel, inducing deep relaxation and even sleep. That’s because it doesn’t just sound lovely but also creates reactions in the brain and body. 

First up, the brain. Due to brain entrainment, our brain waves match the sound waves emitted by sound healing tools like singing bowls. Slower brain waves equal more relaxation, taking us from alert and reactive to calm and unconscious. We need to be in the slower brain waves of theta and delta to fall and stay asleep. 

As our brains switch to relaxation, our bodies follow suit. Instead of being in fight or flight mode, an alert and reactive state, we go into rest and digest and even restore and repair mode. Now that the body knows we are out of danger, it relaxes and does some maintenance, initiating bodily processes that keep us healthy and happy down to cellular repair. 

So your brain and body do sort of switch off in response to sound healing. While any kind of music you find relaxing can have a positive impact, singing bowls and binaural beats are the best (in my opinion) at slowing down brain waves.

Using binaural beats as healing sounds for sleep

For some people, going to a sound bath or playing singing bowls in the evening is enough to relax them so they can fall asleep. Even I have nights when I need something to guide me right to the point of sleep because my brain is just too noisy. On those occasions, I listen to binaural beats. 

You might have seen binaural beats for sleep on YouTube or Spotify and wondered what that was all about. Well, it’s very cool. 

Singing bowls, instruments and other sound-making tools create sounds in a range of frequencies. If you listen to 2 similar frequencies in each ear, both under 1000 Hz and within less than 30 Hz of each other, you actually hear a third different frequency. The brain compensates for the discrepancy between the two sounds by splitting the difference and registering a third frequency in the middle. So binaural beats are a sound perception. 

That’s all very interesting but how does it actually help you? The third sound AKA the binaural beat is pretty powerful. Just like with singing bowls, our brain waves synchronise with it and slow down into theta and delta. That is if you’re listening to binaural beats at the right frequency. You want to aim for a frequency of 8 Hz or under. Other frequencies guide us into different brain waves that are optimal for concentration and focus, for example. 

All you need to do is find a sleep binaural beat track, listen with earphones so different frequencies go into each ear, and get comfy in bed. 

Other ways to enhance your natural sleep response

Sound healing is all about working with your body’s natural reactions to get out of stress and alertness and into relaxation and balance. To make the most of it, let’s look at a couple of factors that could be getting in the way of your natural sleep response.

The main factors to be aware of are anything that suppresses melatonin, the sleep hormone, or disrupts the natural circadian rhythm. Blue light from screens does both of these!

Stay away from screens at least an hour before you go to bed so your body starts to prepare for sleep. This is a great time to get into a screen-free activity before bed like reading a book or crocheting. Or if there’s a TV programme you just can’t miss, use blue light-blocking glasses to minimise the negative effects. 

There are also things you can do to reinforce your circadian rhythm like going out for a walk in the morning and enjoying the natural sunlight. In winter, getting a lamp that emulates daylight can really help. The NHS recommends light boxes. Exercising during the day, avoiding caffeine and sugar in the afternoon/evening and having a consistent morning and night routine all help your body know when to be alert and when it can relax.

The art and science of sound healing are so fascinating! Something as simple as a soundtrack can change our bodily responses and internal reactions to help us sleep. It’s amazing.

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If you’re curious about sound healing, check out our events page and see if there is a sound bath near you. It’s a great way to immerse yourself in healing sounds, especially if this is new to you. 

If you’d like to bring singing bowls into your self-care practice, have a listen to the sound library and then book a consultation so I can guide you to a bowl or set that works for you. If you can make it to my showroom in Bristol, UK, I highly recommend booking an in-person consultation to try out the bowls yourself.

If you use singing bowls with clients, I can help you add a binaural beat to your set. I love using a binaural beat in sound baths to deepen the relaxation. Book a consultation and I’ll test the frequencies of your bowls to see which ones would work together.