How sound healing can help stressed city dwellers relax, improve their mental health and lower blood
Tai explains how he once had a client who had difficulty falling asleep after her husband died, because she was worried he would appear in her dreams and she was not emotionally ready to see him again.“She was able to deeply relax when she joined a sound-healing session, and felt a sense of connection with her late husband during it. This helped her with her sleeping problem.Stressed out in Hong Kong? Try sound therapy with a gong bath
“Whether you believe in these things or not, how she felt had changed, and it helped her. This was really touching to me.”
While such a profound spiritual shift might be rare, a sound-healing session often helps people build stronger mental and physical self-awareness.
“During a session, we’re doing things related to feeling and sensing our bodies, so people are able to build better connections with their own bodies,” Tai says.
Many studies have shown that sound-healing sessions make physiological differences.
When we feel stress, our sympathetic nervous system is triggered and our body enters fight-or-flight mode. Our heart rate and blood pressure shoot up, while digestion is hindered as the body prepares for a situation it perceives to be dangerous.This response was key to humans’ survival when predators roamed freely and is still important for us today, but it can become overactive when we are faced with the stresses of modern life.
The good news is that the vibrations created by sound-healing instruments help activate the parasympathetic nervous system, the flip side of our sympathetic nervous system.
“A sound-bath experience gets people’s blood-pressure level to go down and improves their blood flow,” he says.
The benefit of the intentionality required in a sound-healing session – deciding to give yourself time and space to be fully present with yourself and focus on the here and now – is clear too.
“In modern society, especially in big cities like Hong Kong that are fast-paced and [where] everyone’s stressed, people don’t sit down and actually get in touch with themselves,” Tai says.
“Having these sessions puts you in a new environment – a safe space to try new things, where it’s OK to be who you are and sense what you want to sense.”
While one may be able to achieve similar effects by meditating, the very transient nature of sound is a powerful anchor to help us do one seemingly very simple yet actually very challenging task: to focus on the here and now.As with meditation, one inevitably finds one’s mind drifting between different thoughts during these sessions. But while with meditation the idea is for your focus to keep coming back to your breath, with sound healing you bring your attention back to the sound.
Sound healing is a unique and individual experience for both participant and practitioner, with each session constructed differently based on their background and style.
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This means there are different types of sound healing to explore.
For instance, Tai’s sessions reflect the multiplicity of his wellness expertise by incorporating breathwork and yoga movements at the start, followed by different sound-healing instruments such as singing bowls, crystal bowls and gongs.
Ngodup’s sessions use items such as wide singing bowls of various sizes, a wave drum and a tiny cymbal bell.
During one of Ngodup’s sessions, a participant stands inside a large singing bowl, which he circles around and strikes with two mallets using varying rhythms.
He then brings around two different-sized bowls and skilfully strikes them around the head, near the heart and behind the back. Even after the four-minute session ends, and one steps outside the bowl, the feet and body continue to vibrate for a few minutes.
Getting your own singing bowl is an option, although it will be different from having a trained professional conducting a session.
“You can massage your own arm, but obviously getting a massage from somebody else feels different,” Tai says.
Ngodup suggests a few guidelines when choosing a sound bowl.
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“The vibration frequency of each sound bowl is different, so spend time to sit down, relax and play a few to see which one feels connected to you.And have a reliable source. “The energies of machine-made bowls are very different from handmade ones,” Ngodup says.
Finding a singing bowl that you connect with is not the end of the process: take time to practise and properly learn how to use it, adds Tai.
It requires time and effort, but will be part of your healing journey.
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