By Gene A. Lambey
Special to the AFRO
According to the National Institutes of Health, music “can get your foot tapping, lift your mood and even help you recall a distant memory.”
“When you listen to or create music, it affects how you think, feel, move, and more,” says neuroscientist Dr. Robert Finkelstein, who co-leads NIH’s music and health initiative, in an article published in an NIH monthly newsletter.
“Today, modern technologies are helping researchers learn more about how the brain works, what parts of the brain respond to music, and how music might help ease symptoms of certain diseases and conditions,” he explains.
This week, as part of Self-Care Awareness Month, the AFRO explored the benefits of sound healing with Maurice Carroll, Reiki master teacher, sound healer, music producer and founder of Harmony in Mind Wellness Group.
Sound healing has been used since the dawn of the earliest civilizations of Africa, India, Latin America and Asia. It uses rhythmic tones from sound healing instruments such as singing bowls and tuning forks to release emotional blockage points in the body.
“Sound healing is an ancient practice where you’re using frequency sound vibrations to align the body, mind and spirit of an individual,” said Carroll.
As a music producer with 30 years of experience, Carroll combines sound healing elements in his music. He produces EDM, spoken word, hip-hop and has done scoring for documentaries.
In Carroll’s new book “Starting Your Sound Healing Journey: The Beginner’s Path,” available as an audiobook on multiple platforms including Apple, Barnes and Noble and Amazon Kindle, he helps readers gain an understanding of mindfulness, meditation and the science of sound.
Carroll described how sound treatments can help relieve stress and anxiety in the body. Aside from the singing bowls, he also uses white and brown noise as a sound treatment.
According to Harvard Health, “white noise has been compared to the static from a radio that isn’t tuned to a specific station. Technically, the term ‘white noise’ refers to noise that contains all frequencies of the sounds that people can hear, in equal parts. (Frequency is the rate at which sound waves vibrate.)”
Carroll described a session he had at Harmony in Mind Wellness Group with a client.
“She had a disorder where sounds are really magnified. The frequency of the singing bowls irritated her. When I gave her the white noise treatment, she almost came to tears because it was that healing to her.
But white noise isn’t where it stops.
“Another color noise — brown noise — reduces higher sound frequencies even more than pink noise and is described as grainier or rougher. For example, brown noise can be compared to ocean waves crashing, while pink noise is more like a gentle rain,” reports Harvard Health.
According to Carroll, both “white brown frequencies of noise can be effective as a part of sound healing.”
Carroll said during a sound healing session, the client lays flat on the table in a meditative state. During this process, he tells his clients to focus on the sound vibrations. As thoughts arise within clients, he tells them to acknowledge each one and let it pass.
“Meditation is being in the present moment. That is the concept of meditation–to constantly bring yourself back,” said Carroll.
A study on 62 people between the ages of 21 and 77, published in the Journal of Evidence-Based Integrative Medicine, by Tamara L Goldsby; Michael E Goldsby ;Mary McWalters and Paul J Mills, found that “participants aged 40 to 59 years appeared to especially benefit from the sound meditation.”
“This age group demonstrated the largest reduction in physical pain and a strong reduction in tension, especially for those who were previously naïve to this type of meditation,” wrote the authors.
In a time of great political and social upheaval, Carroll said sound healing can be a great help.
“The environment that we’re in is a high stress environment,” said Carroll. “The practice is designed to put you back into a state of calm and a state of balance.”