Watch the video above or read the blog below.
Holistic Transformation Through Sound, Music, and Consciousness
(6 Essentials for our Well-being and The Future of Sound and Wellness)
Exploring methods that are specific music, frequency, tones, and vibration is nearly as old as humanity itself. The ancient use of music, rhythms, and sound healing patterns were and have been powerful methods that absorb us through our listening, especially when we shut our eyes and take in the experience. When we connect with these specific sound frequencies there is entrainment, that is a mirroring of the external pattern which elicits the relaxation response where there is a lowering of the metabolism and circulation, pulse rate, heart rate, and blood pressure. These result in deep relaxation, an entrancing effect, reflection, enhanced inner focus which are also the characteristics of changes in consciousness, brain wave patterns, and awareness, a significant holistic approach that offers well-being.
You might never hear about this from the pharmaceutical industry! That’s because these methods are empowering for our physical body, emotions, mind and thoughts, our inner spiritual connection, and immune system!
Transformative Power: Neuroplasticity and Music
The particular sound’s frequency, rhythm, and tone lift and carry the listener into a resonant state where there is receptivity which is often characterized by heightening of different sensory information that may include or go beyond the five senses, sight to insight, changes in perception which can influence memory and opening of our hearts into compassion and receptivity. While these are occurring the repetition of the particular sounds sustains our connection and holds us in this state easily, that continues to carry us until the sound patterns cease. You don’t have to try to do it, like Yoda said, “There is only doing” as in listening and the experience occurs.
This deep relaxed state is where the person is in control, deeply relaxed, becoming sensitive to these subtle shifts in the different systems within that are restorative to our immune system, our biochemical system, our mental and emotional responses, and our physical body.
Reducing Stress to Healing
Often these repetitive sound rhythms are found in nature, and in ancient group gatherings where the shift from ordinary consciousness united all the listeners in a cohesive state, calmly and in restoration. The restorative nature of listening to these particular sounds and patterns occurs through rhythms that conduct a resonance that is pleasing and consistent without changes throughout the entirety of the listening experience. The consistent repetitions change our brain waves, heart rate and breathing, which is our physiological responses adapting to the patterns with very beneficial adjustments and powerful effective shifts.
Scientific research shows that when we connect into the relaxation response we are restoring our neurological system which is often functioning from different traumatic experiences that we have experienced and sometimes generational that keep our system in a stress cycle of producing cortisol, the stress hormone, which leads to chronic stress and chronic inflammation. Chronic stress and inflammation are the foundations of mental and physical disease. Chose a mental or physical disease that you can think of that comes to mind; addiction, alcoholism, schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, bi-polar, PTSD. And physical diseases that have chronic stress and inflammation as underlying conditions are heart disease, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, dementia, Parkinsons,’ and immune-compromised illnesses.
What are immune-compromised illnesses? Our immune system is a network of tissues and organs that identify and destroy invasions from bacteria, viruses and parasites that cause illness and infection. When there is a weakening of the immune system the foundation for different mental and physical illnesses occurs. This is the result of continued inflammation. It is noted in research chronic stress changes how our nervous system responds, changing how our immune system responds often resulting in immune system abnormalities that result in depression. You may be familiar with some autoimmune disorders which include psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, fibromyalgia, celiac disease, multiple sclerosis, lupus, Guillain-Barre syndrome, stiff person syndrome and others.
Transformative Power; Neuroplasticity and Music
Being able to change how our nervous system responds when it has abnormalities from being stuck in a resistant patterns into reshaping how our neurons respond, through the transformative power of music includes developing neuroplasticity which means enhancing our attention, learning and memory, alleviating the stress response, chronic stress and inflammation and depression and anxiety, and reduction in pain and more.
Listening to particular sound and music effectively for change is a system that progresses. Consider if you do something once or twice how effective it is…it isn’t. And consider when there is a system to follow that lays out the steps how different, how effective, and how the benefits are truly gleaned. It is the application, system, and consistent practice that is transformative, as in any valuable endeavor.
The Foundation of Transformation includes Sleep, Movement, Nature, Social Connection, and Sound and Music Systems
Curated Sound and music systems are not stand-alone methods. They infuse into life with the other essential activities that are just as vital for our evolution and progress physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. The following five areas are essential foundations for our transformation.
Getting good sleep and enough sleep is an area that contributes to our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual being. This is the one of two areas of the essential five that overlaps with curated sound and music listening because we can use the listening system to access deeper sleep, easily falling to sleep, and staying asleep through training ourselves to shift consciousness into relaxation.
We need a certain amount of sleep for our physical body to heal and all the organs inside our body. On a psychospiritual level our physical body needs to restore so we can process the day’s occurrences and also deeper level areas that may be long standing for years or decades or a lifetime. Beyond this our spirit/psyche travels and sometimes we remember things that are not acceptable in the current paradigm from visiting and seeing people who have passed, or who are going to pass, dream walking, and lucid dreaming.
