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When singer Charlotte Church promoted her sound bath experience on ITV’s This Morning, presenter Alison Hammond caused a stir by being unable to stifle her giggles. Luckily, Charlotte took no offense, and thousands of viewers have defended the practice of sound bathing, sharing how it has helped them soothe their anxiety and improve their quality of sleep.
While TikTok has become inundated with videos about the healing benefits of sound baths, the practice of using sound waves for a meditative experience has been popular with cultures around the world for thousands of years. From Himalayan singing bowls to Australian didgeridoos, you’ve probably come across the concept of a sound bath before without even realising it.
So, what exactly is a sound bath? And can it really help you sleep better?
What is a sound bath?
Put simply, a sound bath is a type of meditation where a person is ‘bathed’ in sound. No water involved, these sound waves are produced by gongs, singing bowls, chimes, tuning forks, and even the human voice.
What happens in a sound bathing session?
In a group session, you’ll lie on a yoga mat in a relaxing environment, while a sound practitioner will use these instruments to create a range of sounds. They will encourage you to focus on your breathing and enter a meditative state, where you’ll hopefully feel a vibration throughout your body, but people will react to a sound bath in different ways. You can focus on the physical sensations or simply enter a relaxed state of being that soothes racing thoughts and calms your heart rate.
As with any meditative session, it’s common that this deep relaxation can make you cry, or as people have suggested was Alison Hammond’s case, laugh as a way of expressing this release.
What are the benefits of a sound bath?
The resonant music that flows over you in waves immerses the room in a relaxing vibe, helping you let go of worries and stress and offering a deeply grounding experience. There are several benefits to sound baths, including the overall health benefits of reducing anxiety.
Reduces stress and anxiety
Sound baths can help to lower your blood pressure by drastically reducing stress and tension in your body. The deep relaxation you feel when partaking in a session can encourage blood circulation, improving your heart health while also lowering your heart rate and enhancing your overall sense of wellbeing.
Sound baths lower your feelings of stress and anxiety by encouraging you to let go of whatever concerns you have in your life and focus solely on the present moment. Through breathing techniques and focusing on the sounds you hear, your mind can travel away from your worries, helping you feel grounded and in control.
Reduces physical and mental pain
Studies have shown that physical symptoms of pain have actually been reduced after a sound bath, with participants asked to rank their levels of ‘pain’, including tension, fatigue, and depression, before and after a session.
The participants noticed a considerable decrease in their feelings of painful tension in the body, as well as mental health problems like anxiety and low mood, leaving them feeling revitalised and happier overall.
Some cultures believe that sound baths promote ‘sound healing’, with the ability to cure health concerns like low cholesterol and even autism. We’d recommend not replacing medical advice with sound therapy, but instead using it as a tool alongside expert medical treatment.
Helps you enjoy a more intense, longer orgasm
Through its deep relaxation benefits that promote blood circulation, a pilot study found that sound baths can cause blood vessels to grow. This includes the vessels around the clitoral area, enhancing nerve stimulation and increasing sensation.
The study suggested that sound baths can most effectively help post-menopausal women to orgasm, with four 15-minute sound bathing sessions a week seeing positive results in patients who previously felt they took too long to orgasm.
Sound baths can make your orgasms more intense and last longer, with practices such as Australian company Cliovana using sound therapy specifically to boost blood flow to the clitoris and improve sensitivity.
Increases your quality of sleep
While its actually quite common to fall asleep during a sound bath, going to a session regularly can improve your sleep quality overall. By relaxing your mind and body, sound bathing can lower cortisol levels and increase serotonin, encouraging the production of melatonin - the sleep hormone.
As with any meditation before bed, partaking in a sound bath-type session just as you plan to sleep can help you sleep more deeply and for longer. If you suffer from sleep anxiety and insomnia, the process of becoming grounded and calm can significantly increase your chances of drifting off.
You can find hundreds of ‘sound bath for sleep’ playlists online, which you can put on once you’re snuggled up in bed and practice meditative techniques and breathing as you doze off.
Regulates your sleeping cycles
Another way sound baths help you sleep is by regulating your body’s natural rhythms. Research has suggested that the vibrations from a sound bath can enhance Delta brainwaves, which occur during the deepest stages of sleep.
These brain waves help to store long-term memories, which occurs during deep sleep. The strong vibrational effect of sound bath instruments promote the presence of these brain waves, helping you enjoy a deeper, more restful sleep.
How to have a sound bath at home
If you can’t find somewhere that offers sound baths near you, or you’re nervous to try it out in a group setting, try setting your own one up at home. Follow these simple steps to enjoy a sound bath in your own space:
Get your music ready
Find a sound bath playlist online, making sure you don’t get disturbed by adverts or poor connection. It’s important that the sounds are consistent and you don’t become distracted or pulled out of your meditation. You can always ask a friend to use a singing bowl if they know how, but you’ll likely feel more comfortable using a playlist. Plus, you’ll get the benefits of a whole orchestra of sounds and vibrations.
Find a quiet, comfy spot
As we’ve mentioned, you want to ensure you are unlikely to be disturbed or distracted during your sound bath. Find a quiet, comfortable place where you can lie down and properly relax. Your bed is the perfect place, and you might want to have your sound bath as you’re falling asleep at night.
Dim the lights and use headphones
For any meditation, it’s recommended that you use softer lighting as you want your brain to be anything but alert. You don’t want to be aware of your surroundings, in the sense that you need to focus on yourself instead. Using headphones will also help you focus solely on the music and how you feel, offering a more immersive experience.
Close your eyes and focus on your breathing
Closing your eyes will further help you manage your thoughts without being distracted by your surroundings. Use breathing techniques such as box breathing, where you visualise going up one side of a box, holding your breath for up to five seconds, before going across and back down the other side of the box for another five seconds, breathing out. You can repeat this around ten times.
Let the sounds wash over you
Once you’re nicely relaxed, listen to the sounds and let the vibrations wash over you in waves. You might go through a range of experiences based on how deeply relaxed you feel, with some people having experienced visual patterns, spiritual encounters, and even a different sense of time and space.
Incorporating sound bathing into your bedtime routine
There are a plethora of benefits to having a consistent bedtime routine, not least because the act of following one signals to your brain that it’s time for sleep, preparing it to relax and unwind.
Including a sound bath in your nightly routine will help to enhance this process of relaxation, reducing sleep-preventing stress and allowing you to get the rest your body needs.
Practising an at-home sound bath in bed as you drift off is the perfect way to increase your quality of sleep, and having a comfortable mattress and bedding will encourage you to enter a deeper state of relaxation.
If you’d like other tips on unwinding before bed, read our guide to moon breathing, or if you want to go a step further, discover how to have a lucid dream.
