Why Combine Sound Bath Meditation & Acupuncture
Have you seen the T-shirt that says, “Meditation is my Medication?” I saw it in the mall. It makes me happy to see mainstream culture embracing an ancient practice of self-care.
Meditation, a Nei Guan practice, is a key component of healing in Eastern Asian Medicine (EAM). Nei Guan – the inner gaze – is an aspect at the core of Daoist alchemy wherein we are able to transform and heal.
“...Daoist alchemy is a rich synthesis of traditions within Chinese history that has had an ongoing and reciprocal relationship with Chinese medicine. Its essential concern is the refinement and transformation of the san bao, the three treasures, a transmutation that guides the evolution and unfolding of the zhen ren, the authentic, sacred human.”
- Richard Blackwell and Paul Hougham
Assisting my patients in achieving a deep meditative state is integral to the way I practice. It is why I have chosen to practice in a space with privacy and tranquility. It’s hard enough to meditate with the noise in our heads - let alone the noise outside. I have considered aspects of the “outside stuff” so that you can go more deeply inward.
It is clear when a patient has benefited from the inner gaze: they rise from the table in a glowing, relaxed, and empty state.
An ancient Confucian philosopher, best describes this “empty state” on chapter 21 of the Jie Bi:
“...The heart is never without treasure, yet it is called empty... the heart is called empty, for emptiness has nothing to do with impressions already gathered, but with what is going to be received...”
- Xunzi
When the heart (also called the “Shen,” or spirit) is in a state that is ready to receive: this is when optimal health can be divined. But meditation is not easy for many people – myself included.
In my twenties, I was working a corporate job, binge drinking, and blissfully ignorant of all the ways my untreated PTSD was destroying the fabric of my relationships. At one time, I happened to live next-door to a Buddhist monk who invited me to join him for meditation. I declined and declared that meditation was something I absolutely could not do. The idea of sitting in silence perplexed me. No thank you. But healing became necessary. Years later I found my way to the practice. I look back on those invitations to meditate and kick myself for not trying it then – knowing how profoundly this practice has changed my life.
I’d been practicing various forms of meditation for years when I was invited, in 2016, to a yoga retreat that offered Sound Baths. I had never heard of it before. But, if I could stay awake until nightfall then I could experience one under the stars. I did, and it was a tremendous gift.
In the span of an hour, I enjoyed a meditation that felt as transformative as what I experienced after a Vipassana retreat. For those who don’t know, here is the math on that: I felt in one hour the way I felt after multiple days of sitting in silence. Whoa! I had discovered meditating with “training wheels.” It was powerful in its inducement and it seemed too easy.
I have patients who remind me - of me - in my twenties: stressed, burning the candle at both ends, and looking for a way to heal. I ask them: “Do you have a meditation practice?” I often get the usual resistance: “I can’t do it” or “I tried and it doesn’t work for me” etc.
But I know how deeply and wonderfully meditation will change their lives for the better. I persist in my efforts to make it accessible for them. For people who feel like they cannot access meditation: Sound Bath meditation is a key to success.
In the interest of igniting my patient’s inner alchemy and enhancing the treatment, I offer Acupuncture with Sound Bath Meditation as a specialized service. It’s not hippy-dippy, yoga-earth-mother stuff either. There is real science behind this that I find fascinating.
One of the difficult things to explain about a Sound Bath is the feeling that washes over you as the sound frequencies meet the body. People are accustomed to hearing sound – but feeling sound is less usual. This is the sensorial experience of frequency through conduction.
It is thought that the conduction of frequencies can affect every cell of the body and even down to the molecular level – although there are no studies to observe this, yet. The idea that sound frequencies act on the body and heal the body is investigated in a number of scientific modalities and Cymatics is one of them. Cymatics began from observations of how sound frequencies on water create organized patterns based upon nature’s mathematical sequences (Jenny,1967).
Because our bodies are predominantly water, scientists speculate that vibrational frequencies can reorganize the structure of water in our bodies and recreate balance (Gaynor, 2002).
Dr. Mitchell Gaynor MD, a cutting edge researcher in this field, says: “You can look at disease as a form of disharmony. And there’s no organ system in the body that’s not affected by sound and music and vibration.”
According to Dr. Lavretsky at UCLA Health, referring to a study reviewed by Cochrane:
“(Sound Baths)... activate the sensory pathways that compete with pain pathways. Pain is a huge stressor — the heart beats harder, blood pressure spikes and muscles ache.”
