The human body is designed to be exquisitely sensitive to sound. In utero, our ability to hear develops by about eighteen weeks, making it one of the earliest senses to develop.
Doctors and hospice workers speculate that in the final moments of life ,senses depart one at the time with hearing being the last one to go.
Hearing is, in this way, one of our first and last modes of connection.
When we experience sound, what actually happens is that the vibrations pass through matter in the form of waves.
Vibrations transmitted as sound are measured in hertz (Hz), which captures the frequency with which vibrations occur every second.
Vibrations can travel through our skin as well as the fluid and bones within us- just as they do through air- making our entire bodies strikingling receptive to sound vibrations.
We are able to hear pressure waves through our skin as well as through the water that makes up roughly 70 % of our body. And because water is less compressible than air, it conducts sound four to five times faster in our bodies.
When we are ill, the body’s natural order of frequencies is altered, but when we are exposed to certain external vibrations in sound, our internal rhythms can be restored.
This has been passed on through history across many cultures from ancient Egyptians, Tibetan monks, Native American shamans, to Vedic mantras among them.
These groups have variously used chants, matras, songs and musical instruments to restore the vibratory frequencies of the body and mind. When we experience sound waves either directly from or mimicking nature – such as waves lapping on the shore, birds chirping, rivers flowing our mind and body feels relaxed.
Research has shown that the sounds of nature increase attention capacity and shift our nervous system releasing oxytocin, the so-called love hormone, associated with the feelings of connection to others. And when levels of oxytocin increase, other negative hormones, such as stress hormone cortisol, decrease.
When we hear music to help us feel calm – there is actually a complex interplay that occurs between external and internal frequencies. The two fundamental systems at work in this exchange are resonance and brain entertainment.
Resonance, which comes from Latin word “resonantia” meaning “echo” , is an important concept in both physics and music theory. Broadly, resonance occurs when one object vibrates at the same natural frequency as a second object, thus forcing the second object to begin to vibrate. When one C tuning fork is struck, for example ,and placed next to another C tuning fork, the second begins to vibrate at the same frequency as the first. In doing so, the sound wave from the first tuning fork imparts some of its energy to the second one. And if the stem of the first tuning fork is placed on a metal, glass or wooden object ,this object, too,
begins to vibrate. This is also the metaphorical notion behind two people “resonating“ with each other – this happens when a pair feels deeply connected and “in tune“ with each other.
Similarly, every organ, every bone, and every cell in the body has its own resonant
frequency. Together they make up a composite frequency for the body, as if they were each playing an instrument that, together, formed an orchestra.
When one organ is out of tune, it affects the whole body. The goal, then, of sound therapy is to use audible vibrations to bring the body back into harmony and achieve what we call its “prime resonance” to restore health.