“Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul” – Plato
One of the things I was brought to this planet to do is help guide people into parasympathetic relaxation. I love using guided mediations, self-massage, breathing techniques, and especially sound to facilitate this. How does this relate to strength and fitness? I promise if you keep reading, I’ll explain.
As many of our Breakthrough members, and regular readers of our articles may know, I have a background in music. I love singing songs for savasana in yoga class, and have been using singing bowls and other instruments for sound baths for a couple of years now. Since we have a sound healing session coming up next Saturday, I’ve been getting a few questions about why sound baths can be so beneficial, so I thought I would share my personal history with how I came to this practice.
Many moons ago, long before we jumped into the fitness world, I got my bachelors degree in Vocal Performance from the California Institute of the Arts. I remember being fascinated by a couple of things I learned that sparked my interest in sound healing back then. One being that sound is created by vibration. These vibrations create sound waves that can travel through air, water or solids (like your eardrum). Sound is a form of energy. It’s something that you not only hear, but can also physically feel, even if you can’t fully perceive you are feeling it.
As a singer, of course I understood that the human voice produces sound by the vocal cords vibrating. I knew I could feel vibrations in my own body when I was singing, but recognizing that the sound I was creating could cause vibrations in those listening was a cool realization for me.
Another thing I found extremely interesting in studying the history of world music is that the creation of instruments to produce sound can be traced back to the most ancient peoples of every area of the globe. Music and sound has always been a part of the human experience. And there is a lot of evidence across many cultures to suggest that music was believed by our ancestors to have healing qualities.
A few of my CalArts colleagues went on to become music therapists, and work in a variety of clinical settings. We know music to have a profound therapeutic affect for different conditions – from those with Alzheimer’s/dementia, to babies in utero. Since this area of research isn’t the personal path I’ve taken, I will let you google further studies if you are interested, and I’ll share with you one final discovery I made in my university years that relates to sound healing: I had zero tools to help me deal with the extreme stress and anxiety I was feeling on a daily basis.
I knew I was a shy kid, and would get really nervous about life in general. What I didn’t know until many years later was that singing was something that actually helped me get relief from those feelings. Partially because the vibrations caused by singing stimulate the Vagus nerve, and turning “on” the Vagus is a way of clicking your body’s “off” switch out of fight or flight mode (more on that in a bit.) So when the only tool (singing) I naturally had to help myself down regulate became something else entirely – something over-analyzed, critiqued, and expected to fit into certain boxes in order to make sense – I was left with no tangible ways to deal the high stress I felt.
I ended up taking a couple of years off between my 2nd and 3rd years of college. I needed a way for singing to be fun again, and also needed to reset my nervous system (although I didn’t really understand that at the time). Over the years I found a few guided meditations to help me, and some breathing practices. When life began leading me toward learning about strength training and physical fitness, I found that I also gravitated toward practices that would give me tools to help myself and others tap into parasympathetic dominance. Through yoga teacher training I became exposed to different styles of mediation, and have taken multiple trainings to explore those more deeply. I’ve taken breathing courses, trainings to guide self-massage using the Yoga Tune Up therapy balls, and of course sound healing trainings.
So why is it important to actively spend time allowing yourself to enter a parasympathetic state? Because the vast majority of our time is spent with the sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system running the show. The world moves at a much faster pace than our biology can keep up with. And even things we do that are good for us, like exercise are sympathetically dominant. Training itself isn’t what makes you stronger – it’s how muscle and tissue are repaired after training that gets you results. Your body needs to be able to rebuild on a cellular level, and your “rest, digest and repair” parasympathetic state is where that happens.
Unfortunately, with the world we live in, we need to help ourselves tap into that down regulated state. It doesn’t just happen on its own. A sound healing session is one of my favorite ways to help people get there. I get the luxury of spending more time (about 45 minutes) to get people to a deeply relaxed state. And I get to use tools that people can not only hear, but also feel creating vibrations in their bodies.
People who have been to my sound healing sessions have experienced reduced stress and anxiety, greater mental clarity, deeper sleep and relaxation that lasts after the session is over, decreased physical pain sensations, release of emotional discomfort, and increases in feelings of overall well-being. And of course, everyone got stronger since their tissues were able to repair faster and growth hormone was released.
If this sounds like something you’d like to try, come join me next Saturday 3/8 at 7pm at Breakthrough. All are welcome – just email us at info@breakthroughgym.com!