And this is why sound therapy is shown to lower blood pressure and the experience of pain.
In a Sound Bath, there is also the auditory experience that the sound is coming from all around you – and moving in wave like patterns that seem to pulse from one side to the other. These are binaural beats. Binaural beats are currently being investigated as a method of brainwave entrainment.
“Brainwave entrainment, also referred to as brainwave synchronization and neural entrainment, refers to the hypothesized capacity of the brain to naturally synchronize its brainwave frequencies with the rhythm of periodic external stimuli, most commonly auditory, visual, or tactile.... It is believed that patterns of neural firing, measured in Hz, correspond with states of alertness such as focused attention, deep sleep, etc. It is hypothesized that by listening to these beats of certain frequencies one can induce a desired state of consciousness that corresponds with specific neural activity, such as studying, sleeping, exercising, meditating, doing creative work, and so on.”
- David Cantor et. al.
The study of Brainwave Entrainment has been around for over a century. Its effectiveness for treating of a variety of neurological and psychological disorders is evident in peer reviewed clinical research (Chaieb, 2015). The benefits are conclusive for the treatment of anxiety and pain (Chaieb, 2015).
In my practice, I use crystal singing bowls in an arranged set of frequencies to create binaural beats. I have been a musician my whole life but Sound Baths are not just musical. There is an aspect that is more Neuro-scientific than Artistic. A person with accurate pitch might think that some of the singing bowls sound “out of tune.” This is because they are tuned to microtones and semitones – not like a scale on the piano. If you don’t know music theory, this can be explained mathematically.
In an article for Scientific America (1972), binaural beats are explained in this way:
“If two tuning forks of slightly different pitch are struck simultaneously, the resulting sound waves and wanes periodically. The modulations are referred to as beats; their frequency is equal to the difference between the frequencies of the original tones. For example, a tuning fork with a characteristic pitch of 440 hertz, if struck at the same time, will produce beats with a frequency of six hertz”
- Gerald Oster
A non-musical friend described it to me in this way: “it sounds like Brian Eno composing for space travel.”
In other words, it might sound weird.
When I began offering Sound Bath meditations in Studio City & Santa Monica, I met people with a wide range of health concerns who participated in various Sound Baths around town, regularly. They reported to me a laundry list of disorders including Lyme’s Disease, PTSD, and major injuries for which they saw improvements in measures of pain, anxiety, and sleeplessness.
I had an “Ah-Ha!” moment: if I add Sound Bath Meditation to Acupuncture then that will be the icing on the cake! But I am no pioneer. There are a number of ways that Acupuncturists incorporate sound healing and binaural beats into their practices – with tuning forks, gongs, koshi chimes etc...
For both Sound Baths and Acupuncture, we don’t yet have robust research studies to fully understand why it works the way that it does. But for a majority of people who have experienced a Sound Bath or Acupuncture – that they do work – is not debatable.
I am satisfied that it works because of a thing as mystical and ancient as “inner alchemy.” All life and healing is miraculous after all.
References
Blackwell, R., Hougham, P. (2001). Nei Guan: The Inner Gaze – Reflective Practice in Acupuncture. The European Journal of Oriental Medicine: Vol. 3 No. 5. http://www.ejom.co.uk/vol-3-no-5/featured-article/nei-guan-the-inner-gaze- reflective-practice-in-acupuncture-traditions.html
Cantor, D., Evans, J. (2013-10-18). Clinical Neurotherapy: Application of Techniques for Treatment. Academic Press. ISBN 9780123972910.
Chaieb, L., Wilpert, E. C., Reber, T. P., & Fell, J. (2015). Auditory beat stimulation and its effects on cognition and mood States. Frontiers in psychiatry, 6, 70. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2015.00070
Gaynor, R. (2002). The Healing Power of Sound: Recovery from Life Threatening Illness Using Sound, Voice, and Music. Shambhala; 1st Edition (August 2002).
Jenny, H. (1967). Cymatics Volume 1: The Structure and Dynamics of Waves and Vibrations. Macromedia Publishing; 3rd Edition (July 1, 2001).
Jie Bi. (2016). Xunzi: The Complete Text. (X. Kuang, Trans.) Princeton University Press.
Lavretsky, H. The Sound of Healing. Retrieved from: https://www.uclahealth.org/vitalsigns/the-sound-of-healing
Oster, G. (1973). Auditory beats in the brain. Scientific American. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/auditory-beats-in-the-brain/