It is also true we cannot eradicate how influential what food and liquids we consume and how these impact our body, mind, and emotions. Often depletions and deficiencies are root causes of disruptions in our mental and emotional conditions (often not identified in Western Medicine) and can be predetermined for physical conditions. Everyone seems to have different vague notions of what healthy nutritional intake is Nutritional intake is also influenced by the substances we consume, some of which also cause their own unique depletion which is another area to consider when looking into holistic methods to change the paradigm for ourselves, increase our ability for upleveling, and healing.
Getting into nature through movement serves us in multiple ways. Getting exercise lifts our mood, lubricates our joints, benefits our cardiovascular system, and connects us to the environment, Earth, the creatures, and sky. Getting outside in the day and night and witnessing the night sky and stars also gives us a sense of connection through time. Often the most significant way we connect with our inner spiritual feeling is through being in nature, seeing water glisten, the movement of the wind, water, ocean and trees, the odors that emit that are transformative as in forest bathing.
As social beings, our connection with others virtually and in person is essential. The pandemic heightened the loss of our social in-person experiences. In-person exchanges in energy information and biochemical neurological shifts are vital for us. Social interactions in-person do not require us to share our political views, or other areas of conflict to have value. An additional method to expand social exchanges is sharing the same curated sound and music with others at the same time. This experience enhances listening through the shared synchronization of heart rate, respiration, and brain waves. The requirement is an agreement about the duration, lack of disruption to the process, and honoring of the experience.
Rewiring for Potential: The Future of Sound and Wellness
Connecting to rewiring ourselves, our neurological system, improving our immune system, and mental and emotional regulation we also deepen our inner spiritual connection and ability to solve problems. A question I have thought about is, if enough people improve their systems’ functioning biochemically, physically, mentally, and emotionally, holistically while improving their resilience and inner spiritual connection, where will we go from there? What greater capabilities can we accomplish? What parts of our physical, mental, emotional, spiritual capabilities will develop? Will our once called ‘junk DNA,’ now recognized as, noncoding DNA, be where new genes evolve? What is our potential? Will illness become a legend? We can physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually go up….
Research
Beitman, Bernard. D. The Consciousness Code: Sound Frequency and Synchronicity. (2024). Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/connecting-with-coincidence/202401/the-consciousness-code-sound-frequency-and-synchronicity
Hypnotic. (2024). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnosis
Hypnotic. (2024). Meriam-Website https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hypnoticr
Hegemeyer, S.S. (2024). Transforming Trauma with Sound Healing (10 Ways Particular Sound and Rhythms Profoundly Healing and Transform Trauma and Stress). https://3melete.com/transforming-trauma-with-sound-healing-10-ways-particular-sound-and-rhythms-profoundly-heal-and-transform-trauma-and-stress/
Lerner, Y., Papo, D., Zhdanov, A., Belozersky, L., & Hendler, T. (2009). Eyes wide shut: amygdala mediates eyes-closed effect on emotional experience with music. PLoS One, 4(7), e6230.
Liu YZ, Wang YX, Jiang CL. Inflammation: The Common Pathway of Stress-Related Diseases. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 2017 Jun 20;11:316. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2017.00316. PMID: 28676747; PMCID: PMC5476783.
MacDonald, A. (2010). Using the relaxation response to reduce stress Harvard Health Publishing. Harvard Medical School. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/using-the-relaxation-response-to-reduce-stress-20101110780
Molnar-Szakacs, I., & Overy, K. (2006). Music and mirror neurons: from motion to’e’motion. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 1(3), 235-241. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsl029
Muriel T. Zaatar, Kenda Alhakim, Mohammad Enayeh, Ribal Tamer. The transformative power of music: Insights into neuroplasticity, health, and disease, Brain, Behavior, & Immunity – Health, Volume 35, 2024, 100716. ISSN 2666-3546, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbih.2023.100716.
Sakai, K., Hikosaka, O., Miyauchi, S., Takino, R., Tamada, T., Iwata, N. K., & Nielsen, M. (1999). Neural representation of a rhythm depends on its interval ratio. Journal of Neuroscience, 19(22), 10074-10081. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI
Salimpoor, V. N., Benovoy, M., Larcher, K., Dagher, A., & Zatorre, R. J. (2011). Anatomically distinct dopamine release during anticipation and experience of peak emotion to music. Nature neuroscience, 14(2), 257-262. doi: 10.1038/nn.2726
The Meaning of Immunocompromised; A compromised immune system requires precaution. (2023). Cleveland Clinic.
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/immunocompromised-meaning
Velasco, S. (2024). The Complex Truth About ‘Junk DNA.’ Genomes hold immense quantities of noncoding DNA. Some of it is essential for life, some seems useless, and some has its own agenda. Quanta Magazine.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-complex-truth-about-junk-dna-20210901/
Yuka Ishikawa, Tomoyuki Furuyashiki. The impact of stress on immune systems and its relevance to mental illness,
Neuroscience Research. Volume 175, 2022, ISSN 0168-0102, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neures.2021.09.005.
